Scum is a 1979 British crime drama film directed by Alan Clarke, portraying the brutality of life inside a British borstal. The script was originally made as the television play Scum for the BBC's Play for Today strand in 1977, however due to the violence depicted, it was withdrawn from broadcast. Two years later, director Alan Clarke and scriptwriter Roy Minton remade it as a film, first shown on Channel 4 in 1983. By this time the borstal system had been reformed and eventually allowed the original TV version to be aired.