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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 4, 1993                   TAG: 9301040244
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Staff
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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CORRECTIONS

CORRECTIONS officials caution that it's too early to declare success, but Virginia's fledgling "boot camp" program for young, non-violent criminals appears to be working well.

So far, an estimated 85 percent of the military-style camp's "graduates" have not returned to crime - which is a better record than similar camps in other states have been able to achieve, and considerably better than recidivism rates with traditional incarceration.

Granted, the boot camp is less than two years old - so the 18- to 24-year old males who've been through the highly structured, physically rigorous 90-day corrections program have not been back in their communities long enough for an accurate recidivism rate to be established. But if early indications hold up, it may be less than half that of the state's overall corrections system.

That's good news indeed, especially for citizens too often victimized by repeat offenders who have not been rehabilitated in traditional prison programs. All citizens are victimized, in a manner of speaking, when their taxes must go in growing sums to build more prisons and to support criminals behind bars.

The hope is that the boot-camp concept, as an alternative to customary corrections programs, will prove in the long run as promising as it now appears. In the meantime, state officials should be looking to expand the boot camps, and studying other promising alternatives.

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