To play youth thug Mick O'Brien, actor Sean Penn wanted to have his perfect teeth filed down and capped with ugly tops and have "maybe a few cracked ones" but Penn's mother, a dentist's daughter, intervened, ruling that "ruining perfectly good teeth is definitely going too far!"
The photos used during the opening credits were the real-life photos of Sean Penn and the other actors as children. According to Rick Rosenthal's commentary on the uncut DVD edition, he is still in possession of these pictures.
Real-life reformatory supervisors and about 30 real-life reformatory inmates featured in the film as actors, extras and background artists.
Debut feature film of actors Clancy Brown, Jason Gedrick (uncredited), Alan Ruck and actress Ally Sheedy.
The reform school was actually a set built in the Naval Armory in Chicago. The cost for the set was $500,000.
Jamie Lee Curtis: A long-haired passerby on the street when Esai Morales' character ventures into the building of the drug deal. Curtis starred in Halloween II (1981), also directed by Rick Rosenthal (it's not Esai Morales character) it's his partners going into his building