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TI has stood up in front of numerous events over the course of his community service and made it clear what he did was wrong and has taken responsibility for it.

Apparently so, but can anyone explain briefly what he was planning to do with these silenced machine guns--and thus what he has taken responsibility for? On the surface, it sounds like he was lucky not to be charged under antiterrorist laws, so maybe there is more to the story than meets the eye.

And harping on the title of the show seems like you're can't see the forest thru the trees. He has served over a 1000 hours of community service outside of the television show, paid a large fine,and was on house arrest for the better part of a year. The purpose of the show was to take the individuals out of their enviroment and show them other possibilites that they previously may not have considered.

TI has stood up in front of numerous events over the course of his community service and made it clear what he did was wrong and has taken responsibility for it.

Quibbling over a word in the name of the show is really something only an English professor would do but at least you were upfront about it.

I don't care how sincere this show and Mr. Machine Gun Rapper pretend to be. This is crap. True redemption is not done in the public eye for reward. It is done quietly and modestly, like true prayer.

But then, so much of rap is built around glorification of crime and violence and materialism, so this, like the crimes of Wall Street, is not surprising. It all comes down to moral midgets exulting in their wealth and fame, and the suckers who admire them.

Can't afford an armory like that.

A young black man royally fucks up, and tries to atone for that before heading off to prison. If this were an indie film, with a cool, hip director, the white liberal establishment, like this one, would be falling all over itself to praise the gritty realness of it. When it happens in real life, though, we get professors and other approved intellectuals engaging in a circle jerk of semantics- "redemption is too strong a word, blahdy blah."

The trouble with your analogy is that in the hypothetical film the lead character wouldn't be turning the process into an infomercial to sell an upcoming CD and make sure his name stays before the public eye during his year and a day in jail. That's the trouble here, the very blurred line between hope and hype. In a commercial society, there's always a question of "are you selling or are you serious...or both?" When it comes to this particular subject—a form of entertainment built around how entertaining it is to be a criminal—the questions are particularly dicey.

If this is such a big deal then how does MTV fake rap poser get his hands on a dozen of them? As far as I know you need a special Federal license to qualify for that. Not impossible but it's pretty damn rare. I mean I'm down with that Second Amendment bullshit and right to wave a piece around your homies and shit, but cmon. We're getting into Terry Nichols territory with this shit. A year in jail? Cry me a fucking river. Or go to Somalia where you can buy an RPG for about $10. Now dat's 'Hood.

Are the author of the article and the letter writers really that cynical? A short list of cynicism I've read in the past 10 minutes:

- TI got a massively reduced sentence because he's famous

- the kids want to go to jail

- it doesn't work

- prison for TI is a marketing ploy

- the show isn't genuine in any way... TI was scripted, the kids were scripted, etc.

It's really kind of breathtaking that watching somebody facing a year in prison (down from 25 years) has generated so much eye rolling from others. Nevermind that he had to pay a $100,000 fine, do 1,000 hours of community service before sentencing (not counting the show he did 1,034) and another 500 after he is released from jail. He has to spend a year under house arrest (of which he's already done 300 days) and he's subject to random search, drug tests, and has to have his whereabouts approved by the court.

Nevermind that at sentencing, the judge approved of the show and said that he was very interested in these kinds of sentences where positive impacts can be made in the community. As far as I could tell, the judge didn't want to limit similar deals only to celebrities.

In a similar vein... There's a TED Talk by Emily Oster, an economist at the University of Chicago who looked at the spread of HIV in Africa from an economic perspective.

Many programs aimed at lowering HIV infection rates in Africa have been tried. Uganda is the only country that has seen any success. Abstinence programs were quickly claimed by some to be the reason for the successes in Uganda.

Emily argues that a different reason was the cause for decreased infection rates. Essentially, as the economy improved, people began to feel like they had more to live for and could see themselves in a good place in the future. This caused them to engage in less risky behaviors which led to a reduction in HIV infections. She, of course, makes a much better argument for this line of thinking that than this quick recap.

I bring it up because I saw the same thing in the show. They took kids who weren't the hardest. They were kids committing small time crimes who obviously needed some direction. In the first episode, it was obvious the kid didn't have a positive role model. He takes care of his Mom and siblings and judging by the state of Mom's home - she's either got medical problems or a heavy addiction problem of some kind. So this kid is out there hustling because he makes more than he does bagging groceries, he's got the responsibilities of being the main earner for a family, and he's got nobody to show him how to make good choices, oh, and he's a teenager with next to no real life experience outside of his neighborhood. Even if you think the show is completely staged, it would be foolish to pretend this isn't a real and somewhat common plight.

Cut to the end of the show where TI gives them hope of some way out of their situation and you've got all the ingredients for the kids to see a life that extends beyond "dead or in jail".

A high school kid with a girlfriend and a baby who steals to make ends meet is given the opportunity to dream about going to college. He's not pointed to it, he's taken inside it. He's ripped from his situation and allowed a different perspective. How can this be a bad thing? How can one sit and watch and not have hope for the kid too? Are you really that cynical?

Scared straight doesn't work because it provides a vivid example of what happens if you commit a crime and go to jail. Showing kids a possible better future seems worlds away from that, and according to Emily Oster, there's data that says that hope works.