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Juvenile Boot Camps to Get New Policies
New rules will govern guards' use of force, the
state juvenile justice chief says, reacting to an inmate's death.
By ALEX LEARY and CURTIS KRUEGER
Published February 23, 2006
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TALLAHASSEE - The state will develop new policies
for juvenile boot camps, including how rough guards can be, the head of
the state Department of Juvenile Justice said Wednesday.
The proposed changes will include better medical
screening of inmates and uniform training of guards.
In his first public remarks since the death of a
teenager, Anthony Schembri said boot camps are a "proven crime
prevention method" and should remain open.
"What's good gets better. What's bad gets gone,"
Schembri said, one day after Bay County's sheriff said he would close
the Panama City camp where guards roughed up a teenager who later died.
Schembri met for about 40 minutes Wednesday with
Gov. Jeb Bush, who also has rejected calls for the immediate closing of
boot camps. Schembri revealed few specifics about the proposed
revamping, saying he needed to talk with sheriffs who run the programs.
The bid to save boot camps comes as the Legislature
begins debate on the future of the camps, amid growing signs of their
vulnerability.
"The burden of proof is on boot camps to prove they
need to be kept around," said House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City.
"This was a 1990s phenomenon; is it still a good thing to do?"
On Tuesday, Sheriff Frank McKeithen said he would
close within 90 days the boot camp where 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson
was kneed, kicked and punched by a half dozen or more guards.
The teenager died the next day, Jan. 6, in a
Pensacola hospital.
But it was not until two lawmakers saw a video
showing the beating that the case drew widespread attention.
Scrutiny grew more intense when a medical examiner
said last week that Martin died of internal bleeding caused by a rare
blood disorder, and not physical abuse.
The decision in Bay County leaves Florida with four
boot camps, though a Martin County facility will close this summer due
to funding issues.
Department of Juvenile Justice officials said
Wednesday there is no current plan to seek other contracts with
sheriff's offices.
Twenty-two youths are in the Bay County program and
12 are scheduled to complete it on March 7. The remaining 10 would be
placed into other "moderate risk" programs, according to the Department
of Juvenile Justice.
McKeithen said he would replace the boot camp with
a schoollike program for youths who have not been arrested "but are on a
road which, without intervention, will result in them becoming embroiled
in our legal system."
Normally effusive, Schembri had been silent on the
issue until Wednesday, even missing a legislative workshop on boot camps
last week. He said he did not want to comment on an ongoing
investigation.
But he said he felt strongly about the boot camps
as a concept.
"For some kids this is an option," he said. "It
strips away the attitudes and values" that got them in trouble in the
first place.
He dodged a question whether he supported what
McKeithen said was a necessary move given the controversy surrounding
the Bay County camp.
"That's his decision," Schembri said.
Schembri also declined to say who else was at the
meeting with Bush. He reached out by phone Wednesday to at least one
sheriff, Pinellas' Jim Coats.
Coats, through a spokesman, said he too found value
in boot camps but "that does not mean it will not take another form in
the future in order to best serve the youthful offenders in the area."
Among the areas the Department of Juvenile Justice
will look at are age requirements for boot camps, currently 14 to 17;
medical screening (a physical did not reveal Martin's blood disorder);
and use of force. Policies vary among the boot camps and guards have
more latitude to use force than in other juvenile detention areas.
"I think there should be a uniform guideline in how
they're all trained," Schembri said.
He said that after taking the job in May 2004, he
eliminated a chair that was in some cases used in restraints, and closed
down a girls boot camp in Polk County because he didn't think it was
meeting the needs of the girls.
"We had girls that were urinating in their pants,"
he said, adding that eight out of 20 met the criteria for post-traumatic
stress disorder.
* * *
Also Wednesday, the medical examiner who performed
Martin Anderson's autopsy acknowledged glaring mistakes in past reports,
including one that said a woman had male genitalia.
But he attributed the errors to a clerk who
transcribed his audio notes.
Dr. Charles F. Siebert also reasserted his ruling
that Martin died of the blood disorder, known as sickle cell trait, and
said he was confident it would stand up to additional scrutiny.
It is possible Hillsborough County State Attorney
Mark Ober, whom Gov. Bush chose to take over the death investigation
after a Panhandle prosector asked to be recused due to close ties with
Sheriff McKeithen, could have a new medical exam done.
"I'm not really worried about it," Siebert said.
Siebert drove to Tallahassee on Tuesday to renew
his medical license after the St. Petersburg Times and other news
organizations reported it had expired Jan. 31, before he signed off on
Anderson's autopsy.
"Honestly," he said, "I never got the renewal
notice."
* * *
Representatives of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition will
be going to Panama City on Saturday to look into the circumstances
surrounding the death of Anderson, according to group spokeswoman Jerry
Thomas.
Coalition founder the Rev. Jesse Jackson will not
be among the group.
Jackson has said he has the sickle trait, a gene
anomaly doctors say is found in one 12 black people. "Sickle cell
doesn't kill," Jackson said in a statement. "Beatings kill you."
Times staff writers Steve Bousquet and Abbie
VanSickle contributed to this report. Alex Leary can be reached at 850
224-7263 or aleary@sptimes.com
[Last modified February 23, 2006, 01:08:11]
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