Boot camps have become a lightning rod for
controversy since 14-year-old
Martin Lee Anderson died a day
after being restrained, hit and
kneed at a boot camp in Bay
County.
As investigations into
Anderson's death continue, some
lawmakers are calling for the
state's few remaining boot camps
to be closed. And debate
continues on whether they can be
effective. The Leon County boot
camp, opened in 1994, went
through challenges of its own
until its closing in 2001.
The Leon County Sheriff's
Office's eight-month boot camp
opened about the same time as
the Bay County camp. But the
camp, located next to the Leon
County Jail, closed as the
institution began taking in
fewer juveniles from the
immediate area.
The Sheriff's Office was
contracted by the state
Department of Juvenile Justice
to run the moderate-risk
residential camp. Leon County
kicked in about $330,000 a year
and the state about $1.7
million.
"Boot camps were a type of
residential-moderate risk
program that provided a
quasi-military regimented
structure with a strong
educational component," Calvin
Ross, head of the Department of
Juvenile Justice from 1994 to
1999 said. Ross is currently the
chief of police at Florida A&M
University.
In the Leon County boot
camp's first year, nine cadets
filed a civil-rights lawsuit in
federal court against the
Sheriff's Office, Leon County
Commission and 15 drill
instructors, alleging physical
and mental abuse.
The suit fell apart when it
finally went to trial in early
1997. U.S. District Judge Robert
Hinkle dismissed the case
against 16 of the 17 defendants,
prompting the plaintiffs' lawyer
to persuade eight of her nine
clients to drop their claims.
Hinkle eventually threw out the
remaining case for lack of
evidence.
"Our agency found no
excessive use of force," Capt.
David Walker said.
Walker was the captain of the
boot camp from 1994 to December
1998. He said that the camp had
the DJJ abuse hot line number
posted all over the camp.
"If a kid felt like he was
abused, we put him on the hot
line and they called," Walker
said.
One of the Leon County boot
camp's problems, according to
the Sheriff's Office, was that
the camp started receiving too
many juveniles from other areas.
"The citizens of Leon County
were paying to rehabilitate kids
from far away," Campbell said.
The camp's effectiveness also
was questioned. A November 1996
report by DJJ showed that 71
percent of the teens in the Leon
boot camp's first five platoons
were re-arrested within one
year.
Ross said DJJ's system was
too "capacity driven" in how the
program assignments were made.
The statewide waiting list was
first priority.
"(We) were never able to work
out the fact that they needed to
come out of our area," Campbell
said. "As far as I'm concerned,
it got lost in the bureaucracy
of the system."
Walker acknowledges that the
boot camp wasn't a perfect
solution. He said there was not
enough structure in place to
reinforce the discipline that
the cadets learned in the camp
after they left. Walker
remembers one 17-year-old boy
who didn't want to leave the
camp because he had no place
good to go.
“A big old tear hit the
concrete," Walker remembers.
"(He told me) 'My mom's out
prostituting for crack.' What do
you do? The failure was the
aftercare.”
By 1998, local and state
officials agreed to overhaul the
program. They trimmed it to six
months and changed the name from
boot camp to drill academy. At
its peak, the academy held 60
offenders. The state's
definition of a drill academy
incorporated more schoolwork and
took teens who had committed
fewer crimes. But the academy
was short-lived. In 2001, the
boot camp closed its doors to
juveniles and opened them to
inmates at the overcrowded Leon
County Jail.
