The Works - S5E48

This moral tale looks into teen transgression on a local level and shows a community's effort to come to terms with the problem. A tough, sneering gang roughs up an adult who happens to be the father of Jimmy, a gang member not involved in the beating. Although the gang threatens Jimmy, he goes to City Hall with some other high-school students so that their voices can be heard as part of the debate about a proposed curfew for teens. Like the other "Discussion Problems in Group Living" films, this one ends without resolution and a challenge to the audience: "What would you do?" Although the film is perhaps too well-intentioned to be credible, its sincerity and openness make it stand out from so many other melodramatic and theatricalized depictions of juvenile delinquency. It also positions delinquency as a local issue about which people can and should talk and act, rather than as a recurring generational issue without a cure.