|
|
|
Days here were long and brutal, beginning at 5 a.m., when the boys were roused for a grueling hour or more of calisthenics. Then it was long-distance runs, hiking, more exercises. Discipline was tough. Drill instructors yelled at the boys, shoved them, used leg shackles or handcuffs on some who misbehaved. It was all part of Long's program to instill "honor, discipline and respect." Tony Haynes, 14, was one who wanted out. He'd been caught shoplifting a plastic action figure from a drugstore near his home in Phoenix. It was his first offense, and his mom, Melanie Hudson, a single parent, wanted to steer him from a life of truancy. Tony's therapist suggested Long's camp. It sounded like a godsend. "The instructors would get in Tony's face, they would not cut him any slack and they'd hold him responsible for his actions," says Hudson. They were promising, she said, "the same thing I was looking for." As punishment for wanting to quit, witnesses told authorities, Haynes was ordered to sit on the ground in 110-degree heat. After several hours, with dehydration baking his brain, Haynes started to hallucinate. He got down on his knees and shoveled dirt into his mouth. "I found water!" he cried. Then he collapsed. Counselors tried pouring water into him, but it was too late. Haynes was pronounced dead at 11 p.m. on July 1, 2001. The cause: "Complications of near drowning and dehydration due to heat exposure." They're called outdoor behavioral health care facilities, or "youth boot camps." Since springing up two decades ago, they've become a final refuge for frustrated parents who pay as much as $15,000 to put their child in a six-week program. State juvenile-justice systems, seeking alternatives to jail for kids with emotional or substance-abuse problems, or first-time offenders, also embrace the camps. There are over 100 wilderness and boot-camp programs operating in the United States, with more than 10,000 kids enrolled. More than half of the camps are operated by state juvenile-justice programs, from Texas to New York, Florida to California. It isn't cheap to run them. Texas, for example, budgets more than $22 million per year, a mix of federal and state funds, for its camps that serve 2800 kids. Another 50 or so of these camps nationwide are privately run. In many states they operate only on weekends or in four- to six-week intervals to skirt state licensing or inspection requirements that apply to full-time youth programs. "Some parents and juvenile courts don't care about the licensing. They just want a program where they can put kids. The system is so overwhelmed," says Doris MacKenzie, a University of Maryland professor who has studied boot camps. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Washington, D.C., estimates that 2.3 million kids under 18 go through the juvenile-justice system each year. With a glut of offenders, there are fewer resources for the 10,000 or so kids flirting with vandalism, theft or truancy, says R. Dean Wright, a criminology professor at Drake University in Iowa. It's those types of kids who end up in boot camps. Youth are put into the wilderness or in a military setting, where counselors create a disciplined atmosphere to steer kids straight through hard work, physical exercise and verbal sparring. Other camps feature a rigorous military style, from early morning marching drills to strenuous obstacle courses. All use strict discipline to keep their charges in line. For many, the camps work. Pedro Madrid, 13, attended a Chuck Long boot camp in 2000 and liked it enough that he wanted to continue with the program. Doreen Hurff was so happy with her son Justin's change of attitude after a Long camp that she enrolled her other son, Michael. But two decades of research and results have left juvenile-justice experts divided, says Jerry Wells of the Koch Criminal Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Topeka, Kansas. Today many former backers of the programs wonder if boot camps are any way to treat a kid. That's because since 1983, 35 children have died in boot camps. Gina Score, 14, died in 1999 at a state-run camp in South Dakota after she was forced to run in sweltering heat until she collapsed. The girl was then left unattended in the sun for hours. The parents of Aaron Bacon, 16, enrolled him in a 64-day program in Utah in 1994 because he was dabbling in marijuana. He lasted 30 days before dying of a perforated ulcer. Counselors ignored his symptoms. Beyond the deaths, thousands of children have suffered injuries -- many at the hands of their counselors -- ranging from broken bones and torn tendons to hypothermia and heat exhaustion. In 1996 Maryland ran several boot camps, with names like Savage Leadership Challenge. In March the state settled a class-action lawsuit brought by 900 former campers who charged physical abuse by boot-camp guards. There were documented cases of broken arms, fingers, teeth. One boy passed out after a guard stepped on his head. Another boy's face was slammed into a chalkboard. Yet another required stitches after a guard pushed him into a ditch. Maryland investigations found widespread evidence of physical abuse at the camps, and they were closed. Pushed Too
Hard
But statistics on such injuries are hard
to find. Even state-run camps aren't
required to file injury reports. Jodi
Beckley, who investigated boot camps for
Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hall, says
even parents don't file complaints.
"They are shame filled. They think it's
their fault. It isn't. The one mistake
they made was trusting a stranger with
their child."
Much of the problem lies in the camp philosophy. "They embrace in-your-face confrontation as the most effective means," says Wright. "The mantra is break the kid down so you can build him back up." Many of the camps -- even state-run camps -- operate along those lines. Counselors are little more than guards, former military personnel or retired police, who are told they have the authority to enforce strict discipline. "They create a climate where being physical is what you're pushing," says Mike Finley, an attorney formerly with the Washington-based Youth Law Center. "When you're telling staff, 'Here's our program, it's about punishing kids and being physical,' you're just asking for abuse." For $4000 per child, Chuck Long told parents his 35-day program developed "teamwork, desire, dedication, discipline, self-reliance and love." But he didn't employ a psychologist or child therapist, and many of his counselors, who oversaw as many as 87 kids per session, were volunteers from area military bases, with little training in such basics as first aid. Long doesn't have much formal training in juvenile counseling either. After a brief career as a Marine in the mid-1960s, Long joined the Washington, D.C., police in 1969, but quit after less than a year over what he terms a disagreement with superiors. In 1990, jumping on the boot-camp bandwagon, Long started his program, and then in 1994 tried to replicate it for Vision Quest, a national youth-intervention service. He was fired after a few months. Vision Quest officials won't say why. Despite his seemingly spotty record, Long says he got results. He used the Internet, referrals from child therapists and community events to promote his camps. He estimates he trained more than 350 kids, and took in as much as $200,000 per session. "Children have moved on to respect themselves, respect their parents. They're able to sit down in a classroom and learn. They're not lying, they're not cheating." However, Long's camps have been investigated for allegations of assault and child abuse. And a counselor faces an assault charge for the treatment of a camp kid in Arizona in 2000. There are some programs, like the privately run Anasazi wilderness camp in Arizona, that are working. The program screens the young people it accepts, and psychiatrists, therapists and medical personnel are on staff. Parents, too, undergo counseling. Anasazi claims fewer than five percent of its 3200 kids have needed more inpatient care after undergoing the rigorous 42-day trek through the wilderness. That kind of success comes with a price tag of $15,000. Despite Anasazi's better-than-average recidivism rate, criminal-justice experts say boot camps as a whole have failed because their results are no better than the programs they were meant to replace. A recent national survey by the University of Maryland found recidivism rates among boot-camp graduates were 49 percent, equal to the 50 percent recidivism rate for traditional juvenile-justice programs. In the wake of such findings, several states are rethinking their commitment to the tough love regimen. Georgia abandoned its camps, citing concerns about abusive behavior by staff. "Kids need structure and to be accountable," says Orlando Martinez, Georgia's commissioner of juvenile justice. "But they also need to have relationships. And that's difficult to do when you have a confrontational model such as boot camps. It's so easy to be abusive." Other states, such as Texas, Michigan, Florida and Virginia, still tout them. Texas Youth Commission Executive Director Steve Robinson says his agency's camps are successful. The cost -- about $90 per day -- and the recidivism rate -- 50 percent -- are comparable to other youth facilities. Michael Villa enrolled in Chuck Long's camp in 2000 because he hoped to learn the skills that would let him become a Marine, just like his dad. After failing to answer a counselor, according to the criminal complaint, Villa was dragged by his neckerchief until he blacked out, and was left unconscious in the desert. Once home, his father says, the boy had nightmares about his experiences. On June 26, 2001, he disappeared into a stand of ponderosa pines near his home, where he hanged himself. No one knows for sure what brought the young man to such a tragic end, but Villa's father believes Long's camp contributed to it. Long won't face charges in Villa's case. But the Maricopa County D.A. did charge him with second-degree murder in the death of Tony Haynes. Long won't comment on the case, but he does defend his program. "The children that come are children who have run away. Children who are truant. Children who are doing drugs, okay?" His program, he says, combats that. "It is not a trip to Disneyland, okay? Some children refer to it as a trip through hell. And we don't apologize for it." Maybe he should.
| |||||
|
