Beyond Scared Straight
In 1978, the United States Supreme Court ruled that George Carlin's standup routine "Filthy Words" was "indecent but not obscene" (they didn't say anything about funny) and upheld the FCC's right to determine that such material could not be broadcast until such hours as the little ones might be safely assumed to be tucked away snug in their beds. That same year, some of the stars of that monologue, who had previously headlined in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", made their broadcast TV debut in the prime time documentary Scared Straight! There was an especially standout performance by the dreaded f-word.
But instead of being handcuffed and hustled downtown to central booking, the makers of Scared Straight! were garlanded with awards, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and an Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement–Informational Program and Outstanding Informational Program." The difference was that the documentary had a socially redeeming angle that rendered it culturally respectable, even admirable: it showed baby-faced kids being taunted with obscene language as a means to shock them onto the path of righteousness. It was an irony that Carlin himself might have appreciated, or at least done twenty minutes about.
Produced and directed by Arnold Shapiro, Scared Straight!. which documented a meeting between a group of lifers and a cross-section of teenaged petty offenders at New Jersey's Rahway State Prison, introduced both a phrase and a controversial, much-parodied concept to the culture at large. Anyone who's seen a Hollywood movie about military life knows that the best way to make an ordinary slob off the street straighten up and fly right is to line him up with a bunch of other slobs and holler abuse at him. Scared Straight! applied the concept to urban warriors as a rehabilitation technique aimed at helping troubled kids who hadn't yet become serious menaces to society. The viewer is primed to see the kids as punks who think that it's a hoot to be bad and who might even be looking forward to kicking it with the real men, the ones who are so bad they've had to be locked up. A couple of hours of having their future life as a bitch-ass punk sketched out for them, at top volume and in language that might make David Mamet blush, soon gets them to reordering their priorities.
Scared Straight! inspired catching-up sequels in 1987 and 1999, which perhaps makes it America's real answer to England's 7 Up series. Feel free to be just as embarrassed about that as you like. In the meantime, the success of the documentary inspired other states to start their own "Scared Straight" programs. Beyond Scared Straight checks in on four of them, starting with Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California. The original Scared Straight! was narrated by Peter Falk—a perfect choice, given that the star of Columbo managed to combine the appeal of a gruff but warm authority figure with that of a fifty-year-old Dead End Kid. The most recent of the follow-up shows was hosted by Danny Glover, a man whose responsible-liberal-citizen vibe throbs so hard that he could make you that you were doing your part to make America a better place by watching a double bill of I Drink Your Blood/ I Eat Your Skin.