Scared Straight?

What do you do with juvenile delinquents? Counsel 'em? Jail 'em? "Scared Straight" was a 1978 film documenting a program in which kids guilty ofminor offenses were brought to a maximum-security prison, where hardened convicts attempted to frighten them away from lives of crime.

The show took place in Rahway State Prison in New Jersey - that huge fortress visible from Routes 1 and 9 near the Woodbridge Mall which Bruce Springsteen mentioned in "Born in the USA." ("Down in the shadow of the penitentury / by the gas fires of the refinery...") Here kids who thought they were tough were confronted with the rude realities of prison by lifers who screamed at them. To a nation which was getting tired of 60s era excuses for criminal behavior, the program made a hellova lotta sense.

Peter Falk, star of the "Columbo" TV series, narrated the film, which
became quite popular. Soon "Scared Straight" programs were starting all
over the country, although many communities thought they could scrimp on
the actual prison visit and change kids by just showing them a movie. In a
sense, the SS movement was emblematic of the changing attitude of the
public towards crime and punishment which happened in the latter part of
the Seventies.

Initially the philosophy of Scared Straight was praised, as its advocates
cited the fact that most of the kids in the initial program did not become
criminals. Soon, however, criminologists were pointing out that none of the
teens in the film had been convicted of a felony, and the majority of them
would have ended up straight in the first place. Other researchers believed
the program was actually worse than doing nothing. My take? I doubt if many
kids really intent on becoming crooks would be deterred by such a project,
intense though it may be. The brutality of prison life is common knowledge;
it's not as if these kids thought it was a country club. Everyone knows
that teenagers are convinced that they will never face the real
consequences of bad behavior, be it smoking or driving while drunk. I
worked briefly at a literacy program run for tough kids, and do you know
what their favorite books were? Right, prison stories.

ZAMM and Psychiatry

ZAMM says something of the early Seventies approach to psychology, which is to say that it was something of a mish-mash of notions about mental health, along with a bit of romanticization of insanity. Let's be fair to Pirsig, though; psychiatry as a field was more primitive back then (witness his having to undergo electro-shock therapy) and the bio-chemical origins of mental illness were not well-understood.

The Seventies were awash with books written by and about shrinks, most of them pretty lame. It was a decade of self-help, although minus the 12-step component. Classical Freud was still in vogue, and if a person went nuts there were many who would still blame their parents for botching the toilet training. On the other hand were "experts" like Thomas Szasz, the psychiatrist who insisted that there was no such thing as mental illness at all. There were accounts of mental illness, probably most notably The Eden Express by Kurt Vonnegut's son Mark, which laid the ordeal of somebody suffering from schizophrenia out in horrifying detail, but which still searched for some hidden meaning in delusion. And of course there were still advocates of drugs which induced temporary insanity, i.e.: the psychedelics, who thought that profound observations could be had by inducing hallucinations. (Have you ever met somebody who took that stuff who had any great insights? (Most of the acid heads I've encountered were pretty boring).

Pirsig's protagonist questions some notions of insanity from a very personal perspective, considering his past experiences, which ended with his being involuntarily committed to a hospital after his wife finds him sitting in what amounted to a catatonic state. How he got that way is fascinating, and one could debate the issue endlessly. But there is no romanticization here; the ghost of the protagonist's past is coming back to haunt him, and he fears becoming insane again, while watching his son behave in an increasingly bizarre manner. How he reconciles his experiences is fascinating.

Do read this book. If you already read it during the Seventies, I strongly suggest reading the newer editions, which include an update by the author.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

"Shines like an electric dream..." So said the usually cynical Village Voice about Robert M. Pirsig's 1974 autobiographical novel - one of the most popular books of the Seventies. Whole courses have been written about ZAMM, along with an excellent guidebook.

Although the title suggests a cross between Easy Rider and when the Beatles found a guru, the author readily admits that his book isn't terribly factual about either Zen or motorcycles. The work can be read on many levels, so many that I'll do several entries on it, starting with the most basic.

Pirsig's protagonist and his son are on a cross-country tour using his old Honda, along with two friends of the family. The protagonist, a technical editor, has a history of mental illness, having gone completely psychotic while working on his doctorate in philosophy. (When Steve Martin said that philosophy can screw you up for life, he was not entirely joking!) Pirsig describes his philosophical inquiries, chiefly regarding a failed attempt to actually define the concept of "Quality," in mini essays interspersed with the journey, during which his son is showing early signs of mental illness himself. To make things even more frightening, the protagonist fears that his own psychosis is returning.

Eventually, however, the father and son reach a form of rapport. The boy in effect assures his dad that his illness is not returning, and the father learns a few badly-needed lessons about how to relate to a kid.

Pirsig picks up on the backlash against ugly technology that characterized the begining of the 70s, as well as the quest for a new philosophy that would serve the decade where old notions did not just work. (Well, they did work for the 11 million or so folks who read Late Great Planet Earth - the best-seller of the decade, but I will be blunt here: that stuff is on the level of the National Enquirer).

Robert Redford at one time contemplated making a film version of ZAMM. Another great fan of the book was NBA coach Phil Jackson.
BTW: To get into a Seventies frame of mind, I wrote a draft of this essay on my old Smith Corona typewriter, although I used a Liquid Paper pen instead of the traditional bottle and brush. The typewriter felt strange. As for the correction pen, I like the old stuff better.