'Beyond Scared Straight!' will once again show young offender intervention programs, only these have evolved since 'scaring teens is no longer as easy of a task.' Each episode will focus on a different prison program, following a group of at-risk teens and preteens going through the program and then catching up with them two months later.
Remember the old scared straight videos they used to show in schools? Basically a bunch of troubled teens were confronted by inmates who were in their position at one point in life. Look at the little kid in the poster. He had know clue what he was getting into and he was just posing for a fucking advertisement.
In this series, the spirit is the same, yet the delivery is different. Instead of everyone meeting in a neutral studio setting, the Teens (both make and female) are sent to a correctional institute where they become inmates for a day and receive a crash course on life in prison and each episode gives you a bit of background on the youths, (namely who they are and why they are there) and at the end you get a quick follow up as to their current situation (at the end of production).
The show makes a case of who is in a better position to help the troubled youth? Parents, prisoners, or government? Overwhelmingly, the answer seems to be both prisoners and a taste of prison life. These kids think they are on top of the world. Nothing can touch them, no one can tell them anything and they can do whatever they want. Damn the repercussions. The inmates give them that hard dose of reality that their parents, for whatever reason, have been unable to provide. The guards contribute too and often, yet they aren't as impactful as the prisoners.
The male inmates are pretty straightforward. "I was like you, I effed up. I don't want you to make the same mistake. You're not tough." The stories with the female inmates, however, are the bread and butter of this show in my opinion. Female inmates are ruthless, they look like dudes, and yet because they are women, they can still be nurturing when it comes to helping the teens stay on the right path. Diabla, Green Eyes, and everyone else in there take great strides to help these kids. But they make certain to let the kids know that if push comes to shove and they do end up in the system, they will be owned.
Do you want to get on the wrong side of Diabla?
My only real gripe with the show is their heavy anti weed status. On one hand, weed really isn't that addictive and it isn't an out and out life ruiner. (2 out of every 10 smokers become addicted.) On the other hand, when you do start so young (some as young as 12 in this show) it does has a higher chance of impeding your decision making, as presumably, you wouldn't have developed that will power as of yet.
Also, the prison experience has a tendency to "break" some of the younger kids. Like the kids that are aged 8-13 really have no business being in the program. 1) Their minds are too young to comprehend why they are even there in the first place and 2) they are waaay to easy to break. And once they're gone, they are way more likely to become withdrawn and enter the system themselves as they get older.
Anyway, enough talking, here are some clips:
Solid series. I think the show is awesome. You can't beat the entertainment value of a "tough as nails" teen reacting to 20+ dudes calling him a bitch and telling him that his ass in danger.
Beyond Scared Straight airs on A&E and season 1 may be available on Netflix Instant Watch.
Violence? No
Explosions? No
Nudity? No
