BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT
Premieres tonight on A&E at 10PM
Growing up, SCARED STRAIGHT was something of an urban legend to me. First aired in 1978, the documentary took a group of young offenders and locked them up with real inmates in prison. The kids were shown the chilling reality of being locked up in hopes that they’d change their ways and live a law-abiding life.
To this kid, it was quite a concept. People around my age going to prison, interacting with real prisoners, their lives apparently at risk? This was reality television before reality television existed. Sadly, it was also long before my time. It wasn’t until MTV aired SCARED STRAIGHT: 20 YEARS LATER in 1999 that I saw just how real SCARED STRAIGHT was. It terrified me and and I was safe in the comfort of my own home. I wanted more.
Obviously A&E was listening to my thoughts (just as I suspected!) because they are reviving SCARED STRAIGHT for a weekly series. The first episode, consisting of a group of young teenage girls and a penitentiary in Chowchilla, California, airs tonight. Don’t let the title fool you, BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT is more of the same, it isn’t beyond anything. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, the formula doesn’t need tweaking. In fact, changing it at all would be detrimental to the idea. Luckily A&E doesn’t alter too much.
BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT is different from other contemporary “reality” shows because it takes its time getting to the real meat of the show: the confrontations between prisoners and visiting teens. In fact, we spend fifteen minutes with the young girls before we even meet the inmates. Also, the program interviews several experts on correctional facilities and criminal justice. That restraint is something I admire about the show, it was willing to take its time. However, the first episode is thirty minutes longer than the typical installment so that’s something that might change. Hopefully not.
As I said, the real juicy part of SCARED STRAIGHT is the intense interactions between inmates and teenagers. BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT delivers here without relying too much on musical cues or artificial interjections. Sure, things do feel a little manipulated when one of the girls sees her own mother in the prison but, hell, that’s quite a situation to capture on film and doesn’t feel too fake. So the shouting and the intimidation are as good as you’d hope. The girls are definitely taken aback when they first enter the prison yard. You can’t blame them, there’s a lot of yelling and crowding. Even if the rest of the episode doesn’t top the first few minutes of the girls being in prison, it’s still pretty compelling throughout.
On a purely primal and selfish level, BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT works perfectly. Spoiled girls get yelled at for 90 minutes by hardened criminals who are wiser than you’d imagine. The biggest complaint I had was regarding a gimmicky “elimination round” scene where several girls were singled out to stay an extra 72 hours at the prison. The sequence didn’t feel unique but rather like something you’d see on an MTV or VH1 show. However for a first episode, things work smoothly. I grow concerned about the series knowing that it has an entire season to fill though, exploring different kids in different prisons. Like so many previous reality shows (HOARDERS, INTERVENTION, CELEBRITY REHAB), the series might fall into its own formula and slowly become by-the-numbers and boring. However, I hope A&E resists the urge to spice things up with major alterations. BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT works best when it’s being itself without the glitz and glam of other reality shows. Maybe the season should have a limited number of episodes though.
There’s really not much to complain about with BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT. It’s a show that does what it promises. It’s rewarding in some ways but also makes you feel a bit crummy too. You feel crummy for wanting the teens to suffer and you feel crummy that there are teens as unruly and spoiled as these in the first place. Also, I was saddened to hear the insight from the inmates knowing that so many young people won’t. Sadly, a lot of prisoners only wise up after they’re locked up. Their stories are worth telling though, especially if it’ll prevent others from making the same mistakes.
BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT is perfect material for TV. I hope it stays consistent and doesn’t fade away in a television landscape filled with inauthentic reality.
The first episode airs tonight at 10 PM on A&E.
3 out of 5
This show is absolutely horrible. I cannot stand to watch it. I'm a child and youth care practitioner and I entirely disagree with the ways in which they deal with these youth. These are youth in trouble…they don't need to screamed at, they need help and this show does NOT provide them help in anyway.
Yes they need to be screamed at. Time after time they were told by their peers not to steal, drink, assualt, etc, etc, etc. How many times do these parents have to ask and be repeative to get their children to stop? If you watch the show intensely, the kids laugh, joke, ridicule the system on how they get away with it. These children are getting so many chances as it is that the parents are at wits end. So now these children enter prison to see the inmates. If you listen because I do the inmates tell the kids that they were at one time where these kids are now.
The inmates explain to them not to continue or else they will be part of a prison system with their own number that will be their's for life. What else are you to do? keep giving these children 60-70 chances until something happens then they will be in prison. Come on our world is in so much chaos now not like years ago when there was respect & dignity, there is absolutely none now a days. I am pretty sure that if your child was out of control and this was the opportunity to put him/her back on track to prevent jail you would do it. I do not know many parents that hope their kids fail & go to jail, I know many that want their children to stay out of jail………
The show is interesting, but most of these kids come from low income homes, parents having kids even though they cant afford to support them then expect them to be good, maybe if they kept their legs closed they would have a better outcome instead of living poor and having to work twice as hard for their parents mistakes. And no I don’t think scaring kids to make them act right will work honestly maybe if they had people they could talk to without yelling or judging them and parents that can say I love you to their children instead of calling them names and a home without so much negativity and ignoring them they would be more well rounded. And having inmates who screwed up their lives telling and some who have harmed others to be able to yell in your face like being in prison gives them a upper hand its crazy. You dont even have to commit a crime to end up in jail it could be a wrong place at a wrong time you just dont know there are so many actually innocent people in there who turn into criminals because of bad luck. You hear basic stories teens doing drugs and stealing but do we really know the full story and that’s what upsets me about parents who aren’t involved with their kids life they could have been abused and nobody would know at all but all they do is sit their complain and show the world just a bad teen and say they’ve done everything they could even though they sat there for years doing god knows what, I think people need to get to wait until they are stable enough to have kids and learn as people to respect their bodies because some end up with their kids and just don't care. They should be in their lives and the kids should see their parent as someone they can talk to when they are in need instead of brushing them off because their mad at their ruined lives they created for themselves.
you think things are always that simple? shut the fuck up.
i Would like o attend this show one day to see how it really is being behind bars , !
i meant to
THANK YOU ANGELA!!!!!!
Its hard when a young mother who is looking for a man to take care of a child who also is looking for a proper father figure in his or her life. If you can’t afford to take care of children then don’t have them. Kids will do stupid stuff, but you have to learn how to handle the situation instead of not doing anything or yelling at the kid while watching TV. Get your ass up and be a parent or wear a condom. Kids should not have a crappy childhood because of their parents poor decisions. And i would never let killers and sex offenders near my child that is just stupid.