ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996             TAG: 9602010038
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WALTERS
SOURCE: Associated Press 

BOOT CAMP TO TRY TO TURN LIVES AROUND

Fifteen young delinquents were awakened before dawn Wednesday in Spartan barracks where they will live under strict discipline for the next six months as the state opened its first boot camp for juveniles.

The privately run, military-style program is intended to set the teens on a course away from crime.

``We're going to break that pipeline into adult corrections,'' said David Dolch, a senior vice president of Youth Services International, a Maryland company that has a five-year, $8.5-million contract to operate the facility in Isle of Wight County.

Youth Services International operates about 20 similar camps in nine other states.

The first of the Virginia camp's residents arrived Tuesday. The boys, ages 13 to 17, are mostly nonviolent offenders sent into the program by juvenile court judges as an alternative to probation or youth correctional centers.

Youth Services International has spent the last six weeks fixing up the site, a 59-acre former adult prison camp near Windsor.

The camp's one-story buildings sit inside a tall fence topped by barbed wire. But force and restraint aren't what make the program work, said Maj. John Johnson, the camp's commander.

``We use respect and dignity,'' Johnson said. ``... You don't need guns, knives, bars or batons to control these youths.''

Camp staffers are not armed.

The camp day is busy. It begins at 5:30 a.m. and ends at 9:30 p.m. In between are classroom instruction, counseling, drilling, physical training and homework.

Eventually, the camp will keep 45 juveniles; 25 will come from Richmond, which is supporting the camp jointly with the Department of Youth and Family Services.

``Simply put, our mission is to take tax eaters and potential tax eaters and turn them into taxpaying citizens,'' Dolch said.

LENGTH: Short :   50 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. 1. Capt. James Beckwith, deputy commander of the 
          Virginia Juvenile Boot Camp, walks through the barracks. color. 2. 
          The facility that houses the boot camp was built in Isle of Wight 
          County in 1955 as Nansemond Correctional Unit No. 3. Graphic: Map by
          staff.