Boot camp sends off last grads
The state boot camp in Stuart
welcomed boys from five counties and became a statewide model.
On Friday, after 15 graduated, it closed.
By
Michael C. Bender
Palm Beach Post
Staff Writer
Saturday, June
10, 2006
NEWS 12 Video:
Boot camp graduation
STUART
— After receiving his high school diploma from the Martin County
sheriff on Friday, Matthew Gonzalez fell into the outstretched
arms of the burly boot camp commander.
"He kept me in this program and
out of jail," Gonzalez said of Capt. Lloyd Jones. "He helped me
get discipline and religion."
The Port St. Lucie teenager
enrolled in the boot camp two years ago when stealing cars and
committing burglaries threatened to end his future before it
began.
But while the graduation signaled
a new beginning for Gonzalez and 14 of his fellow cadets, it
also marked an end for one of the state's most successful
juvenile justice programs.
"If we get a new governor who is
a little more enlightened to the realities of the juvenile
justice system and law enforcement in general, maybe it will
have a chance to get rekindled," Martin County Sheriff Robert
Crowder said. "You have to pay sufficiently to get the job done
correctly, because it's too important to not do it right."
Crowder decided to close the boot
camp program after state lawmakers continually refused to meet
his budget requests. The boot camp is a state Department of
Juvenile Justice program that serves offenders from Martin, St.
Lucie, Indian River, Okeechobee and Palm Beach counties.
Legislators seemed willing to
reconsider Crowder's request in January when 14-year-old Martin
Lee Anderson died after being punched and forced to inhale
ammonia at a Panama City boot camp.
The death received national
attention when separate autopsy reports drew competing reasons
for the boy's death. The official report showed Martin died of
natural causes due to sickle-cell trait — a genetic blood
disorder primarily affecting African-Americans — while a coroner
hired by the family blamed the death on guards suffocating the
boy. Gov. Jeb Bush appointed a special prosecutor to investigate
the case. No charges have been filed.
The death also shined a light on
the Martin County camp, which ranked as the second most
effective of the state's many juvenile justice programs as the
other four boot camps struggled with high recidivism
rates.
State officials toured the Martin
County camp and passed the Martin Lee Anderson Act, which
retooled the statewide program in the image of the Martin County
camp, known as the Juvenile Offender Training Center. Gov. Jeb
Bush signed it.
But funding came up short of the
$3.8 million Crowder wanted for the Martin site, and on
Friday the camp in Stuart closed.
State Rep. Joe Negron, head of
the House Appropriations Committee and, like Crowder, a Stuart
Republican, said that Palm Beach County should have paid the
difference because that is where about one-third of the camp's
boys come from.
"The harder I work, the more
unhappy he has been with the results," Negron said Thursday of
the sheriff. "I used every bit of clout that I have to get more
money for the boot camp."
Crowder said legislators used
"circular logic" with the Martin boot camp: They used the camp
to design the new state program, but turned down the budget
request because other camps spend less money.
"My impression is that everybody
was trying to protect themselves politically and they were not
putting the citizens of Florida first," Crowder said. "They
didn't want to spend the money."
But despite an awkward end to the
Martin County camp, the graduation was a cause for celebration
for cadets such as Jamelle Smith, who planned to show his
diploma to his brother and sister in Delray Beach.
"I've had to take things into my
own hands at home," the 18-year-old said. "My brother and sister
look up to me as a role model, and I'm very proud of myself that
I got this diploma.
"Now I can show them and teach
them that, yeah, people make mistakes in life. But you can learn
from your mistakes."
Staff writer Brian Crowley
contributed to this story.
