Many years of researching and studying aversion programs or jail encounter programs for juveniles have concluded that Scared Straight and similar programs are failures and do not have positive benefits for youthful offenders. Most fear-inducing inmate-youth encounter programs do not couple the induced fear with either an underlying theoretical approach or specific components that have been found to bring about effective results in the fear appeals literature. This study examined the overall effect of the Jail Tour Program (JTP) on participants’ responses on a self-report questionnaire. The JTP, operating since 1992, schedules a group of adolescent offenders to go to an adult jail, view the facilities, hear lectures from police officers, and have a series of face-to-face confrontations and encounters with inmates. However, what distinguished the JTP from other scared-straight type programs was a segment incorporating support for positive choices and recommendations to avoid future delinquency. The results of this study suggest that an inmate-youth encounter program may lead to attitude change in youthful offenders if components of successful fear appeals are incorporated into the program. References