Scared Straight = Crock of Shit

[praxis1966]

I've never been particularly fond of so-called "Scared Straight" programs for humanitarian reasons. To me, they always appeared to be borderline, if not outright, child abuse. Anyway, in my many, many travels and machinations on these lovely, lovely innerwebs, I stumbled across the pamphlet linked to below (which was written by the Florida Secretary of Juvenile Justice, no less). Basically, it details what a crock of shit these programs are since children who participate in them are actually nearly twice as likely to re-offend as are juvenile offenders who entered no preventative program at all.

Now I'm sure that despite all the research that's been done on these programs which not only demonstrates that they're ineffective but veritably counterproductive since they effectively encourage criminality that they're still in use in jurisdictions all across the US. Hell, even a couple of cursory web searches will reveal discussions about them on websites like Officer.com (a web community for law enforcement officials) being held in the present tense. I'd love to find out how much taxpayer money is getting spent on these farces and in which states, but my research has so far come up bupkis to that end. Little help, please! (A lot of places are now calling Scared Straight programs Juvenile Awareness Programs, if that helps).

Thanks in advance.:)

Pamphlet mentioned above (http://www.djj.state.fl.us/Research/Scared_Straight_Booklet_Version.pdf)

[Red Commissar]

I remember reading about these some time ago in a criminal justice class. The professor said the same thing about "Scared Straight" programs being ineffective. Reading through the packet, it shows that this program, despite touting it as being one of the ever popular "tough" ways of dealing with crime (Americans love this), it had no effect on the children and instead increased delinquency. The packet also says it increased recidivism rates.

So much for that approach. I believe compared to when it first was tried, there are less of these around but they are still around and I'm still puzzled why they would continue the programs. Of course there are people who would benefit off the wasted money. I wonder where all these concerned citizens about wasteful spending are?

[Proletarian Ultra]

Do they still have that shit?

I'm surprised after Beavis and Butthead critiqued it so perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H2mii4tD2c

[Raúl Duke]

Why does the media keep feeding people the idea that this kind of stuff "works."

Property crime and other crimes comes about due to social (and sometimes psychological) factors.

Drug crime occurs due to demand for prohibited products.

These programs don't work because when one commits a crime they run on the assumption to get away with it.
Being afraid of prison does not exactly mean that you'll be afraid of commuting crime. Nobody likes prison, everyone tries to avoid getting caught.

MOAR PRISONS and "hard on crime" bullshit will not stop that and will never work in the US.

[Red Commissar]

Why does the media keep feeding people the idea that this kind of stuff "works."

Property crime and other crimes comes about due to social (and sometimes psychological) factors.

Drug crime occurs due to demand for prohibited products.

These programs don't work because when one commits a crime they run on the assumption to get away with it.
Being afraid of prison does not exactly mean that you'll be afraid of commuting crime. Nobody likes prison, everyone tries to avoid getting caught.

MOAR PRISONS and "hard on crime" bullshit will not stop that and will never work in the US.

And even after this sort of mentality is proven wrong time and time again, it seems their only answer is that prison isn't tough enough, that people get off too easy, or what ever.

The whole hang 'em high mentality is still strong and alive too.

Instances like this Scared Straight show how much of a failure this is and how it just encourages a wasteful prison-industrial complex, and yet many remain oblivious to this.

Why? I guess they'd rather ignore the "politically correct" option and argue there is legitimacy to the fact that the environments criminals come from plays a large role. But admitting that would mean seeing the inherent flaws in capitalism, and frankly most of them don't want to take that step.

[Rusty Shackleford]

There was a report of a child detention center in the new england area that actually purposely convicted youths for the most ridiculous stuff just in order to get more state funding. it was a privately operated one no less.

ill look it up but if anyone can remember it please post a link to it.

EDIT Just found this (http://www.buildingblocksforyouth.org/issues/privatization/facts.html). check it out but not related to what i was trying to find.


The Privatization of Juvenile Corrections Facilities Fact Sheet

The privatization of adult jails and prisons is an established and growing trend, with Corrections Corporation of American (CCA), Wackenhut and a host of smaller companies vying for market share. CCA has been one of the top performers on the stock market in recent years, and boasts of extremely high return rates in its investment brochures.
These same corporations have begun to turn their attention to the juvenile facilities market. Private for-profit corporations currently operate secure juvenile facilities in at least 23 states and the District of Columbia. With its recent acquisition of Youth Services International, Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) has emerged as the dominant player in the juvenile corrections segment of the market.
Proponents of privatization cite the benefits of free enterprise, pointing out that competition may lead to superior products and lower costs. However, privatization also poses significant risks for incarcerated youth.
For-profit corporations necessarily emphasize the bottom line, and in corrections, cost savings rarely result from new and innovative programs or ideas. Instead, facilities save money by hiring fewer and less qualified staff, and reducing services and programs such as mental health treatment and education.
The conditions and practices in juvenile facilities are tied directly to the number of staff and the quality of their training. Conditions deteriorate rapidly in a facility run by insufficient, poorly-trained or inexperienced staff, and there are far more incidents involving violence, injury, and excessive use of restraints and isolation. Rehabilitative programs are sacrificed to accommodate tight security and controls.
There have been several recent reports of abuses in juvenile facilities operated by for-profit corporations. Human Rights Watch identified significant problems in the High Plains facility in Colorado. The Pahokee juvenile facility in Florida was the subject of court proceedings brought by public defenders. And The New York Times reported that the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth in Louisiana was "a juvenile prison so rife with brutality, cronyism and neglect that many legal experts say it is the worst in the nation."
Concerns raised, and questions left largely unanswered in the rush to privatize juvenile facilities include the following:
The legal rights and developmental needs of incarcerated youth are very different from those of convicted adults. What qualifies private corrections corporations to administer juvenile facilities?
State monitoring of publicly run juvenile facilities is often inadequate. Who is responsible for monitoring conditions and practices in privately run facilities, and to what standards are such facilities held?
Private prisons often bring in prisoners from other states in order to maximize profits. What is to prevent the confinement of youth in private facilities located so far from their homes that visits with their families and reintegration into their communities are impossible?
Private for-profit facilities have a strong incentive to keep their beds full. What incentives do private corporations have to support prevention programs or programs to reduce recidivism?

References:

Sources: David Shichor, Punishment for Profit (1995)
John D. Donahue, The Privatization Decision: Public Ends, Private Means (1989)
Prison Privatization Report International, Prison Reform Trust; Eric Schlosser, "The Prison-Industrial Complex," The Atlantic Monthly (December 1998)
David Jackson, "Broken Teens Left in Wake of Private Gain," Chicago Tribune, (September 27, 1999)
Eric Bates, "Private Prisons," The Nation (January 5, 1998)
And this (http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/18-cruelty-and-death-in-juvenile-detention-centers/)



Source:
Associated Press, March 2, 2008
Title: “13,000 Abuse Claims in Juvie Centers”
Author: Holbrook Mohr
Student Researcher:Sarah Maddox
Faculty Evaluator:Barbara Bloom, PhD
In states across the country, child advocates have harshly condemned the conditions under which young offenders are housed—conditions that involve sexual abuse, physical abuse, and even death. The US Justice Department (DOJ) has filed lawsuits against facilities in eleven states for supervision that is either abusive or harmfully negligent. While the DOJ lacks the power to shut down juvenile correction facilities, through litigation it can force a state to improve its detention centers and protect the civil rights of jailed youth.
Lack of oversight and nationally accepted standards of tracking abuse make it difficult to know exactly how many youngsters have been assaulted or neglected.
In a nationally conducted survey, the Associated Press contacted each state agency that oversees juvenile correction centers and asked for information on the numbers of deaths as well as the numbers of allegations and confirmed cases of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by staff members since January 1, 2004. According to the survey, more than 13,000 claims of abuse were identified in juvenile correction centers around the country from 2004 through 2007—a remarkable total given that the total population of detainees was about 46,000 at the time the states were surveyed in 2007.
The worst physical confrontations have ended in death. At least five juveniles died after being forcibly placed in restraints in facilities run by state agencies or private facilities with government contracts since January 1, 2004.
The use of restraint techniques and devices and their too-aggressive application have long been controversial and came under intense scrutiny last year after the death of fourteen-year-old Martin Lee Anderson. A grainy video taken at a Florida boot camp in January 2006 showed several guards striking the teen while restraining him. On October 12, 2006, six guards and a nurse were acquitted of manslaughter charges after defense attorneys argued that the guards used acceptable tactics.
In Maryland, seventeen-year-old Isaiah Simmons lost consciousness and died after he was held to the floor face down at a privately owned facility that was contracted by the state. Prosecutors say the staff waited forty-one minutes after the boy was unresponsive to call for help. An attorney for one of the counselors said the men were only trying to prevent Simmons from hurting himself or someone else. A judge dismissed misdemeanor charges against five counselors. The state has appealed.
Other restraint-related deaths involve three boys—seventeen, fifteen, and thirteen years of age—in facilities in Tennessee, New York, and Georgia, respectively. At least twenty-four other juveniles died in correction centers between 2004 and 2007 from suicide and natural causes or preexisting medical conditions.
A drive to reform California’s juvenile justice system follows successful landmark litigation against the California Youth Authority (CYA) in April 2006. During litigation, advocates learned that conditions in many California county juvenile halls were as bad as those in the state CYA facilities. Yet as the appalling conditions in the CYA were revealed, officials shifted much of the population from the CYA facilities to the county juvenile halls.
In 2006, reported conditions in California juvenile halls included severe overcrowding, with teenagers sleeping floors; nonexistent educational opportunity; nonexistent mental healthcare or rehabilitative programs; isolation for over twenty-three hours a day for months straight; use of excessive force, including beatings and pepper sprayings; and inappropriate administration of medications.
Attorney Richard Ulmer states, “California law expressly requires that a juvenile hall not be regarded as a penal institution, but rather be a safe and supportive homelike environment. But many juvenile halls in the state are more like penitentiaries than homes.”1
Similar crises of institutional abuse against troubled youth are occurring in states across the nation.
Citation:
1. Richard Ulmar, “California Juvenile Justice System in Crisis; Lawsuits to End Abuses Against Children,” PR Newswire, April 19, 2006.i stopped bolding at a certain point because well... you get the point.

[Dimentio]

Why does the media keep feeding people the idea that this kind of stuff "works."

Property crime and other crimes comes about due to social (and sometimes psychological) factors.

Drug crime occurs due to demand for prohibited products.

These programs don't work because when one commits a crime they run on the assumption to get away with it.
Being afraid of prison does not exactly mean that you'll be afraid of commuting crime. Nobody likes prison, everyone tries to avoid getting caught.

MOAR PRISONS and "hard on crime" bullshit will not stop that and will never work in the US.

The thing which would be most bad for the private prison industry is reduced crime. Hence, it is good for them if the state is illegalising more and more things. I think a lot of the criminals in the USA must have been people who began by camping on someone's private property.

[Adi Shankara]

I'm lucky, that where I grew up, it was illegal to appropriate funding to DARE, and such programs were often completely disregarded by the school district.

[GPDP]

I'm lucky, that where I grew up, it was illegal to appropriate funding to DARE, and such programs were often completely disregarded by the school district.

Heh. Since I live in Texas, I was forced-fed that bullshit back in grade school. Somehow, even back then I had the suspicion that I was being fed pure propaganda.

[LETSFIGHTBACK]

It was just in thursday's "Philadelphia daily news" the inmates at a private prison in Boise Idaho which is run by CCA filed a law suit claming that the guards would encourage these "Gladiator" type fights.

About 5 or 6 yeas ago, Christian Parenti wrote a great book on the private for profit prison system called "lock down America" i'm sure you can fine it on amazon used and cheap. great read.

[LETSFIGHTBACK]

this is everything in a nutshell " do not investigate, analyse and uncover and remove the cause of our social I'lls, no no, what they want people to do is leave the causes uninvestigated and have you adapt, and just become another greedy cog in the wheel by trying to scratch and claw to survive.

Just as long as you don't break the law.And they tell our kids to create a "new you", work hard to be a success. What I always say is for people period, to create a new you, A NEW REVOLUTIONARY YOU!!! to remove the old system. Don't try to work within it, work to remove it.

[leftace53]

I'm lucky, that where I grew up, it was illegal to appropriate funding to DARE, and such programs were often completely disregarded by the school district.

Lucky, I still have my DARE shirt from back in grade 5, and I laugh everytime I come across it.

Scared straight is some wierd manipulation of aversion therapy (an already sick thing). Just another instance where governments completely ignore research data.

[Raúl Duke]

Never gone through DARE, didn't exist in Puerto Rico to my knowledge.



There was a report of a child detention center in the new england area that actually purposely convicted youths for the most ridiculous stuff just in order to get more state funding. it was a privately operated one no less.

I read an article like that...it was this juvie judge who was bought by a private corrections facility with the intent that the judge would give a lot of convictions.

[The Douche]

I had to do one of these when I was like 15 or 16. Shit was dumb, and not scary.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

For those of us who aern't American, how are these programs supposed to work? Do they just feed you a load of scare stories about drugs or what?

[The Douche]

No they take kids and take them to a prison and let the prisoners yell abuse at them for a day.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No they take kids and take them to a prison and let the prisoners yell abuse at them for a day.

That's completely fucking stupid. Not every criminal gets caught, even a child knows this. So the lesson that is given is not "don't commit crimes" but rather "don't get caught". In extreme cases that kind of lesson encourages people to violently resist arrest, with the consequences that implies.

It's utterly and completely backwards to think that physical or psychological bullying has a positive effect on behaviour. Isn't it pretty much an established psychological fact that's the case?

[The Douche]

I dunno, I thought it was stupid, I wasn't intimidated, there were guards everywhere, and I knew that those dudes would be fucked if they did anything to me. It was actually pretty funny to me and I kind of had a good time cause I just bullshitted with some of the prisoners during lunch, and I was cracking jokes at the ones who tried to scare us.

[Dimentio]

That's completely fucking stupid. Not every criminal gets caught, even a child knows this. So the lesson that is given is not "don't commit crimes" but rather "don't get caught". In extreme cases that kind of lesson encourages people to violently resist arrest, with the consequences that implies.

It's utterly and completely backwards to think that physical or psychological bullying has a positive effect on behaviour. Isn't it pretty much an established psychological fact that's the case?

Its America.

Its a mighty warrior culture.

[Raúl Duke]

Its a mighty warrior culture.

:lol:

THIS IS SPARTAAAA!!!

I would like to mention that when I first read the thread title I thought this was going to be about those programs run by fundamentalists where they "cure" gay people.

[LETSFIGHTBACK]

:lol:

THIS IS SPARTAAAA!!!

I would like to mention that when I first read the thread title I thought this was going to be about those programs run by fundamentalists where they "cure" gay people.


The RCP's guru said back in the 90's that when the party takes power lol lol lol they will set up "re-education camps for homosexuals.

[Adi Shankara]

The RCP's guru said back in the 90's that when the party takes power lol lol lol they will set up "re-education camps for homosexuals.

The RCP, also isn't communist.

[Raúl Duke]

The RCP's guru said back in the 90's that when the party takes power lol lol lol they will set up "re-education camps for homosexuals."

That and more is why Bob should never (ah what the hell, he will never despite all that "the leadership we need, we have" crap) be the "chairman" of the socialist USA.

[Proletarian Ultra]

If they closed all these programs and legalized weed they'd stop half the crime overnight.

If they did that there would be more riots all the time, because all those lower-class men would be out on the streets with no jobs. That's the real secret of the drug war: it's out equivalent of the Internal Security Acts and permanent States of Emergency you see in so-called authoritarian regimes.

[Raúl Duke]

If they did that there would be more riots all the time, because all those lower-class men would be out on the streets with no jobs. That's the real secret of the drug war: it's out equivalent of the Internal Security Acts and permanent States of Emergency you see in so-called authoritarian regimes.

Interesting analysis

Although the continuation of the war on drugs is a complex issue, since there's also the fact that the DEA doesn't want to see funding cut, nor the correctional industry as alluded by Dimentio.

There are powerful interests that benefit from the war on drugs, but I assure all that the war on drugs has nothing to do with the common good.

[praxis1966]

Well, I think everybody knows that the juvenile justice system in this country is an even bigger steaming pile than even the adult justice system. I'm reminded of a case from a couple of years back in which a 14 year old with sickle cell anemia, one Martin Lee Anderson (http://www.nospank.net/anderson.htm), was forced to do calisthenics and manhandled until he died while incarcerated at a boot camp program for youthful offenders. To my knowledge, none of the officers charged in the case were ever convicted.

Anyway, there are a ton of other stories less lethal but equally ridiculous. I'm also reminded here of the time my 10 year old sister and her friend got caught shoplifting in a department store in the local mall. Even though the store recovered their goods and my sister and her friend plead guilty to petty theft, receiving three months probation and 20 community service hours from the courts, they (the department store) sent my parents a letter demanding that my sister participate in "teen court" or they'd sue for compensatory damages.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with programs like teen court, but basically it's for juvenile offenders who've plead guilty but not been sentenced. Teens act as prosecutor, defense attorney, and jury with a real judge presiding. Funny bit was not only would my sister be subject to further punishment if she had participated (even though her case had already been adjudicated), but what she stole was makeup samples. That's right, shit they give away for free anyhow.

At any rate, there are other far worse examples of abuse of power than even that. I distinctly recall only a couple of months after the teen court program started a lot of publicity surrounding a 12 year old middle school boy. They wanted to charge him in teen court for sexual battery for slapping a classmate on the ass. Now, I agree that his behavior was inappropriate and probably deserved some disciplinary action from the school, but criminal charges which could land him on a sex offender registry for the rest of his life?