When most people think of crime and "criminals  children, under the age 12, usually do not come to mind. However, according to Schmalleger, reports from 2008, reported that police arrested 99,794 children ranging from ages 12 and younger, which represented approximately 10% of all juvenile arrests (those under age of 18) (542). Additionally, Schmalleger says that: Nearly 16% of all violent crimes and 26% of all property crimes are committed by people younger than 18, and on average about 17% of all arrested in United States in any year are juveniles. Although, this age group makes up 26% of the population of the United States, crime statistics shows that juveniles are disproportionately involved in crimes considering the age ranges (542). While, data representing young people's involvement in criminal activities can be alarming, their participation in criminal behaviors have existed since early periods of American history and have only been increasing. As a result, legislators and advocates of law of and order had to come up with inventive ways to lower juvenile crime rates. Thus raising the question, are scared-straight programs more effective in preventing juvenile delinquency than other juvenile delinquency prevention programs? The raise in juvenile crime rates led to Acts that created court systems for juveniles, which were separated in nature in comparison to adult criminal courts. For example, one of the most influential Acts was the Illinois Juvenile Court Act in 1899, which created a juvenile court system in Illinois. This Act reimaged the stigma attached to criminality by referring to juvenile offenders as delinquents instead of criminals and refocused the deliberations of juvenile court judges towards keeping the best interests of the child in mind (Schmalleger 546). Additionally, the Illinois juvenile court system was restructured to take the determination of guilt or innocence away as the primary focus and put more importance on reformation. Following, the enactment of the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899, the federal government in 1938, passed the Juvenile Court Act, which incorporated many of the attributes of the Illinois Juvenile Court Act (547). Nearly eight years later, the juvenile court movement was established, and each state in America had legislation that concentrated on the treatment of juveniles (547). The juvenile court movement revolved around five philosophical principles that according to Schmalleger stated: The state was the "higher or ultimate parent  of all the children within its borders; children were worth saving and nonpunitive procedures should be used to save the child; children should be nurtured and while being nurtured should be protected from the impact of formal adjudicatory procedures, justice should be individualized in that it recognizes each child is different and his or her needs, aspirations, living conditions, and son on should be known in their individual particulars; and noncriminal procedures should be the primary consideration in the needs of the child (547). However, after the enactment of many of the new Acts concerning juvenile delinquents, juvenile crime rates continued to rise, especially in the 1980s (Dammer and Albanese 264). This rise, combined with the unsatisfactory rates of success of rehabilitation efforts caused a shift in the mindsets of policymakers and advocates of law of order (264). As a result, policies and reformation efforts moved towards "get tough  techniques in an attempt to lower juvenile crime rates and violent juvenile crimes (Schmalleger 547). As, mentioned earlier the basis behind the creation of the juvenile justice system was to rehabilitate youthful offenders through nonpunitive procedures. The juvenile justice system believed that if juvenile offenders can be reached at an early age and stage in the criminal behaviors then maybe the behaviors can deter and desisted (Klenowski, Bell, and Dodson 256). One way in which officials believed this could be done was through prison-based awareness programs (256). The foundations for these prison-based awareness programs were based on the deterrence theory, which pursued the deterrence of future criminal behaviors of at-risk juveniles through the swift, stern, and certain interactions with juvenile offenders (255). Many of these prison-based awareness programs, also known as "juvenile awareness  programs, require juvenile offenders to visit prisons and utilize heightened levels of fear, intimidation, and hostility to scare the offenders in an attempt to deter them from future delinquent behaviors (255-257). Despite being around since the 1960s, juvenile awareness programs did not gain much publicity until 1979, when Oscar-winning television documentary Scared Straight aired (257). The documentary based off a New Jersey program at Rahway State Prison revamped the meaning