Walk into a juvenile boot camp and you might see human rights abuses typical of third world countries, according to Representatives George Miller, California Democrat, and Howard P. McKeon, ranking Republican from California, at a 2007 U.S. House of Representatives Education Committee investigation of 10 teenage, boot camp deaths. Government Accountability Office evidence showed teenagers had been starved, wallowed for hours in their excrement, and were forced to consume their own vomit. But not all boot camps were implicated.
History
Military discipline is traditionally a respected character builder--a creator of strength and integrity. In the 1980s, according to a 1996 report by Blair Bourque and a team of investigators for the U.S. Department of Justice, DOJ, the military discipline, or boot camp, model was applied to adult criminal convicts. They noted some positive effects on behavior in prison and after release. Three pilot 3-month programs, in Denver, Cleveland and Mobile, applied boot camp techniques to juveniles. By 1996, 48 juvenile boot camps operated in 27 states for adjudicated teens. The DOJ reported sufficient initial success to merit continuing the programs.
Methods
Not all juvenile boot camps are operated by government authorities. Some are privately run for teens sent by parents who find them uncontrollable, dangerous, unresponsive to counseling or classified as "at risk." Camp techniques include drill instructors who impose highly forceful forms of discipline with an intensely confrontational leadership style. Work demands are harsh and teens are worked to exhaustion every day. On-site counseling is an integral component of the programs, according to correctional specialists at Turning Winds Academic Institute. They list private juvenile boot camp programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Successes
The 1996 DOJ report states that the Denver, Cleveland and Mobile state-run boot camps achieved 80 to 94 percent completion rates with improved educational performance, fitness, behavior, self-discipline and respect for authority. For those teens who completed a 5-month, post-release followup program, positive changes in attitude and behavior persisted. Per diem correctional facility costs were lower than traditional incarceration.
Failures
The early successes reported by DOJ were only partial. The boot camps suffered from high staff turnover, inability to balance military-style discipline with sound education, inconsistent termination policies, frequent abuse allegations and 50 percent drop-out rates from post-release followup. Repeat and new offense rates were no better than traditional incarceration. A 2001 DOJ report stated that by 2000, 15 of 45 state-run juvenile boot camps had been closed and population in remaining camps was reduced by 30 percent. Confrontational leadership and social isolation made female teen boot camps impossible to operate.
Future
Failures outnumber success and foreshadow a declining future role for juvenile boot camps. Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, under President Clinton, labeled camps ineffective, with 75 percent documenting no improvement in recidivism and the remaining 25 percent chalking up higher rates after release. She cites harsh, dangerous procedures nurturing too-close camaraderie among teens with criminal behavior, and a too-narrow focus on physical discipline over education. Private corporations like Turning Winds Academic Institute seek to counter the decline with better management and program design.
References
- National Criminal Justice Reference Service: Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders
- National Criminal Justice Reference Service: Correctional Boot Camps: Lessons From a Decade of Research
- NYTimes: Report Recounts Horrors of Youth Boot Camps
- Teen Boot Camps: Does Your Troubled Teen Need a Juvenile Boot Camp?
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