THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 1, 1996 TAG: 9601010049
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Kid Criminals
SOURCE: BY LAURENCE HAMMACK, ROANOKE TIMES
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
About four of every 10 young criminals sent to boot camp in Virginia either fail to complete the program or commit new crimes after they graduate.
Twenty-five percent of the nonviolent offenders who entered the Southampton Intensive Treatment Center between 1991 and last year were terminated for disciplinary or medical reasons. Of the young men who made it through the program, 27 percent have since been convicted of a felony or had their probation revoked.
A 1994 study by the Department of Corrections concluded that the boot camp is ``working well for a selected number of offenders who would probably have continued an increasingly serious life of crime.''
Gov. George F. Allen's Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform wants to make boot camps available to more offenders at younger ages.
Although boot camps may be successful with a captive audience, critics say, the discipline they instill is often replaced by the rules of the streets once offenders return home.
National studies have raised questions about the effectiveness of boot camps, consistently finding that graduates of the programs commit new crimes at only a slightly lower rate than similar offenders who are sent to prison.
But the concept remains popular among politicians looking for the right mixture of retribution and rehabilitation.
``It's got all of the components in one nice little sound bite,'' said Linda Nablo, senior policy analyst for the Action Alliance for Virginia's Children and Youth, a bipartisan group that is monitoring the juvenile justice issue.
``It's an easy answer to assume that if we make them march and shave their heads, then somehow they're going to suddenly grow up and become responsible,'' Nablo said.
The governor's Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform, in preliminary recommendations made in October, called for the creation of regional boot camps where judges can send juveniles in lieu of committing them to the Department of Youth and Family Services. Unlike the current system, offenders could be sent to boot camp against their will. MEMO: Sidebar to main article on page A1.
KEYWORDS: JUVENILE CRIMINALS ALTERNATIVE PRISON JUVENILE JUSTICE
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