'Borstal: The Sentence' – Man Alive.

This engrossing, if frequently dispiriting 70s Man Alive documentary, exposes the punitive regimes inside two Borstals, prisons for young British offenders. Featuring lively, informative interviews with the inmates, a great many of whom are recidivist offenders, their sentences ranging from 8 months to a 2-year stretch. Borstal appears to have been an inflexible institution that simply incarcerated wayward youth, with little to no hope of rehabilitation for any of these troubled young men. Interestingly, some of the young offenders would rather a stint in the army, or, bizarrely, endure a far more disciplined regime than their numbing, rather non-specific 'Borstal Training'. 'Borstal: The Sentence' features some fantastic footage, remaining a genuinely fascinating look behind the grimly whitewashed walls of a dour 1970s nick.