Beyond Scared Straight: Effective for Your Children?

A & E debuted Beyond Scared Straight in January 2011. It's the series version of the 1978 award-winning Scared Straight special that took delinquent children to meet real-life prisoners. While Beyond Scared Straight may be an effective program to many kids, it may take other children more than a trip to prison for them to stay on the straight and narrow.

These girls, ranging from ages 10 to 17, seemed un-intimidated at first. They've already been in trouble with the law. Some, like 17 year-old Emily, have been to juvenile hall. This is just another field trip to them and they laughed during the ride to the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California. But when they met the prisoners, these girls weren't laughing much longer.

And who could blame them? The convicted women in Beyond Scared Straight go by names like Diabla and Pretty Boy. To be honest, they didn't look or act like gentle women who made a few mistakes and were just serving time. Some were in for double murder, 2nd degree murder, robbery with a weapon. Life sentences were not uncommon. Diabla's face was full of tattoos, to include a beard made of rings and a goatee. Green Eyes, a 50 year-old prisoner with a faux hawk, spends most of the time yelling and threatening the girls throughout their tour.

Cecilia, a 12 year-old expelled for smoking pot and fighting, actually saw her mom Rachel in the prison yard. Her mother dropped to her knees and kept begging her to stay straight. "You don't know what goes on in here! You don't know. And I don't ever want you to see it."

The yelling and intimidation does not encompass the entire episode of Beyond Scared Straight. More forms of mentorship do take place. Several prisoners spend one-on-one time with the girls to convince them they have better choices in life. This is when the nurturing side comes out of even the most hardened criminals, many of whom have children or even lived upper-class lives before conviction. I was a little taken back to see Diabla's tears flowing as she asked Cecilia about what it was like to see her mom in the prison yard.

She told Cecilia to learn from her mom's mistakes. "I would like to see my daughter. I couldn't be there for her when I should have. I couldn't be there for her when she's a little kid and she's got cancer." Instead Diabla is spending 40 years to life for drug possession and weapons charges.

I suspect the rest of Beyond Scared Straight will follow this model. Delinquents are brought in, learn a taste of the system, and then sent home. Even though the prisoners say and threatened violent harm, they are constantly surrounded by prison guards who ensure nothing actually happens. But the kids don't know that. And honestly, what does a lifer have to lose if he does get a little too friendly?

Would this be effective with all juvenile delinquents? That's a tough question to answer because every child's situation is different. And Beyond Scared Straight is still a television show.

I would imagine that children who come from seemingly good homes (like Leanna, who is a preacher's daughter) would benefit from such a program because she lives in a nice neighborhood and probably hasn't seen these kinds of people before. It could serve as a caution if they start hanging with the wrong crowd. One prisoner is in jail for 2^nd degree murder because she was present during a robbery-turned-murder. "You can go to jail for just being there!" she warned the girls. But others may be growing up in these tough neighborhoods where prison is just another place to live. They may be returning into environments not too different from the prison they just visited. Other delinquents may suffer from mental health issues.

And we haven't even mentioned what parenting skills (or lack thereof) may have contributed to juvenile delinquency. Granted, some parents are dealing with children that just don't get it, despite all their good efforts. But other parents might be more neglectful and, in fact, abusive themselves. Diabla spoke about being set on fire by her mother when she was two years-old in addition to being drowned and stabbed.

What about parents who are still dealing with their own problems, like a messy divorce or custody battle, and haven't sought counseling for themselves or the family? Not every situation is the parent's fault. And many of these life events happen to other kids that manage to stay out of trouble.

Fortunately many of the girls featured on Beyond Scared Straight did make a turnaround within 30 days, with the exception of Emily, a 17 year-old that has anger management issues and rampant alcoholism. She ended up going to juvenile hall again just before she turned 18. "I fear that when she turns 18 she may be spending some time in county jail," her mother said. She caught a break and ended up with another year's probation. How long will that last if Diabla couldn't scare her straight?