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Boot Camps Losing Favor Nationally
A number of states have closed the facilities, but
Florida is working to save them, despite arguments that they aren't
successful.
By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer
Alex Leary 850 224-7263
Published March 5, 2006
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Tony Haynes and Gina Score were 14 when they were
sent to boot camp, he for slashing tires and she for shoplifting Beanie
Babies. The experience was supposed to turn their lives around.
Instead, it killed them.
Tony died after he was forced to stand for hours in
Arizona's 112-degree heat, punishment for asking to go home. Gina
collapsed after a 2.7-mile run in South Dakota. Guards, convinced she
was faking, left her on the ground for three hours.
Their deaths intensified debate over boot camps
several years ago. Once considered cutting edge, they have fallen out of
favor because of high recidivism rates and accusations of brutality.
A number of states - including Alabama, Arizona,
California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon and
South Dakota - have closed boot camps.
"The boot camp fad is over," said Melissa Sickmund,
a researcher with the National Center for Juvenile Justice in
Pittsburgh.
Not in Florida.
Two months after 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson
died following a violent encounter with drill instructors in Bay County,
the state is defying the trend and working to save boot camps, despite
some lawmakers' demands to close them.
"It's inappropriate to govern at the margins, to
create an entire policy based on a tragic event," Gov. Jeb Bush said
last week. "It is more than appropriate to review procedures that
dictate or govern how these facilities are run."
With the backing of the governor and the sheriffs
who run boot camps, the Department of Juvenile Justice is rewriting
policy to bar some physical restraints and improve medical care.
"We still believe boot camps are a viable option,"
said department spokeswoman Cynthia Lorenzo.
But many juvenile justice experts say the state -
out of pride or ignorance - is blowing an opportunity to divert
resources to more successful programs.
"What gives?" asked Thomas Blomberg, a Florida
State University criminology professor who recently testified before a
legislative panel on boot camps.
"In light of all the evidence, which is now almost
two decades old, showing with unbroken frequency that boot camp programs
do not work, why do some want to cling to them?"
Doris MacKenzie, a University of Maryland professor
who has studied boot camps, was surprised that Florida plans to stick
with the program.
"I don't know why they would save it unless they
reject the science," she said.
Figures from the Juvenile Justice Department show
the recidivism rate for the state's boot camps has increased since the
camps were introduced in the early 1990s. Records show that 62 percent
of graduates from the several camps around the state are arrested again
after being released - a rate experts call high.
Martin County's boot camp is considered among the
best of the state's 142 male residential programs, but it is closing
this summer due to funding problems. Its success, officials concede, had
less to do with the in-your-face antics that define boot camps and more
with the educational and aftercare components that help youths return to
society.
The Bay County boot camp in Panama City also is
closing because the sheriff who runs it says it is too controversial.
That leaves the state with three boot camps: Manatee, Pinellas and Polk.
"Boot camps are not inherently bad, depending on
how they are done," said Daniel Macallair, executive director of the
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco. "The problem
is a lot of states that jumped on the bandwagon did for publicity's sake
to demonstrate they are tough on crime.
"So instead of developing a well-run program, that
sentiment gets translated to staff, and when kids don't follow orders,
they resort to physical force. You end up having a series of abuses that
culminate in a horrible tragedy, and then everyone says, "How did this
happen?"'
* * *
That was the case in Maryland.
Boot camps opened there in 1996 with the philosophy
of breaking kids down to build them up. From the outset, guards
routinely beat youths, inflicting cuts and bruises and occasionally
breaking bones.
The problem was not exposed until a reporter for
the Baltimore Sun wrote about the camps in late 1999. The reporter, Todd
Richissin, was invited into the camps and witnessed abuse firsthand - an
indication of how accepted it was.
Maryland was forced to close the camps and pay 890
former delinquents more than $4-million. Ten of the most severely beaten
shared $1-million.
Georgia's boot camps, which opened in 1994, were
the subject of a 1998 report by the Justice Department, which found
juveniles were put in choke holds and slammed into walls by guards.
"The paramilitary boot camp model is not only
ineffective, but harmful to such youths," the report stated. Georgia
closed its boot camps the next year.
By then, the national sentiment was turning.
Studies showed recidivism rates were no better, and in some cases worse,
than traditional juvenile facilities. The camps were not as cost
effective as thought because youths who had minor offenses were brought
into the system. And because they tended to get arrested again, they
ended up in jail or prison. Abuse allegations piled up, as did
high-profile deaths.
"It constantly amazes me how we get caught up in
these movements without any shred of evidence that they work," Orlando
Martinez, who headed Georgia's Juvenile Justice Department at the time,
said in an interview Friday.
How many states had boot camps and scrapped them is
unknown. No agency, including the federal government, maintains that
kind of tracking. But available data and newspaper archives illustrate
the trend.
Adding to the mix are private facilities. Some
states, such as Arizona, severed ties with boot camps, but private
companies continued to operate them.
Tony Haynes was sent to the Buffalo Soldiers camp
near Phoenix in July 2001 after his mother reached her limit. Many other
parents saw the camp as a last-ditch effort to straighten up their
children.
Haynes' death brought out reports of youths being
forced to eat dirt and ordered to lie down as guards ran over their
chests. The camp was closed, and its director was sentenced to six years
in prison.
By 2002, Arizona moved to eliminate loopholes
allowing for private camps, furthering the national trend away from the
programs.
* * *
The conversation did not bypass Florida, which
opened boot camps in 1993. State officials were aware of shortcomings,
but without major lawsuits or attention-grabbing deaths, the programs
continued with little question, even as recidivism studies showed they
were ineffective.
State officials insisted the boot camps were
different from others because they emphasized education and provided
support as youths returned to society.
"You don't hear about the big rush to build boot
camps like you used to, but I'm not prepared to say their time has come
and gone," Jay Plotkin, a Duval county prosector, told the Florida
Times-Union in February 2000.
Then came Martin Lee Anderson's death.
Suddenly, Florida's boot camp system was national
news and the debate began anew. Newspapers ran editorials calling for
their demise. A small yet vocal group of lawmakers echoed the refrain.
"Being tough on crime, whether a Democrat or
Republican, is good politics," said state Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami
Beach, a strident boot camp critic. "But we can't put kids back on the
street who are ticked off. What we're doing is setting these kids up for
failure."
Gov. Bush and others acknowledge the criticism but
insist boot camps have a place in Florida. This week, the Juvenile
Justice Department could release its plan to recast boot camps as a less
intimidating, more supportive place.
Some say it is a wasted effort. "Let's face it, if
you're hollering in somebody's face, that's not going to stop them from
being a bully," said state Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville. "Does there
have to be another death before we shut them down?"
Staff writer Joni James contributed to this report.
Alex Leary can be reached at 850 224-7263 or aleary@sptimes.com
[Last modified March 5, 2006, 00:52:12]
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