Scum (1979)

A young offender is sent to borstal ("reform school" in American terms) and faces the brutality and indifference of the guards. He manages to work his way to the top of the prisoner heap by his use of violence against the reigning inmates who attempt to intimidate him.

The standard response to inmate-on-inmate violence when asked by the guards is "I fell sir" - the fear of retaliation is more compelling than any help you might or might not get from the staff. There's a really brutal and realistic rape scene in the garden shed of a younger looking inmate, while a guard looks in through the window, appearing to be enjoying the scene. When asked "what's all this then?" he manages to croak out the expected reply, ludicrous given the obviousness of what happened. The victim ends up killing himself as a result, sparking off a riot. another interesting inmate is the intellectual trying to fight the system in his own non-violent way, equally unsuccessfully. Frankly, there's really not a lot of plot, this movie is mostly about the characters and the conditions in places like these that appear to sadly be the same in a lot of different countries and cultures. It is reminiscent of "Bad Boys" starring Sean Penn that came out in the US about the same time, which had a bit more plot than this movie, but was equally bleak in it's portrayal of life inside a juvenile offenders prison/borstal/reform school.