Researchers held 70 group discussions with incarcerated juvenile males at the institution. The inmates exposed some negative aspects of the prison experience which have not been fully aired in the ongoing juvenile justice reform disputes. The principal inmate grievance concerns their view of prison work, which is not reimbursed commensurately with employment on the outside but is used as a form of coercive discipline. Inmates experience it as a debilitating assault upon their personal worth and self-esteem. The second area of disillusionment is the attitudes of both custodial and treatment staff. Inmates perceive little difference between the two categories; both are viewed as coercive, authoritive representatives of the system which has deprived them of liberty. Reform proposals should concern themselves with restructuring the working arrangements for juvenile inmates and with revising the bureaucratic hierarchies and professional status rivalries preventing treatment staff from performing their helping duties effectively, as well as with improving training for all correctional personnel who deal with juveniles. Fourteen references are given.