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Boot Camps Exempt From 'Pain Compliance' Ban
Harmful Techniques Were Outlawed at Other
Facilities for Youths in 2004.
By ALEX LEARY & CURTIS KRUEGER
February 26, 2006
TALLAHASSEE -- A month into his job, Anthony
Schembri already was making a splash.
The new head of Florida's juvenile justice agency
ceremoniously declared the end of aggressive force toward children in
state facilities.
"You can't teach compassion by modeling
callousness, and you can't teach respect for the law if you are showing
disrespect," Schembri said in the summer of 2004.
Unnoticed, however, was that Schembri's reforms did
not apply to workers at juvenile boot camps.
Now, with the camps thrust into the spotlight, some
question if the exemption cost a 14-year old boy his life.
"When you have a policy to protect kids, it has to
go across the board," said Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, who has
become a leading boot camp critic since last month's death of Martin Lee
Anderson in a Panama City boot camp.
The death came after Anderson was pushed, punched
and kneed by a half-dozen drill instructors and is the subject of a
criminal investigation. It also has triggered policy changes that could
ban the use of force at boot camps.
Critics say that means juvenile justice officials
now are doing what Schembri did not do two years ago.
"What do you say to (Martin's) mother? `Now we
understand it wasn't a good idea not to apply that policy to everyone?'
" Barreiro said. "Sorry doesn't cut it. He'll never come home."
Schembri, the brash-talking New Yorker who was the
model for the TV show "The Commish," declined to be interviewed for this
story.
A spokeswoman said Friday that he did not include
boot camps in the Youth Rights Policy because boot camps have a
different philosophy toward rehabilitation than other juvenile programs.
"It's not like one size fits all," Cynthia Lorenzo
said. Schembri, she said, knew local sheriffs operated the boot camps
and their staff had "superior training" to that of other juvenile
justice personnel.
But that training provides greater latitude for the
type of tactics used on Martin Anderson.
"They've created a culture that is susceptible to
abuse," said Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, a former federal
prosecutor.
Gelber said that even within the boot camps, there
are different standards of force. "With what we have now, I'm not sure
what the limits are," he said.
Critics say the differing standards reflect the
clout of Florida's sheriffs.
"Schembri doesn't want to offend the good old boy
network, the guys that believe that bashing a kid's face into a wall
works. Sheriffs have huge leverage," said Clearwater activist Cathy
Corry, who runs www.justice4kids.org, a Web site critical of the
Juvenile Justice Department.
Lorenzo could not say Friday whether Schembri spoke
to sheriffs about the policy change in 2004.
Whatever the case, he was not breaking tradition.
Sheriff's offices have been permitted more leeway since youth boot camps
began in Florida in 1993.
Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells, who opened
the first boot camp, said the in-your-face tactics were seen as
integral.
"It's a control factor . . . The boot camp would
fall flat on its face without that initial intake," he said.
Wells pointed out that Democratic Gov. Lawton
Chiles and fellow Democrats controlled state government at the time and
the concept was "unilaterally accepted."
The Department of Juvenile Justice did not exist
then; the former Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative
Services oversaw boot camps. The thinking at the time was sheriffs'
employees already were subject to extensive training and did not need
what HRS could offer, Lorenzo and others said.
Those regulations come under the state's Criminal
Justice Standards and Training Commission, a longstanding panel that
governs law enforcement.
Most boot camp employees are trained under the
defensive tactics component, which in 624 pages spells out how to take
down subjects and apply some of the very moves -- hammerlocks,
shoulderlocks and pressure points -- barred in other juvenile
facilities. Those facilities, which include wilderness camps and
standard juvenile detention facilities, follow the more restrictive
Protective Action Response policy.
"Too many youth have been injured in incidents with
these techniques," Schembri said in 2004. "While these holds may be
appropriate for an adult population, experience has shown us that it is
too easy to injure a young person when applying these holds. Physical
restraint should be applied only to prevent a youth from hurting himself
or others."
His memo disclosing those reforms did not mention
that boot camps were not affected.
Juvenile justice officials already have taken steps
to create a more uniform policy. A tentative list of changes that
surfaced this week bar use of "pain compliance" at boot camps.
Some could see that as an acknowledgement that past
practices fell short of the principles Schembri extolled two years ago.
"Hindsight is always 20/20," Caballero said. "It's
like when an accident happens at an intersection without a red light.
The first thing everybody usually does is call for a red light."
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