Scared Stupid

Back in the late 1970s, there was a program established in some U.S. prisons to introduce problematic teenagers to hardened criminals inside the prisons so that the juvenile delinquents would be so unsettled by what prison life is like that they would be scared into leading a straight life rather than winding up in prison themselves. A documentary was made about the program (which I watched) called Scared Straight.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the program didn’t always have the effect it was supposed to have on potential JDs, i.e., it actually helped turn some of them into future criminals! I mention this interesting experiment in the history of the U.S. Penal System in regards to a stupid stunt that some Florida mother pulled on her five-year old son. After she caught her son playing with matches (which, by the way, I would like to know who was responsible for leaving them around for the child to gain possession of—unless, of course, he found them in the street), Mama got the hair-brained idea of convincing a cop friend of hers to stage an “arrest” of the little boy in order to scare him into never playing with matches again. There is debate among her neighbors as to whether or not this was the best way to handle the situation. I guess you already know which side of the debate I am on.

[Thanks to Travis Holte]

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9:53 am on May 23, 2010