Boot Camp

Youth crime and anti social behavior is on the increase and government has tried to improve the situation by adapting military style methods to correctional facilities. The majority of American states have a boot camp as an option for adolescents who have broken the law. A lot of state courts offer a stay in a camp as an alternative to a prison term or being put on probation but some states issue a sentence for the camps. These are normally for first time offenders and the period of stay is usually from 90 to 180 days. If the offender does not finish the time for some reason, then a prison term has to be served.

The camps are run on military lines with marches and exercises and are either residential or day facilities.  Boot Camp is designed to deal with young people of different ages and there are training schemes for various jobs and skills. There are also educational programs, opportunities for counseling and rehabilitation programs for drug addicts. The publicity for the camps is promoted in the phrase, 'scare kids straight' but several surveys into their effectiveness have not come to any final conclusion. Some experts believe that offending has decreased since the introduction of the Boot Camp at the beginning of the 1980s but others disagree.

The first of the camps opened in Oklahoma and Georgia as a means of tackling the growing problem of teenage crime and to alleviate the overflowing prison population. Some observers of the penal system say that prison is not the appropriate environment for young people as there is insufficient attention given to rehabilitation and they mix with hardened criminals, coming under their influence.

In addition to being an option for the courts, some parents actually send their children to Boot Camp with no agreement needed from the young person. Parents who do this are usually selecting this method as a last resort when their children are beyond their control. The camps are either run by government agencies or as private institutions and it is extremely costly for people to volunteer their children into the facility. Some parents are prepared for the financial hardship in order for someone to deal with their kid's problems. There have been some deaths amongst the population at Boot Camp and Florida has banned their use after an incident in which a young boy was beaten to death by guards.