Boot Camps Lose Early Swagger

One by one, 18 youths seated in a circle of institutional sofas rise to read brief essays that address the question, "What Is Your Number One Problem?"

"My number one problem was I didn't know how to swallow my pride and let things fly," says Robert, a 16-year-old Latino from Brooklyn. Like everyone else in the room, his hair is closely shorn, and he wears hand-me-down camouflage fatigues and black combat boots.

When his turn comes, Kayson, 17, of East Flatbush, Brooklyn, stands, opens his composition book, clears his throat nervously and says, "My number one problem is will I make it in the future or will I fail when I get out of here."

"Here" is the Sgt. Henry Johnson Youth Leadership Academy, a juvenile correctional boot camp tucked behind a 12-foot-high security fence in this whitewashed Catskill Mountain hamlet three hours northwest of New York City.

The academy is "widely regarded as a bright light of the juvenile boot camp movement," says Dale Parent, senior associate with Abt Associates, a social science research firm in Cambridge, Mass. The American Correctional Association touts the facility as a model of boot camp "best practices."

Increasingly, though, some experts question whether even the best boot camps are good enough. Fifteen years after military-style punishment was heralded as an answer to crime — cheap, effective, space-saving and politically tasty — some say it is time to stick a fork in the jumping-jacks solution.

"I think the fad is over," says David Altschuler, principal researcher at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies and a leading authority on boot camps.

"The screaming doesn't work and never has worked," says Barry Holman, director of research and public policy for the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives, based in Alexandria, Va. "What works is individual care and direction ... That doesn't have to come from a military-type setting. It can come from employment programs, school programs, after-school activities, church groups."

In theory, boot camps offer crime deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, punishment and cost control. They also offer nice pictures.

Since the mid-1980s, news photos and videotape have shown convicts in military fatigues doing pushups under the heel of barrel-chested drill instructors. Parent says the boot camp movement was spawned in large part by media coverage. As he wrote in a 1989 report on boot camps to the National Institute of Justice, "Shock incarceration makes good copy, conveying powerful visual images well suited to the electronic media."

Former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller (D), an ex-Marine, was an early boot camp rooter. He once posed nose-to-nose with a boot-camper, reenacting his own basic training experience, and he wrote in a newspaper commentary, "I am a product of a Marine boot camp. That tough, regimented discipline made a difference in my life. I believe that it can impact the lives of others as well." (Miller failed to mention that the Marines moderated its boot camp methods after six recruits drowned in 1956 while following the irrational orders of their drill instructor.)

While less rhapsodic about boot camps, correctional officials saw them as a way to alleviate the growing problem of prison overcrowding, and liberals viewed them as welcome alternatives to traditional prison sentences.
Today, it is not easy to find a correctional official or criminologist who will recommend boot camps without proviso. Even politicians have backed away, because it is clear that boot camps do not "work" in the conventional sense of reduced recidivism. The sheen of boot camps also has been tarnished by overzealous, ill-trained staff members: camp officers have faced brutality-related criminal charges or lawsuits in several states, including Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.

Return to Crime

In a study by University of Maryland criminology professor Doris MacKenzie, New York's model program here in the Catskills showed a recidivism rate of 79 percent within two years of release. The study looked at 213 youths who entered the facility from May 1992 (its first year of operation) to February 1996.

A second research study of the academy's graduates, conducted for the New York Department of Criminal Justice Services and released in September, showed a recidivism rate of 76 percent within 30 months. Like MacKenzie's, the second study concerned discharges from the early years of the camp, through 1995.

Two sources said the academy's recidivism rate has declined only marginally with a more recent increased emphasis on aftercare, education and employment. Both camp officials and state authorities declined to release more recent recidivism figures.

"Certainly, the bottom line in one sense is recidivism," says MacKenzie, who characterized the New York program's recidivism rate as "disappointingly high." "It is a very important measure, but there are other measures. If we can keep juveniles confined for shorter periods of time in boot camps, then there is a cost saving. And if boot camps are safer places, especially for juveniles, then that, too, is an important measure."

"If we achieve the same outcome with a shorter length of stay ... then you have more money available to treat other kids," says Maurice Satin, director of the bureau of program design and resource development for the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. "It's not all in the absolute reduction of the recidivism numbers, although that clearly is something we need to strive for."

Parent sees other gains: Offenders "come out of boot camps with better attitudes toward themselves, toward others, and toward authority figures than those who went to the more usual prisons. So in a sense, they come out less damaged, with less psychological and emotional harm."

But Altschuler says arguments about ancillary benefits of boot camps indicate lowered expectations. "Those things are not enough," he says. "The ultimate question is whether boot camps contribute to law abidance and public safety. It may be that feeling better about yourself may not ultimately be what contributes to law abidance. Maybe, hypothetically, it's a job or greater stability in certain aspects of your life ... Maybe it simply doesn't matter whether your self-esteem is higher or how well you do on a rope course."

The Advance

The first adult correctional boot camps in America opened in 1983. More than a dozen states had them by 1990, when discouraging recidivism rates were first reported. But as a moral panic about teenage violence swept the country in the early 1990s, the idea of boot camps for juvenile offenders gained appeal.

In 1992 the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded juvenile boot camp model programs in Cleveland, Denver and Mobile, Ala. Just as with the adult camps, research would eventually show that the juvenile graduates were as likely as peer groups to commit new crimes.

Undeterred, Congress allocated more than $45 million for new boot camp initiatives in 1994 and 1995, with three-quarters of the $21 million in 1995 going for juvenile facilities. (See "A Brief History," page 36.) While there were only about 15 juvenile camps in 1994, according to the Koch Crime Institute of Topeka, Kan., by 1999 there were 53. (Total beds: 4,500 beds. Total designated for females: about 200.) The growth occurred even while the population of adult boots camps was dropping. Authorities believe the rush to open new juvenile camps is over (just four opened in 1998), but some states are planning more.

Texas is investing most heavily in juvenile boot camps: it has eight facilities with a total capacity of 515. (Florida has eight facilities and 237 beds, and Georgia has six with 1,113 beds.) The Texas Legislature has authorized $37.5 million in funding for 18 new secure juvenile facilities, and some will be boot camps.

If nothing else, the construction of boot camps helps ambitious politicians sound tough on crime. "These new juvenile facilities are designed to break the cycle of gangs, drugs and delinquency," Gov. George W. Bush said last year. "These facilities will fill a gap in our juvenile justice system, providing places of strict discipline and punishment that offer hope of turning around young lives."

Federal funding for correctional boot camps has withered, but states like Texas have been willing to cover construction and operating costs. During these flush economic times, even marginal programs may survive, boot camp authorities say. But when the economic worm turns, politicians might take a more scrutinizing look at what taxpayers get out of juvenile boot camps for their estimated $100 million a year in operating costs nationwide.

The About Face

Such scrutiny has led a number of boot camps to shut down in recent years. They include:

-Florida's Volusia County Juvenile Boot Camp, which cost $800,000 to build but was folded after a couple of years when the local government had to cut its budget. The camp's 75 percent recidivism rate was cited as justification for the funding cut.
-A 30-bed Maryland Juvenile Boot Camp at Doncaster, which closed in 1996 when state authorities decided its $2.7 million annual budget could be better spent on programs that serve larger numbers of youths. The state now operates camps in Swanton and Lonaconing with capacities of 52 and 42 youths, respectively.
All three model camps funded by the OJJDP have also closed.
-Camp Foxfire in Denver was the first to go: it folded March 1994 after its nonprofit operator, New Pride Inc., went bankrupt. The camp had been criticized for failing to implement an acceptable after-care program. Colorado now funds a juvenile boot camp in Pueblo, the Youthtrack Academy, run by a subsidiary of the Louisville-based Res-Care, Inc.
-Camp Roulston, located near Cleveland and operated by the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas and the Danvers, Mass.-based North American Family Institute (which also operated the defunct Maryland boot camp) closed last summer. Although it was considered to be the best run of the three OJJDP models, authorities decided Roulston's $3 million annual budget could be better spent on other programs.
-The Mobile facility, the Environmental Youth Corps Academy, closed for three months during its disastrous first year due to allegations of abuse of the juveniles by staff members. The camp was run by Mobile County Court, the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Mobile and the University of South Alabama. The program has evolved into the Camp Robert J. Martin Youth Leadership Academy, a boot camp located in nearby Prichard.

Abuse allegations have dogged several camps. In Oracle, Arizona, the Arizona Boys Ranch temporarily lost its state license to operate last year after a 16-year-old boy died while being forced to exercise. Murder charges against five former employees were dismissed, but three of the ex-staffers still face child abuse charges. In June the facility was granted a one-year license after making administrative changes and vowing to be "less hard-bitten."

In South Dakota, the State Attorney General is investigating the July death of a 14-year-old girl at a boot camp-style program run by the state Department of Corrections. The girl died after becoming exhausted during a 2.5-mile run and walk that is part of the Girl's Intensive Program, which serves about 15 girls on a campus of cottages in Plankinton.

Softer Boots

Meanwhile, dozens of private or military-affiliated boot camps have sprouted across the country. Most are "pre-adjudication" volunteer camps for at-risk teenagers. Twenty-seven states, for example, participate in the National Guard Challenge Program, a 22-week residential program for unemployed high school dropouts. When the program was developed six years ago, the federal government funded full startup costs of $30 million. Today it pays two-thirds of the operating costs while states pay the rest.
Other boot camp-style programs include faith-based facilities, such as the Mentoring Academy for Boys in Powell, Tenn.; adventure camps patterned after Outward Bound; short-term nonresidential programs, like one sponsored by the Seattle Police Department, and hybrids such as an "intellectual boot camp" held each year in Alpena, Mich.

Mike Slusher, director of operations with the Koch Crime Institute, and a representative of the National Institute of Corrections, says both organizations field many inquiries from parents desperate to ship their troubled teens to a military-style camp for a dose of discipline.

The new generation of correctional boot camps have backed away from the in-your-face methods — and from the "boot camp" name. Juvenile facilities in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania all use some variation of "leadership academy." Oregon calls its facility in Tillamook a "Youth Accountability Camp," while Kansas calls its 204-bed facility in Oswego a "Correctional Conservation Camp." In Georgia, the facilities are called "Youth Development Campuses."

Some have done away with military trappings, including the uniforms, and the U.S. Office of Justice Programs is encouraging states to develop nonmilitary models such as the McNeil Island Work Ethic Camp, an adult facility in Washington State.

Holman of the National Center for Institutions and Alternatives says recidivism rates prove that aftercare, not uniforms, pushups or marching, is the key to rehabilitation. Some jurisdictions are using versions of moral reconation therapy, designed to help lawbreakers develop the sensibilities that allow them to make moral decisions, and "multi-systemic therapy," which focuses on intervention with offenders' families.

Perhaps one of those ideas will replace boot camps as the latest criminal justice Hula-Hoop. But Professor MacKenzie of the University of Maryland says a postmortem may be premature.

"I think boot camps are going to be with us for awhile," she says, noting the latest revival of another criminal justice fad, "Scared Straight," even though researchers relegated it to the social science wastebasket 20 years ago.

When it comes to criminal justice policies, research often is beside the point. "For politicians, the appearance of hard work and the fact that they seem to play well with the public may be enough," Altschuler says. "If that's all that's important, it doesn't much matter what the research shows."

Resources

Mike Slusher
Director of Operations
Koch Crime Institute
1 Criminal Justice Place
Topeka, KS 66603-3714
(800) 375-5624
www.kci.org

Dale Parent
Senior Associate
Abt Associates
55 Wheeler St.
Cambridge, MA 02138-1168
(617) 492-7100

Barry Holman
National Center for Institutions & Alternatives
635 Slaters La., Suite G-100
Alexandria, VA
(703) 684-0373
www.ncianet.org

James Turpin
Legislative Liaison
American Correctional Association
4380 Forbes Blvd.
Lanham, MD 20706
(301) 918-1800

Sidebar:

Boot Camps Lose Early Swagger: Kids’ Camps Cheaper Than Kid Prisons

Boot Camps Lose Early Swagger: For This Offender, Camp Worked

Boot Camps Lose Early Swagger: Correctional Boot Camps: A Brief History

Krajicek, David J. "Boot Camps Lose Early Swagger." Youth Today, November 1999, p. 1.

©2000 Youth Today. Reprinted with permission from Youth Today. All rights reserved.