Boot Camp and the Juvenile Justice Department

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) was established by the President and Congress through the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, Public Law 93-415. According to the report, training and technical assistance provides juvenile justice training and technical assistance to Federal, State and Local governments and for private agencies. Responding to increasing juvenile arrests, several states and localities established juvenile boot camps as well as former military personnel for private pay boot camps. These were modeled after the boot camps for adult offenders, the first camps emphasized military discipline and physical conditioning. In 1992, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention funded the development of three boot camps that were designed to address "the special needs and circumstances of juvenile offenders."

 Boot camps for the juvenile offenders summarizes the findings of Caliber¢¯Â¿Â½¯Â¿Â½s Interim Evaluation Reports, which "address such issues as the following: whether participants in juvenile boot camps receive the services prescribed for them, what impact the boot camps have on recidivism rates, what benefits juvenile offenders derive from boot camps, and whether juvenile boot camps are cost effective."
 
The document, which is available on the Internet through the Department of Juvenile Justice, provides an appropriate definition of a boot camp, the goals of the camps and the findings from different evaluations of the adult boot camps. It is without surprise that the actual definition of the term, boot camp is continued to be debated, even by the members of Juvenile Justice. Dr. MacKenzie, who has been studying adult boot camps since 1987, holds that defining the term "boot camp" has been a major issue and continues to remain one. The very use of the term "boot camp," in fact, with respect to the media, continues to conjure up a different set of values and meanings for anyone watching television commercials about boot camps.

With respect to the effectiveness of the boot camp, it has been an intermediate correction option for many teens that are consistently delinquent. However, not many of the boot camps live up to the standards set forth by the Department of Juvenile Justice, which include, at a minimum, the following in terms of criteria: (A) a military-style environment; (B) Separation of boot camp members from other parts of the facility at all times; (C) The participant¢¯Â¿Â½¯Â¿Â½s perception that boot camp is an alternative to a sentence in jail should be well-understood; (D) Some hard labor, depending upon the physical abilities of the participants and, obviously, after a thorough examination is performed; (E) A residential phase of at least six months; (F) a very regimented schedule that stresses discipline, physical training and labor when appropriate; (G) Education, depending upon the needs of the individual (particularly with respect to those who lack a high school education) and (H) Provisions for aftercare as appropriate that are coordinated with the program that is providing the period of confinement.