In the fourth row of Alpha Platoon's calisthenics formation, a crew-cut young man is trying to stay in sync with his comrades. Out of shape, he loses his balance and stumbles during jumping jacks. He hopes no one has noticed this particularly ungraceful pirouette. He's out of luck. Major Robert E. Clay charges toward him: "Are you Dorothy Hamill or something?"
The young man snaps to attention: "Sir, no, sir!"Clay, the commander of this boot camp, is not satisfied. He orders the entire platoon to start the set again. With a chant of "Sir, motivation, sir!" they count off from zero.
Later, Clay explains why he made the whole platoon repeat the exercise. "We try to strip away this individuality crap," he says. "We teach them that what they do doesn't just affect them, but everyone around them."
It is a lesson most soldiers learn in basic training. But these young men are not in the armed forces. They are in jail, the Herman L. Toulson Correctional Boot Camp in Jessup, Md. They are on the front lines of the latest correctional assault on crime by young offenders, "shock incarceration," an approach that a growing number of states and even a few localities are adopting.
A typical day in a boot camp might consist of a 4 a.m. wake-up call, followed by a personal inspection and an hour of physical training - all before breakfast.
A 40-minute lunch break comes only after reveille and drug education classes, perhaps some counseling and then more physical exercise. The inmates can look forward to a four-hour work detail, such as roadside trash pickup, prior to dinner. The next three hours are occupied by additional physical training and drills, a flag ceremony and cleanup detail. Lights are out at 9.
Heralded as a less expensive alternative to traditional prison sentencing, boot camps are designed to build character and instill discipline in young first-time felony offenders who would otherwise be put behind bars. Inmates who complete the programs successfully are eligible for early release.
Critics of the boot camp programs say that they don't decrease recidivism and may not even save money in the long run. Nevertheless, 17 states currently operate camps, and nearly as many are considering similar programs. So are a number of counties.
The approach varies from state to state; some boot camp programs emphasize rehabilitation, others punishment. Maryland offers classes on drug addiction, decisionmaking and community leadership. Georgia and Florida focus more on hard labor and physical training.
Inmates, who generally range in age from 16 to 25, are usually admitted for non-violent felonies or drug-related crimes. Individual programs accept between 30 and 100 per class, for a duration of 90 to 180 days. Several states, including Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina, offer programs for women.
Georgia, one of the original states to open a boot camp, operates two and will soon open a third. State corrections officials have been pleased by the results.
"You're impacting young people," says David Evans, former commissioner of the Georgia Corrections Department who helped develop the state's first camp in 1983. "We're hoping to make the inmates aware of how tough things could be (had they been sent to prison)."
Nevertheless, critics see boot camp programs as a political quick fix, one in a series of corrections fads, such as the "scared straight" programs in which juvenile offenders are given a harrowing first-hand look at life inside prison walls.
"It's made for the Willie Horton era," says Jerome Miller, president of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, an advocacy group for criminal defendants. "It's great on TV, and it's a cheap and easy way to look as though you are doing something productive. Unfortunately, there's no evidence they work."
Others think the money would be better spent on substance abuse treatment or less restrictive measures such as probation or work release.
Part of the allure of a boot camp program rests in the belief that it is less costly than regular incarceration. Georgia officials reported last year that the average daily cost per offender was less than half the cost for an inmate in the general prison population, and Florida estimated its annual cost savings at $1.1 million.
Officials in New York, which operates five shock incarceration centers that can accommodate 1,700 inmates, estimate that their program has saved $5.1 million in cell space and inmate care for the first 321 graduates of the program. A camp for 12- to 16-year-olds is in the works.
Louisiana's program, which began in 1987, was the subject of a National Institute of Justice study. "When you balance all the costs, there was a savings for the state of Louisiana," says Doris MacKenzie, author of the study and a visiting senior research associate at the institute. MacKenzie found that 154 prison beds and $1.6 million were saved over one year - $783,193 for every 100 offenders who complete the IMPACT shock incarceration program.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service