Juvenile Delinquency :: essays research papers

BOOT CAMPS ARE A BAD ALTERNATIVE Boot Camps For Children are A Failure According To Substantial Media Research. Wilderness Therapy Treatment - A non-profit consumer protection information, health, safety, referral & education site. More Information: www.Wilderness-Therapy.Org E-mail: info@Wilderness-Therapy.Org Peter S. Canellos, Contributing Roporter, BOSTON GLOBE, April 30, 1989, PAGE: 29 SHERIFFS, LAWMAKERS EXPLORE ALTERNATIVES TO JAIL //acs-VT2000 At least one former supporter of boot camp has turned into a skeptic, however. Larry R. Meachum, who opened the first prisoner boot camp in the nation while serving as commissioner of corrections in Oklahoma, opposed such a proposal when it came up in Connecticut, where he now serves as corrections commissioner. Meachum, a one-time acting corrections commissioner in Massachusetts, cited three potential pitfalls in the program, said Connecticut corrections spokesman William Flower. - The"widening-net syndrome."Judges, seeing the boot camp as a positive alternative for jail inmates, will sentence to jail young delinquents who would otherwise be placed on probation, adding to the corrections population rather than reducing it. - Limited effectiveness."That 'scared straight' philosophy doesn't work for everyone,"Flower said."Some of the street toughs like it. They like the violence of it." - Brutality."It can lead to training instructors going into excess,"Flower said. Instructors have a hard time taming the street kids, he said, and respond, as in the military, by demanding more and more physical exercise. "He started the first one in the country in Oklahoma,"Flower said of Meachum."What he discovered is the support systems for the program have to be in place before you do a boot camp. It's not the simple solution that it appears to be. It's not the panacea that people think it is." AMERICA'S FOREMOST EXPERT ON BOOT CAMPS SAYS THEY DO NOT REDUCE RECIDIVISM -- THEY FAIL GARY MARX, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 12, 1994, From: NewsHound@sjmercury.com HARD TIME: BOOT CAMPS FORCE OFFENDERS TO SHAPE UP? \ acs-VT2000 ''The simplistic view that military and physical training will work (in reducing recidivism) is wrong,"says Doris MacKenzie, a University of Maryland criminologist who is the nation's foremost expert on boot camps. ''Many boot camps Use punishment for punishment's sake. They try to make it look tough for the public, but they are not doing what really works." BOOT CAMPS ARE NOT WORKING GARY MARX, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 12, 1994, From: NewsHound@sjmercury.com HARD TIME: BOOT CAMPS FORCE OFFENDERS TO SHAPE UP? \ acs-VT2000 There's only one problem: boot camps aren't working, or at least not as well as politicians and other proponents said they would.