For my last
media review I decided to touch on “at-risk youth” which was covered in one of my classes
when we had guest speaker Karen Foster come in. The subject really caught my
attention and I found it very interesting, so I thought I would look into a
show on TV called Beyond Scared Straight.
When youth
commit crimes they don’t understand the consequences that come with their
actions because a lot of the time they’re too young to grasp those facts. A lot
of these young kids are getting in trouble because they’re showing off or
trying to prove a point to their friends, or they don’t understand how illegal
certain things are and how much trouble they can get into because they’re not
educated on the legal system. Usually what the legal system does to deal with these so called “bad” kids is
they throw them in a detention center or jail where they’re going to come in
contact with other people who have done crimes worse than they have, and by the
end of their sentence they are not going to be better off like every one seems to think.
Instead of
locking these at risk youth away, what Beyond Scared Straight does is show them
what it’s like to be in jail and who you’re going to come in contact to. They
essentially want to scare them until they changes their ways so they don’t stay
on the path their on, which will take them to jail (or worse that will kill
them) because they’re at such a crucial time in their lives. During their day
trip to jail they’re introduced to various ex-cons; people who have done time
for 1st degree murder, kidnapping, 2nd degree murder,
major theft and any crime you can think of. They show them the states that they
would be living in, the showers that they would be sharing with other inmates,
and they even tell you what will happen to you while you’re there (strip search
and rape are a few that come up).
If these
kids were to go right to jail after committing their crimes, they would be
exposed to people who have been in jail for years and have done much more
serious crimes than things like breaking/entering and drug possession. We are a
product of our environment, and the environment in jail is all about survival.
These kids would be involved in even more crime than if they were out in the
real world; there would be drug trafficking, sexual violence, theft and mostly
violence to other jail members. They would learn new strategies and tips from bad influences.
These days
I think what our society should be doing is rehabilitating these at-risk youths
and getting them educated on the legal system and life. I think that Beyond
Scared Straight is one of the best influences to have on a kid who’s on a bad
path because it puts things in perspective for them and makes them realize what
they’re in for.
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