This Week:

Quote of the Week

Boot Camps for Teens: Another Failed Approach - Part III in the "Fantasy Versus Reality" Series

Educate Yourself About Boot Camps

Educate Yourself About Drug Education

Greetings,

This week is Part 3 in the "Fantasy Versus Reality" series, the part that has to do with the phenomenon known as "boot camps" for juvenile offenders. Just like "Abstinence-Only" sex education and "Just Say No" drug education, this harsh and punitive approach to helping kids stay out of trouble does not work, and everybody knows it doesn't work, at least not in the ways it was designed to work Yet we still have these camps.

I do have a point in looking in so much detail at these approaches to sex, drugs, and crime that are so warmly embraced by the so-called "conservatives" that are running the country at the moment. That point I hope to make clear in next week's Nygaard Notes. The process: Understand what we're doing; understand why we're doing it; envision and work for different, life-affirming approaches, based on a different idea about how human beings are in the world.

For the first time this year, Nygaard Notes is not a double issue. I don't know what the heck got into me over the past month, but I think I've calmed down again, and hope to stick to regular-sized issues for a while. Or, maybe not - it may take some considerable space to talk about Social Security and taxes, and whatever else comes out in next week's 2nd Inaugural Address by the President. I'm also finishing a book I'd like to review, and who knows how long that will be? (I don't do many book reviews.) Then, also, I'm past due for a look at the performance of the media over the past month or two. And, of course, there's much to say about Iraq.

Until next week,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

From the Advertising column of the New York Times (All The News That's Fit To Print!) of January 4, 2005 comes this week's "Quote:"

"MADISON AVENUE is walking a fine line in determining its response to the South Asian tsunami. Advertisers, agencies and media companies are seeking ways to show that they care, but they are also striving to avoid the appearance of capitalizing on the disaster for commercial gain.

"How advertising addresses the relief efforts is important partly because of the increasing popularity of cause-related marketing, as a growing number of consumers look to spend money with companies they perceive are contributing to the greater good. But doing well by doing good, particularly post-9/11, usually works best when the public considers the attempts to be altruistic rather than self-promotional.

"'It's just not appropriate to plant your flag in a fresh wound,' said Cliff Sloan, the chief marketing officer of Inspire Your World, a company in Millburn, N.J., that publishes a magazine and Web site covering volunteerism and philanthropy."

Now, readers may think that the "fresh wound" comment is what made this the "Quote" of the Week. But, no. While that comment is pretty amazing, even more revealing of the perverted mentality of the public relations profession is the comment before that, the one about "doing well by doing good." In explaining what "works best," the writer says that the public has to "consider the attempts to be altruistic." They're not, of course, as the writer says: the motivation is to "SHOW that they care" by which they mean creating a perception among "potential customers" that they "care" about something other than getting more customers. Which they don't, as the "doing well by doing good" comment tells us.

So, Madison Avenue's "response" to the tsunami will only help the corporations "do well" if people believe that "doing well" (i.e., making more money) is not the point, even though it is. Confused? I hope so, since that likely means that you are not accustomed to thinking in the Alice In Wonderland way that modern-day public relations professionals do.

Boot Camps for Teens: Another Failed Approach Part III in the "Fantasy Versus Reality" Series

Along with the rise of "chastity" as a motivating force in sex education (1982) and the birth of the DARE program of drug education (1983) came the idea of "boot camps" for juvenile offenders. In 1983, the first boot camps - also called "work camps," "challenge camps," "shock incarceration programs" and "motivational camps" - began operating in Georgia and Oklahoma. According to the National Mental Health Association (NMHA), "Juvenile boot camps are correctional programs for delinquent youth in a military-style environment...[that] typically emphasize discipline and physical conditioning and were developed as a rigorous alternative to longer terms of confinement in juvenile correctional facilities."

There were various goals for creating these "alternatives," but the main ones were to "maximize deterrence while simultaneously reducing costs." The costs of putting kids in prison, that is. The idea, apparently, was that a total immersion in a military-style environment would insure that the teen will "become disciplined" or, as writer Chris Booker says, "by totally occupying the waking day with an arduous regimen of labor on work details, the values of hard work and earning an honest living will be instilled in the inmate." Most of the inmates in boot camps are non-violent, first-time offenders, for whom the harsh conditions are imagined to be a deterrent keeping them from progressing into a life of crime.

It's unclear exactly how many boot camps are still around. There were, at one point in the 1990s, about 75 of them, some for adults, some for juveniles. There are fewer now - maybe 50 or so - as many jurisdictions have figured out that they don't work. They don't work, that is, in terms of any of the goals that have been put forward for them. Here are a few of those goals:

1. Boot camps reduce recidivism (that is, they reduce the number of repeat offenses committed by program participants after being released) and prevent crime. Study after study shows that boot camps not only don't reduce recidivism, they may increase it. As a report by the U.S. Justice Department (Clinton version) said in 2001, "Compared to traditional forms of incarceration, boot camps produced no significant effects on recidivism in three out of four evaluations and trends toward increased recidivism in two. The fourth evaluation showed significant harmful effects on youths, with a significant increase in recidivism."

These findings were reiterated in a report just released this past October, by the National Institutes of Health (Bush version), which said: "Programs that rely on 'scare tactics' to prevent children and adolescents from engaging in violent behavior are not only ineffective, but may actually make the problem worse... [An independent state-of-the-science panel] found that group detention centers, boot camps, and other 'get tough' programs often exacerbate problems by grouping young people with delinquent tendencies, where the more sophisticated instruct the more naïve." To put it in plain language, such programs often "provide an opportunity for delinquent youth to amplify negative effects on each other."

The conservative Koch Crime Institute said in a 1999 study, "Research has shown that the fear of being incarcerated at a boot camp or tough punishment has not deterred crime."

There are many more studies on boot camps and recidivism, but they all say pretty much the same things.

2. Boot camps save money. Boot camp sentences are generally shorter than the prison sentences that would have been imposed, which reduces costs. However, in many cases an offender is sentenced to boot camp instead of being placed on probation, in which cases the costs are far higher for boot camp. As far as the per-day costs of boot camps, studies show that they are sometimes higher and sometimes lower than the costs of placing the same person in prison. Also, if the recidivism rates for boot camp graduates are actually higher than they would have been - as some studies indicate - then the costs of the extra incarcerations make such programs ineffective as cost-saving plans.

3. Boot camps build character and self-discipline. I'll just quote the NMHA here: "Experts agree that a confrontational approach is not appropriate. Most correctional and military experts agree that a confrontational model, employing tactics of intimidation and humiliation, is counterproductive for most youth in the juvenile justice system. The use of this kind of model has led to disturbing incidents of abuse. For youth of color (who represent the vast majority of the juveniles sentenced to boot camps) - as well as for youth with emotional, behavioral, or learning problems - degrading tactics may be particularly inappropriate and potentially damaging. The bullying style and aggressive interactions that characterize the boot camp environment fail to model the pro-social behavior and development of empathy that these youth really need to learn."

A couple of other points are worth making. Boot camps have a high drop-out rate (that is, as many as half of the inmates fail to graduate in some programs). By emphasizing individual discipline and obedience to authority, the program puts all the responsibility on the internal psychological landscape of the teen, often (but not always) ignoring the context of family and community to which the offender will be returning upon release. The Office of Justice Programs of the U.S. Department of Justice has suggested that, for boot camps to be effective, they must incorporate a full range of rehabilitative services and programs, including education, substance abuse treatment, individualized case management, mental health care, and intensive postrelease supervision.

What Works

The expert panel I referred to above was convened by the National Institutes of Health to look at ways of "Preventing Violence and Related Health-Risking Social Behaviors in Adolescents."

The final report of that panel just came out a couple of weeks ago, and it found that there are a lot of good ideas for helping kids in trouble with the law. The summary pointed out that "Among the important characteristics that [successful] programs have in common are a focus on developing social competency skills, a long-term approach, and family involvement." Specific approaches mentioned include Functional Family Therapy and Multisystemic Therapy. The Promising Practices Network, run by the mainstream RAND Corporation, has a list of "Proven and Promising Programs" that decrease teen violence. Other studies indicate that programs like Head Start, which aren't "crime prevention" programs, not only prepare kids for school but also keep them out of trouble with the law in adolescence and beyond.

Educate Yourself About Boot Camps

Here are a few resources for those who wish to know more about boot camps.

A very brief, straightforward overview of boot camps comes from the National Mental Health Association, at http://www.nmha.org/children/justjuv/bootcamp.cfm

There is sort of an odd group called Boot Camps For Struggling Teens that has some good basic information and a list of alternatives to boot camps. They're at http://www.boot-camp-boot-camps.com

A good, longer, overview of the boot camp phenomenon in the U.S. comes from the John Howard Society of Alberta, Canada (1998). It's called "BOOT CAMPS: ISSUES FOR CANADA, and is on the web at: http://www.johnhoward.ab.ca/PUB/C34.htm

The best source for horror stories about the abuse and even death that often takes place in boot camps is the group "Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education." Find their boot camp information at http://www.nospank.net/boot.htm

For a good summary look at the larger issue of teen violence and what to do about it, see the rather lengthy report from the National Institutes of Health released just this month, called "Preventing Violence and Related Health-Risking Social Behaviors in Adolescents." It's on the web at http://consensus.nih.gov/ta/023/YouthViolenceFinalStatement011805.htm

There are lots more reports, from private groups, academia, etc. Write to me if you want a more complete list, including lots of programs that work.

Educate Yourself About Drug Education

I didn't have room last week to list resources for further education on the issue of drug education in the United States, so here are a few:

Official DARE website: http://www.dare.com

The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) is the best advocate for the approach to drug abuse commonly known as "harm reduction." On their website they say, "We envision new drug policies based on science, compassion, health and human rights and a just society in which the fears, prejudices and punitive prohibitions of today are no more." My vision, exactly. Find them at http://www.drugpolicy.org/ Read about their "Safety First" drug education project for parents of adolescents at http://www.safety1st.org/ The DPA also has on their website the most extensive bibliography of sources on the DARE program that I have seen: http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/bibliography/darebibliog/

The Drug Reform Coordination Network has a special section on their website called: "A Different Look at DARE:" http://www.drcnet.org/DARE/

If, for whatever reason, you would like to know what the Bush administration officially says about their strategy for drug control, go to: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/03ndcs/index.html

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has a program in their Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration called the "National Registry of Effective Programs and Practices," which I fondly refer to as "SAMHSA NREPP." They published a list of "Promising and Proven Substance Abuse Prevention Programs" in 2001, and you can get a copy by calling them at 1-800-729-6686 or you can look at a PDF version on the web at http://www.preventiondss.org/macro/csap/dss_portal/portal_content/926200115610/2Promising.pdf There's a 2002 version, also, but it's 350 pages long, so you'd have to be a real maniac to plow through that one. But, if you want to, it's at http://www.modelprograms.samhsa.gov/pdfs/CSAPScienceReportFINAL.pdf

The U.S. Department of Education has a similar list, also from 2001, which comes out of their "Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Program." It's called "Exemplary and Promising Programs--2001" and can be found at http://about.preventiondss.org/html/documents/DoE/ed_list.htm