The Boot Camp Fad
In the past 20 years or so it has become fashionable for states to send their juvenile delinquents to “boot camps” on the other side of the country. The idiocy of this policy is only now becoming apparent. These faux boot camps treat incarcerated children preparing for life as though they were young adults volunteering for war. When the kids fail to do as their told, they get yelled at, roughed up and occasionally, beaten to death.
The decision to send juveniles to boot camp like settings is based on a faulty premise. At real boot camps, recruits receive training in how to become soldiers. They learn to use firearms and carry heavy munitions through hostile terrain. Soldiers need these skills before they ship out to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, where they will be asked to hunt down and kill people. That’s what war is all about.
These skills won’t help juvenile delinquents. At risk kids don’t need to carry around 60 pound packs or shoot someone from a distance of a hundred yards. These kids need life skills. They need to know how to keep their cool in stressful situations. They need to learn how to handle bad news without resorting to violence. And they need to know how to maintain gainful employment so that they can make a decent life for themselves. You can’t teach youngsters these lessons through physical or verbal abuse.
When children are confronted by a physically imposing drill sergeant, they will be intimidated. But those kids will grow up one day. Then they will intimidate others. That’s what they learn from life in “boot camp”. Do we really want a bunch of mini-warriors on our streets?
juvenile delinquency, boot camp, war, violent crime, get tough, crime prevention, prison
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:05 am
[…] California could seriously use some leadership when it comes to prison overcrowding. For decades California politicians have responded to rising crime rates by throwing more people in the slammer. Under the three strikes law, some convicts are serving life sentences for relatively minor offenses. Now a federal judge has appointed a judicial panel to consider capping the California prison population. That would lead to the early release of prisoners in order to relieve the overcrowding. In the meantime, juvenile delinquents get sent to out of state boot camps. […]
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