ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 21, 1997 TAG: 9702210052
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
BOOT CAMPS are no panacea for juvenile crime, but they can be a helpful component of a broader offensive. And if Virginia is to have them, they must be put somewhere.
The Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Montgomery County offers some practical advantages as a site. We're partial to industrial-park uses. But, meantime, Rebound, a private company specializing in rehabilitating "early-stage" offenders, proposes to renovate barracks standing unused on a portion of the Army property.
Military cutbacks have left much of the arsenal vacant, and Alliant Techsystems Inc., the arsenal's contract operator, is looking to make use of the space. The 50-bed facility would create 35 jobs.
The boot camp would not be close to residential areas, and so is not likely to run into the kind of not-in-my-backyard opposition that can make necessary projects of this type controversial. Since the arsenal is a federal installation, Montgomery County has no jurisdiction over what is put there anyway. But that doesn't mean public response isn't wanted.
Rebound and Alliant, which would operate the boot camp jointly, are making an effort to explain the project and get feedback. A display was set up Thursday at the library in Christiansburg, and the plan is open for comments for several more weeks.
The boot camp wouldn't be for first-time offenders. But boys sent there would be nonviolent offenders, ages 12 to 17, who otherwise would go to a juvenile detention facility. Having this alternative is an important part of state efforts to fight juvenile crime.
Boot camps have been criticized as ineffective when youths who complete their sentences are dumped back into their old neighborhoods and left to slip back into old patterns of behavior. Obviously, prevention efforts are needed as well, to keep kids from getting into trouble in the first place or, failing that, to help them stay out of trouble once they've been through the discipline of boot camp.
Rebound puts young offenders through 120 days of it, followed up by six months of "after-care and supervision," which increases their chances of turning their lives around. The promise of that is reason enough to welcome the camp.
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB