I saw it in junior high school, I think. It didn't really deter anyone I knew from doing stupid shit, as I recall.

In anthropology class in college, we did some field study at Rahway prison and visited the guys in the video. It made quite an impact on me to meet them and also to be inside a high-security prison for violent offenders. Very, very clear memory.

chuck: I think it has an effect on a certain type of kid, not so much the real badasses, but sort of the dumb wannabes who through stupidity can wind up doing something that could get them in real trouble, and the 15-16 year old me was kind of like that. It didn't turn me into a saint-I still drank and smoked weed and stuff like that, but I didn't want to be a 'tough guy' anymore.

On the DVD, they do a followup on what happened to the kids and the convicts in the video. Of 17 kids, only two came to bad ends: one's been in and out of prison his whole life, the other became a dope addict and died of AIDS.

I think the thing that straightened me out the most was actually spending a night in jail.

I did that too, around the same time, but didn't think much of it, I even bragged about it.

We did things in high school that would get me sent to Cuba now, but that's largely due to homeland security and the rules surround home manufacture of [redacted]. Other than that my record is lily white. But had an angry convict thrown my shoes around I probably wouldn't have even made [redacted after reading about statute of limitations].

I remember having to watch this at a 'first offenders' program after I was caught shoplifting when I was 13.

I had a pretty sick sense of humor, and kept identifying with that kid that couldn't stop giggling. I mean, any kid with a bit of common sense knows that the powers that be aren't going to let the prisoner presenters actually psychically hurt the kids. I'd seen enough prison movies by that time to know that, yes, jail was not a place that I wanted to end up. Even at 13, and even though the prisoners were real as all hell, it all seemed like a big put on to me at the time.

A year or two later, I rented a copy from the local video store with some friends and had a grand old time laughing at it.

Well item, like I said, different mentalities. And obviously they can't physically hurt the kids, i put the idea in my mind 'this is who you will meet in prison. can you handle that?' and my answer was 'no.' and all the 'prison movies' I could shrug off as Hollywood bullshit, whereas the guys in this seemed like people I knew increased exponentially.

and I don't know that I could ever laugh at this. The shit they describe is somebody's reality and it isn't funny.

In college I went with the Sociology club on a tour of Central Prison in Raleigh. Just walking thru that place-and oh yes, they took us INTO a cell block-gave us the creeps. We were all glad to get our butts outta there.

So jonmc-whatever happened to the one-eyed dude?

Look, jon, I've no doubt that the film and the program scared a lot of kids straight. I suppose I was just one of the lucky ones that knew what lines could and couldn't be crossed when it came to fucking around with Johnny Law.

I don't know what kind of an effect the show would have on me now, a decade and a half since I last saw it. I do know that, at the time, it was funny as hell. Different strokes, I guess. I've never managed to get into any serious trouble with the law - a few misdemeanors here and there, a night in jail or two, but Scared Straight had no impact on me whatsoever except to provide me and my twisted little friends with a few chuckles.

Oh - and I'm glad you didn't end up as a thug. The world needs less thugs.