Young Offender Boot Camps.

Young Offender Boot Camps

There are many issues to consider when dealing with the treatment of young offenders in the justice system. These young persons are vulnerable and a desired method of treatment needs to be obtained to ensure the children are dealt with effectively and rehabilitated to the best of their ability in order to become contributing members of society. A fairly new method which takes the place of incarceration for young people are boot camps which aim to decrease the rates of re-offending.

This alternative measure of incarceration has been utilized in the United States for over twenty years, and is, "Based on a military basic training model stressing discipline and physical conditioning." Because the origin of boot camps is American, and the idea is fairly new to Canada, most of the literature is American. Canada is slowly following in the United States' lead and developing similar programs.

"There are basically three types of boot camps: the military drilling style that focuses on strict discipline; the rehabilitative approach; and the educational/vocational model. Most of the current camps"mconcentrate on the military drill as their central theme." In 1985 the first juvenile boot camp was established in Orleans Parish, Louisiana. In 1987, only four state correctional system boot camp programs existed. In 1992 there were three pilot juvenile boot camps started in Ohio, Colorado, and Alabama. The offenders sent to these locations were non-violent offenders less than 18 years of age, and were to complete a three-month residential program and six to nine month aftercare program. However, there were reports of a lack of consistency and coordination in the aftercare programs which lead to substandard results as opposed to those high intentions of lower recidivism. By 1993 there were forty-six reported in thirty states. This number grew increasingly to boast...