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
Published March 5, 2006
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
