MENU TITLE: Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders Series: OJJDP Published: September 1997 60 pages 129,444 bytes ------------------------------ Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420. ------------------------------ Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders Program Summary A Publication of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention ------------------------------ Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) was established by the President and Congress through the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974, Public Law 93-415, as amended. Located within the Office of Justice Programs of the U.S. Department of Justice, OJJDP's goal is to provide national leadership in addressing the issues of juvenile delinquency and improving juvenile justice. OJJDP sponsors a broad array of research, program, and training initiatives to improve the juvenile justice system as a whole, as well as to benefit individual youth-serving agencies. These initiatives are carried out by seven components within OJJDP, described below. Research and Program Development Division develops knowledge on national trends in juvenile delinquency; supports a program for data collection and information sharing that incorporates elements of statistical and systems development; identifies how delinquency develops and the best methods for its prevention, intervention, and treatment; and analyzes practices and trends in the juvenile justice system. Training and Technical Assistance Division provides juvenile justice training and technical assistance to Federal, State, and local governments; law enforcement, judiciary, and corrections personnel; and private agencies, educational institutions, and community organizations. Special Emphasis Division provides discretionary funds to public and private agencies, organizations, and individuals to replicate tested approaches to delinquency prevention, treatment, and control in such pertinent areas as chronic juvenile offenders, community-based sanctions, and the disproportionate representation of minorities in the juvenile justice system. State Relations and Assistance Division supports collaborative efforts by States to carry out the mandates of the JJDP Act by providing formula grant funds to States; furnishing technical assistance to States, local governments, and private agencies; and monitoring State compliance with the JJDP Act. Information Dissemination Unit informs individuals and organizations of OJJDP initiatives; disseminates information on juvenile justice, delinquency prevention, and missing children; and coordinates program planning efforts within OJJDP. The unit's activities include publishing research and statistical reports, bulletins, and other documents, as well as overseeing the operations of the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse. Concentration of Federal Efforts Program promotes interagency cooperation and coordination among Federal agencies with responsibilities in the area of juvenile justice. The program primarily carries out this responsibility through the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, an independent body within the executive branch that was established by Congress through the JJDP Act. Missing and Exploited Children's Program seeks to promote effective policies and procedures for addressing the problem of missing and exploited children. Established by the Missing Children's Assistance Act of 1984, the program provides funds for a variety of activities to support and coordinate a network of resources such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; training and technical assistance to a network of 47 State clearinghouses, nonprofit organizations, law enforcement personnel, and attorneys; and research and demonstration programs. The mission of OJJDP is to provide national leadership, coordination, and resources to prevent juvenile victimization and respond appropriately to juvenile delinquency. This is accomplished through developing and implementing prevention programs and a juvenile justice system that protects the public safety, holds juvenile offenders accountable, and provides treatment and rehabilitative services based on the needs of each individual juvenile. ------------------------------ Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders Program Summary Michael Peters David Thomas Christopher Zamberlan Caliber Associates Shay Bilchik, Administrator Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention September 1997 ------------------------------ U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 810 Seventh Street NW. Washington, DC 20531 Janet Reno Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice John C. Dwyer Acting Associate Attorney General Laurie Robinson Assistant Attorney General Shay Bilchik Administrator Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention This report was prepared by Caliber Associates under contracts OJP-91-C-011 and OJP-95-C-006 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of Justice. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime. ------------------------------ Foreword Responding to increasing juvenile arrests, several States and localities established juvenile boot camps. Modeled after boot camps for adult offenders, the first camps emphasized military discipline and physical conditioning. In 1992, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded the development of three boot camps designed to address the special needs and circumstances of juvenile offenders. With the assistance of Caliber Associates, OJJDP undertook impact evaluations of these pilot programs in Cleveland, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Mobile, Alabama. Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders summarizes the findings of Caliber's Interim Evaluation Reports, which address such issues as the following: whether participants in juvenile boot camps receive the services prescribed for them, what impact juvenile boot camps have on recidivism rates, what benefits juvenile offenders derive from boot camps, and whether juvenile boot camps are cost effective. Because previous research had focused on adult boot camps, OJJDP convened a panel of distinguished juvenile researchers and practitioners in 1995 to turn the research spotlight on juvenile boot camp programming. Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders reviews the topics addressed by the experts, including a definition of "boot camp," goals of juvenile boot camps, and findings from evaluations of adult boot camps. Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders concludes with a description of further initiatives undertaken by OJJDP and other Office of Justice Programs agencies in support of juvenile boot camps. An extensive bibliography is also included. I believe that the background information and interim research results presented here will serve as useful material for legislators, policymakers, practitioners, and citizens in areas that are considering boot camps as one disposition option for juvenile offenders. For communities that decide to give this option a try, knowledge of the basic issues, potential pitfalls, and resources available should help to maximize their chances of developing an effective boot camp program to help steer juvenile offenders back onto the pathway to responsible citizenship. Shay Bilchik Administrator Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention ------------------------------ Acknowledgments Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders was written under the direction of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Special thanks go to Eric Peterson of the Research and Program Development Division, who patiently guided various drafts through the review and production process. Professional staff at Caliber Associates who contributed to the research and interim reports upon which the cross-site summary report is based include Cynthia Gimbel, Ph.D., Georgia Laxton, Ph.D., Stephanie Bullman, Kathleen Albright, Margareth Opanga, Michael Afflerbach, and Gerald Croan. Caliber's research design for the evaluation and the drafts of the interim reports were reviewed by David Altschuler, Ph.D., Doris MacKenzie, Ph.D., and Donna Hamparian. A debt of gratitude is owed to the public-private partnerships in the three sites that participated in the juvenile boot camp demonstration and cooperated in data collection and reporting: the Juvenile Court Division of the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and the North American Family Institute in Cleveland, Ohio; the Colorado Office of Youth Services and New Pride in Denver, Colorado; and the James T. Strickland Youth Center of the Juvenile Court of Mobile County and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Mobile in Mobile, Alabama. The final editing of this document was performed by Janet McNaughton of the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse. Her sensitivity to language and organization and her commitment to accuracy are greatly appreciated. ------------------------------ Table of Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction Issues in the Design and Operation of Juvenile Boot Camps: A Roundtable Discussion Threshold issues A definition of "boot camp" The goals of juvenile boot camps Findings from evaluations of adult boot camps Issues concerning the selection of youth Issues surrounding the residential phase Boot camp size Boot camp design The best model to induce behavioral change Aftercare issues Crosscutting issues Management and staffing The need for evaluation and monitoring Conclusions Evaluation of the Impact of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders: Cross-Site Summary Report Background Program characteristics Expected sentence in absence of boot camp Characteristics of the residential phase Characteristics of the aftercare phase Operational issues Youth served Youth demographics Prior adjudications Committing offense Program outcomes Positive youth outcomes Postrelease recidivism Boot camp cost effectiveness Lessons learned Program planning and operations Program evaluation Conclusion What We Know and What We Want To Know Positive change during confinement Recidivism Positive indicators of adjustment following release Cost effectiveness Conclusion Office of Justice Programs Initiatives Program implementation Technical assistance workshop Grant awards Training and technical assistance Juvenile boot camps national satellite teleconference National boot camp workshop Program evaluation Endnotes Bibliography ------------------------------ Introduction In response to increases in juvenile crime and the high cost of traditional confinement, the number of boot camps for juvenile offenders has grown in the last several years. Concurrently, much has been learned about juvenile boot camps and about their effectiveness as an intermediate corrections option. This Program Summary brings together diverse sources of information to address the questions, obstacles, and pitfalls that are likely to arise in planning and operating a boot camp for juvenile offenders. It is intended to provide a conceptual framework and practical guide for policymakers, corrections officials, and service providers who are weighing decisions about implementing or expanding juvenile boot camp programs. Drawing both on a roundtable discussion convened by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and on published research, the first section of this Program Summary examines basic, critical issues in the design and operation of juvenile boot camps. The second section presents the major findings of the Nation's first multisite experimental evaluation of the impact of juvenile boot camps, all of which were developed under an initiative funded by OJJDP and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). The third section reviews the lessons learned from this multisite evaluation in the light of available research and raises questions for future inquiry. The Summary concludes with a discussion of ongoing Office of Justice Programs (OJP) initiatives that provide support for planning, implementing, and evaluating juvenile boot camps. ------------------------------ Issues in the Design and Operation of Juvenile Boot Camps: A Roundtable Discussion A considerable body of thought concerning correctional boot camps has evolved from the inception of the first adult camp in 1983 through the development of the current juvenile camps. Several studies have surveyed the status of boot camps (Parent, 1989; MacKenzie and Souryal, 1991; Austin, Jones, and Bolyard, 1993; U.S. General Accounting Office, 1993; Cronin and Han, 1994). MacKenzie and Hebert's Correctional Boot Camps: A Tough Intermediate Sanction, published by the National Institute of Justice in 1996, provides the most recent comprehensive assessment of the state of the art. Most of the research to date has dealt with adult boot camps. To bring the focus of research to bear on juvenile boot camp programming, OJJDP convened a roundtable meeting of leading researchers and practitioners in juvenile justice in June 1995. The speakers included Doris MacKenzie, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, who has conducted numerous research studies on boot camps; Dale Parent, of Abt Associates, Inc., who has also studied boot camps for several years; and David Altschuler, Ph.D., of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies, who is Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator of an OJJDP-funded study to design the Intensive Aftercare Program model [1]. This chapter presents the issues raised in the roundtable discussion, starting with threshold issues such as definition and goals and proceeding through screening and selection, residential treatment, and aftercare, and concluding with crosscutting issues. The points raised in the discussion are supplemented with information from other sources (see bibliography). The entire discussion has not been summarized, nor has an attempt been made to do a complete summary of the existing research on boot camps. The intent in presenting this material is rather to facilitate review of the critical issues in the development and operation of juvenile boot camps. ------------------------------ Threshold issues Certain threshold issues should be considered prior to any discussion of the operation of juvenile boot camps. These threshold issues include: o A definition of "boot camp." o The goals of juvenile boot camps. o Findings from evaluations of adult boot camps. A definition of "boot camp" The very use of the term "boot camp" and its connotations are still being debated. The media tend to focus on the confrontational element of boot camps -- the element that juvenile practitioners like the least. Dr. MacKenzie, who has been studying adult boot camps since 1987, holds that defining the term "boot camp" has been a major issue and remains one. Her 1991 survey of adult boot camps (MacKenzie and Souryal, 1991) found some common boot camp characteristics, including: o A military-style environment. o Separation of boot camp participants from regular prison inmates when they are housed in collocated facilities. o The participants' perception that boot camp is an alternative to a longer term of confinement. o Some hard labor. The most noteworthy finding from Dr. MacKenzie's survey, however, was that boot camp programs differ widely, particularly with regard to the amount of time participants spend in therapeutic activity and in the aftercare they are provided. The definition of boot camps given by OJP in its Fiscal Year 1995 Corrections Boot Camp Initiative: Violent Offender Incarceration Grant Program includes the following elements: o Participation by nonviolent offenders only (to free up space in traditional facilities for violent felony offenders, i.e., those who have used dangerous weapons against another person, caused death or serious bodily injury, or committed serious sex offenses). o A residential phase of 6 months or less. o A regimented schedule stressing discipline, physical training, and work. o Participation by inmates in appropriate education opportunities, job training, and substance abuse counseling or treatment. o Provision of aftercare services that are coordinated with the program that is provided during the period of confinement. OJP has encouraged the consideration and development of innovative program delivery in this initiative, including designs that are "in addition to or other than the military model," such as the Outward Bound model, environmental reclamation projects, and community service. The program guidelines also identify six key components to maximize the effectiveness of juvenile boot camp programs: o Education and job training and placement. o Community service. o Substance abuse counseling and treatment. o Health and mental health care. o Continuous, individualized case management. o Intensive aftercare services that are fully integrated with the boot camp program. Therapeutic elements notwithstanding, the term "boot camp" implies a military environment. The OJP program guidelines require a "regimented schedule." Dr. Hamburg, one of the roundtable discussants, pointed out that although juveniles can benefit from the structure and discipline of the boot camp model, the different branches of the U.S. armed services provide different kinds of basic training, and there is an array of military and nonmilitary models to borrow from in designing the most appropriate boot camp model. The goals of juvenile boot camps In his presentation to the roundtable, Parent addressed the issue of goals for juvenile boot camps. He identified five commonly expressed sentencing goals for adult boot camps: o Deterrence. o Incapacitation. o Rehabilitation. o Punishment. o Cost control. Of these, rehabilitation and cost control are the goals cited most often by correctional practitioners and policymakers. The object of rehabilitation, Parent said, is to achieve some reduction in further criminality, either by changing an offender's attitudes and values, perhaps leading to some behavioral change, or by addressing some of the personal deficiencies or problems that are believed to be linked to criminal activity, such as lack of education, substance abuse, and/or lack of social skills. Thus far the research on the effect of rehabilitation in boot camps has been inconclusive. Similarly, few hard data are available on cost, although it is known that adult boot camps cost as much as traditional prisons per inmate per day. Parent stated that his simulation model has demonstrated that four conditions must be met to reduce costs: o The target population must be confinement bound. The boot camp population should not be selected by judges, but by correctional officials, who would choose juveniles for boot camp from among those who have already been sentenced to or confined in a facility. o The term of confinement must be cut significantly. However, this condition for cutting costs is easier to implement in an adult facility than in a juvenile facility, because adults usually receive longer sentences than juveniles. o Program failures must be minimized. There are several ways to do this: o Minimize voluntary dropout rates. Orientation should give potential participants a very clear understanding of what to expect in the boot camp so that they are not surprised. o Minimize expulsions. Participants should be given more chances for successful completion. This can be accomplished by establishing graduated sanctions and by allowing participants to repeat the program ("recycle"). o Minimize postrelease failure. The recycling option should again be available [2]. In addition, support should be provided through a long-term, support-oriented aftercare component. Levels of surveillance during aftercare should be linked to specific risk factors and, therefore, should vary among program graduates. o The boot camp must have a large capacity. If substantial reductions in the confinement population are planned to reduce costs, large-scale boot camps are needed. Parent stated that currently there are two boot camp models -- treatment and population reduction -- and that it is difficult to accomplish the aims of both models simultaneously. The population reduction model, which emphasizes cost control, would be difficult to replicate for juveniles because they generally serve much shorter sentences than adult offenders. Rehabilitation, therefore, may be the only viable goal in opening a juvenile correctional boot camp. Findings from evaluations of adult boot camps In her presentation to the roundtable, Dr. MacKenzie shared some of the findings of her Multisite Evaluation of Shock Incarceration (MacKenzie and Souryal, 1994), which was conducted in eight States and involved young male offenders between the ages of 19 and 21 who had been referred from the adult court system. According to Dr. MacKenzie, the most surprising finding of the evaluation was that in each of the boot camps studied, regardless of the amount of therapeutic treatment, all participants who completed the program were more positive about their experiences than were offenders in a traditional prison setting. She also found that programs lacking in therapeutic components were working to add them to the boot camp regimen. Some evidence indicated that the rate of recidivism declined in programs where offenders spent 3 or more hours per day in therapeutic activity and had some type of aftercare or intensive supervision after release. However, the finding of differences in recidivism came from an exploratory analysis. In general, the MacKenzie and Souryal evaluation found similar recidivism rates for those who completed boot camps and comparable offenders who spent long periods of time in prison. ------------------------------ Issues concerning the selection of youth Even if, as Parent suggests, the primary goal of juvenile boot camps ought to be rehabilitation, the cost-control argument for targeting confinement-bound youth is a valid one. The cross-site evaluation of three juvenile boot camps reported on later in this Program Summary found these camps to be more cost effective than traditional confinement but, conversely, significantly more costly than probation. Dr. Altschuler, who has found that most juvenile boot camps are being used as an alternative to probation, raised another reason for targeting confinement-bound youth for boot camp rather than those who receive probation. According to Altschuler, research has demonstrated that low- or moderate-risk juvenile and adult offenders who are subjected to high levels of supervision (as in a boot camp program that includes a structured aftercare component) actually do worse than those left on traditional probation. It is therefore important to distinguish between juveniles who should be placed on probation with minimal supervision and those who need more supervision. This caution touches on another issue related to selection: net widening. Judges may find appealing the option of assigning a youth to boot camp rather than to some other available intermediate sanction. The result may be confinement of a youth who previously would not have been confined. Under these premises, the final effect is actually an increase in the number of youth who are confined and thereby an increase in cost [3]. The roundtable discussion also raised the issue of the high percentage of minority youth (as many as 80 percent) among those who are confined in boot camps. This can be attributed to the fact that boot camps typically serve urban areas with a high percentage of minority youth. Often, however, the boot camp model fails to "connect" with this population. ------------------------------ Issues surrounding the residential phase The residential phase, which includes intensive training, is the signature of the boot camp concept. However, the evolution of intensive training remains incomplete. Three issues should be considered: o What is the optimal size of a juvenile boot camp? o What is the optimal physical design of a juvenile boot camp? o What is the best model to induce behavioral change? Boot camp size Considerations regarding boot camp size constitute one area of fundamental difference between adult and juvenile boot camps. The fourth element of Parent's simulation model for controlling the cost of adult boot camps stipulates that to produce reductions in the confinement population, the boot camp must operate on a large scale. A small boot camp (e.g., one with 50 beds) is not likely to produce a discernible reduction in the population of a large correctional system. However, OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders (Wilson and Howell, 1993) reports that large, congregate-care juvenile facilities have not proved to be particularly effective in rehabilitating juvenile offenders. Small, community-based facilities, on the other hand, have proved to be effective, both as an intervention with the juvenile offender and also in terms of cost to the provider. The roundtable discussion also pointed out that it is questionable whether large numbers of juvenile offenders who meet boot camp criteria would be available to fill a large-scale facility. Boot camp design In addition to size, another consideration concerning the boot camp's physical environment is whether it is located in a general population facility or is a stand-alone camp. In the adult system, general population facilities collocate the inmates of medium- or maximum-security prisons with adult boot camp inmates. The housing is separate, however, and the common areas of the facilities are used by adult boot camp inmates and adult prison inmates at different times. Stand-alone adult boot camps avoid this operational concern. Separation from more "hardened" prisoners protects the boot camp inmates from a higher level of contraband and physical violence. Staffing also benefits because potential conflict between the boot camp staff and the prison staff of a collocated facility -- for example, conflict arising from the promotion or demotion of a prison staff member versus a boot camp staff member -- is eliminated in a stand-alone facility. In a paper delivered at OJP's 1995 technical assistance workshop for applicants seeking funding under the Corrections Boot Camp Initiative, Parent stated that there is no empirical evidence to support one type of facility over another in relation to the impact on an offender's development. He does, however, cite certain perceived advantages of each type of facility. For example, the advantages of locating a boot camp in a general population facility include cost savings derived from sharing infrastructure, goods, and services with the prison. In addition, it is easier to recruit and replace boot camp staff, because they do not have to move to a new community. Because of concerns about harmful influence and physical violence, the collocation of an adult prison or boot camp with a secure juvenile boot camp requires adherence to statutory separation requirements as implemented by OJJDP rules (U.S. Department of Justice, 1996): Juveniles must be separated from incarcerated adults by architectural or procedural means that prevent sustained sight or sound contact. Brief and inadvertent or accidental sight or sound contact is only considered to be a violation if it occurs in a secure area that is dedicated to use by juvenile offenders, including any residential area. The best model to induce behavioral change The question of what is the best model to induce behavioral change inspired more discussion at the roundtable than any other. The basic premise of the military boot camp model is that the military atmosphere acts as a catalyst to facilitate changes in offenders' behavior. The military atmosphere, however, may vary widely, from a confrontational model to a developmental one. The roundtable participants largely agreed that a confrontational model is counterproductive to changing juvenile behavior. Dr. Marty Beyer, a psychologist experienced in improving the effectiveness of services to delinquents, addressed the roundtable on the topic of treatment in boot camps from the perspectives of adolescent development and of what works with delinquent youth. Three things known about adolescent development, she said, should be considered when designing any program for youth: o Adolescents are fairness fanatics. Running any adolescent group care program is difficult because adolescents are very sensitive to anything they perceive as unfair, particularly anything that applies to the whole group. o Adolescents reject imposed structure and assistance. o Adolescents respond to encouragement, not punishment. Although they may change their behavior to avoid punishment, their attitudes and behaviors do not change in response to punishment. The implications of these three factors are that youth will defend themselves against what they see as unfair, regardless of the motivation of the adults who are caring for them, and will reject what may be offered as assistance because they do not recognize the providers of that assistance as being part of their support system. Dr. Beyer suggested that this rejection of assistance is positive. It is the way youth have survived poverty and adverse conditions. If this natural inclination is subdued, it will undermine the very survival technique that has allowed these youth to make it this far. According to Dr. Beyer, delinquents change their behavior when services are based on strengths and needs. If youth are only offered what adults think they need, they will not accept assistance. Effective services will help youth set up their own notions of what they need and then make it possible for them to meet their needs through nondelinquent behavior. The services developed should be based on the individual strengths of the youth. It must also be asked whether juvenile boot camps, in both their residential and aftercare components, meet common needs of youth, such as the need to be competent at something, to feel a sense of belonging, to feel in charge (especially for those who have been victims of discrimination and abuse), and to feel a connection to their families. Dr. Beyer reiterated that punitive programs driven by imposed structure, group practices, and services that are not individually tailored to each young person's strengths and concepts of his or her own needs will not be effective, no matter what they are called. Other roundtable participants concurred that the confrontational model is full of potentially abusive situations and is antithetical to the development of the kind of healthy, productive relationship with an adult that a youth needs to develop maturity. The suitability of boot camps for introducing therapeutic intervention was questioned, and it was also pointed out that the confrontational model is difficult, if not impossible, to monitor. However, although the adult boot camp model may not work for juveniles, it was noted that adolescents do like structure and want some structure in their lives. The roundtable participants expressed the need to develop other models, particularly in urban areas. Suggestions included the following: o Models that incorporate mentoring and job skills. o Models such as Outward Bound, which has been successful in challenging youth individually in neighborhoods such as Washington Heights in New York City. o Models with varying goals and structures that could meet a wide range of adolescent needs. Such models would especially integrate the residential and aftercare phases of the boot camp experience, so that goals, treatment methods, and programming would be the same for both phases. Coordination with all levels of the aftercare agencies during the planning and execution of the residential phase would partially ensure this desired continuity. ------------------------------ Aftercare issues Aftercare is the last phase before total release from juvenile court supervision. At the roundtable, Dr. Altschuler asserted that reintegration into the community is the key to boot camp success. Continuity between the residential and aftercare phases of the boot camp experience is paramount. In general, proper reintegration requires adequate funding for both the boot camp and aftercare programs, management that is coordinated throughout the entire program, and graduated sanctions and incentives. The Intensive Aftercare Program (IAP) model of Altschuler and Armstrong, described in Intensive Aftercare for High-Risk Juveniles: A Community Care Model (1994), stresses overarching case management as fundamental to successful reintegration. Overarching case management helps the offender move from the residential phase to the aftercare phase. The IAP model divides case management into five components: o Assessment, classification, and selection criteria. Selecting youth at the highest risk of recidivism requires appropriate assessment and classification measures. These measures give weight to justice system factors, such as age at first offense, and to need-related factors, such as substance abuse. The accuracy of the measures chosen is directly related to the success of other design choices: for example, staffing levels, the size of the inmate population, and the boot camp as a whole. o Individual case planning incorporating family and community perspectives. Individualized case planning should address how the special needs of the youth are linked to his or her social network (e.g., family, close friends, and peers in general) and community (e.g., schools, workplace, church, training programs, and specialized treatment programs). To ensure continuity from the residential phase to the aftercare phase, an aftercare counselor should be involved from the beginning of the residential phase. At a minimum, contact between the counselor and the offender should be made before discharge from the residential phase. o A mix of intensive surveillance and services. Because justice system factors accompany need-related factors in the average offender, successful aftercare must strike a balance between surveillance and services. Neither one alone will suffice. Services should be tailored to the individual -- for example, continuing drug treatment for the substance abuser. Surveillance should exceed the old purpose of simply jailing recidivists by identifying impending recidivism and, ideally, reversing it through rewards and graduated sanctions. o A balance of incentives and graduated consequences coupled with the imposition of realistic, enforceable conditions. Positive reinforcement can induce healthy behavioral change. On the other hand, overly burdensome parole conditions can undermine healthy change or even contribute to recidivism -- from a psychological effect or merely from increased contact with those who record acts of recidivism. o Service brokerage with community resources and linkage with social networks. The workload that results from trying to create better conditions and from the growth of boot camp populations makes it impossible for the aftercare counselor to succeed without help. Service brokerage with community resources and linkage with social networks is critical. Service brokerage helps to meet the needs for job training and education, among others. Linkage with social networks helps to heal those common divisions exhibited by high-risk youth in the areas of family relationships, peer relationships, and school. ------------------------------ Crosscutting issues Management and staffing The roundtable discussion of the best model to induce behavioral change raised the issue of integrating the residential and aftercare phases. According to Dr. Altschuler, the management and staffing of these two phases should be integrated as well. Beginning with a line of authority, program planners must ensure that the residential and aftercare phases are fully coordinated. Similarly, monetary and other resource support should be allotted proportionately to both phases. It is perhaps most critical to involve staff -- and to give them cross training -- in both phases of the program. The inherent gaps between military and civilian staff and between the residential and aftercare phases also should be closed through management of caseloads, careful selection of staff and determination of staffing patterns, clear delineation of staff roles and responsibilities, staff training, and performance reviews. The need for evaluation and monitoring The roundtable participants agreed on the importance of proper evaluation and monitoring of boot camps. A good evaluation covers both process and outcome. Although process and outcome evaluations both have great potential to help new boot camps, a good ongoing process evaluation helps to keep an existing boot camp faithful to the design of its original model. A sound process evaluation uses a management information system to monitor daily operations. In addition to inmate demographics and services, the management information system should monitor staffing issues, including performance and turnover. According to Altschuler and Armstrong (1994), a sound outcome evaluation, especially for research purposes, ideally includes four elements: o Random assignment of offenders either to boot camp or to completion of their original sentences. While random assignment does require a relatively large number of eligible individuals for participation in the experimental and control groups, results are more reliably attributable to experimental variables. o Comparison of outcomes of boot camp offenders with those of a control group or, alternatively, a matched comparison group. (A matched comparison group -- considered a less desirable alternative than a control group -- attempts to match the experimental group through statistical techniques.) o A sample large enough for reliable data analysis. o Sufficient time following the aftercare phase for proper measurement of the program's impact. At least 12 months of data collection on program outcomes appears to be the minimum acceptable to researchers. ------------------------------ Conclusions The purpose of the roundtable discussion was not to reach conclusions but to raise issues. Where some see possibilities, others see limitations or even dangers. As Federal and State money is being made available for the construction of new boot camps, the general public and those who are responsible for developing and operating boot camps should be aware of the issues and the risks and benefits involved, especially for juvenile offenders. The next section, which presents the major findings of a cross-site evaluation of the three experimental boot camps for juvenile offenders funded by OJJDP and BJA, offers lessons learned in the planning, operation, and evaluation of these programs. ------------------------------ Evaluation of the Impact of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders: Cross-Site Summary Report In July 1990, OJJDP, in cooperation with BJA, invited applications for an initiative to develop and test a juvenile boot camp program that would emphasize discipline, treatment, and work and would focus on a target population of adjudicated, nonviolent juvenile offenders under age 18. In September 1991, cooperative agreements were competitively awarded to three public-private partnerships representing Cleveland, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Mobile, Alabama. Approximately 6 months later, in April 1992, experimental boot camps for juvenile offenders became operational to serve each of these jurisdictions. In the summer of 1995, Caliber Associates submitted interim reports on the impact of each of the boot camps (Caliber Associates 1996a, 1996b, 1996c) [4]. The cross-site summary report presented here synthesizes and highlights the critical findings of the evaluation across the three demonstration sites. ------------------------------ Background OJJDP's boot camp program model was designed to provide constructive intervention and early support to a population of juvenile offenders who were at high risk of chronic delinquency. The competitively selected programs were to serve as an intermediate sanction that would promote basic traditional and moral values inherent in the national heritage of the United States; increase academic achievement; provide discipline through physical conditioning and teamwork; include activities and resources to reduce drug and alcohol abuse among juvenile offenders; encourage participants to become productive, law-abiding citizens; promote literacy by using intensive, systematic phonics; and instill a work ethic among juvenile offenders. The boot camp programs were designed to include a highly structured, 3-month residential program followed by 6 to 9 months of community-based aftercare during which youth were expected to pursue academic and vocational training or employment while under intensive, but gradually reduced, supervision. Participation in the experiment was to be voluntary, with the youth and his parents understanding that he would either be sent to boot camp or fulfill the original disposition ordered by the court. Under contract to provide evaluation services to OJJDP, Caliber Associates was tasked in the summer of 1993 to conduct an evaluation of the impact of the three boot camps for juvenile offenders. Research had been initiated under the direction of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) by a team from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the Institute for Criminological Research (ICR) at Rutgers University. Data from the first 17 months of boot camp operations had been collected under a research design using data collection instruments developed by the AIR/ICR team. The cornerstone of the design, in accordance with OJJDP's original announcement of the juvenile boot camp demonstration project, was random assignment of eligible youth to experimental and control groups at each site. When Caliber assumed responsibility for the evaluation and took control of the random assignment process in September 1993, the boot camp sites were instructed to continue using the AIR/ICR data collection instruments. An evaluation design promulgated by Caliber in May 1994 incorporated key features of the AIR/ICR design but supplemented data collected via the original instruments with additional data from other sources. Similarity of the experimental and control groups was a fundamental hypothesis of the study. The key research questions of the evaluation were: o To what extent do juveniles in boot camps receive the services prescribed for them? o What is the recidivism rate of the juveniles in the boot camp group as compared with that of the control group? o What short-term benefits -- for example, returning to school, completion of a general equivalency diploma (GED) or vocational training, employment, payment of restitution, or completion of community service -- result from participation in the program? o Are the boot camps cost effective? These evaluation questions are addressed in the interim reports on each of the three boot camps. The interim reports were based on male juveniles who were randomly selected for assignment to a boot camp between April 1992 and December 1993. The experimental groups included 182 juveniles in Cleveland, 124 in Denver, and 187 in Mobile. Recidivism was measured from the point of release through November 1994. The body of each interim report includes a detailed description of project design, implementation, and operational issues over the course of the project; rigorous analysis of selection, service delivery, and youth outcomes, including recidivism results; and a comparative analysis of the relative costs of providing residential and aftercare services to youth in the experimental and control groups in alternative settings. ------------------------------ Program characteristics Each of the three experimental boot camp programs was designed, implemented, operated, and managed through unique public-private partnerships. The Cleveland program at Camp Roulston was a partnership of the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court in Cleveland and the North American Family Institute headquartered in Danvers, Massachusetts. The partners of the Denver project at Camp Foxfire were the Colorado Division of Youth Services and New Pride, Inc., both headquartered in Denver. Supporting the Environmental Youth Corps in Mobile were the State Division of Youth Services, the Strickland Youth Center, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Mobile, and the University of South Alabama. Each of the experimental programs reflected the judicial and institutional environment prevailing in its respective locality and the philosophies of its participating partners. Major characteristics of the three programs are summarized in table 1 and are discussed below. Expected sentence in absence of boot camp Reflecting a relatively more serious offender population than either Denver or Mobile, all of the youth who entered Cleveland's Camp Roulston would otherwise have served a term of confinement in a traditional setting. At the time of assignment to boot camp, 74 percent of the youth in the experimental group were facing commitment to one of several secure facilities operated by the Ohio Department of Youth Services, while 26 percent were facing commitment to the Youth Development Center, a minimum-security facility operated by Cuyahoga County. In Denver, 56 percent of participating youth were destined for a term of confinement in a State facility operated by the Colorado Department of Institutions (DOI), while 44 percent would have been released on probation if not for assignment to boot camp. In Mobile, because youth were not sentenced prior to assignment to boot camp, data are not available on what the alternative disposition would have been for those in the experimental group. Based on control group sentences, the estimate is that 27 percent of youth in boot camps would have been confined in a State facility, while 73 percent would have been released to probation authorities had they not been assigned to boot camp. Characteristics of the residential phase After being randomly assigned to boot camp, those in the experimental group entered the boot camps in platoons of approximately 10 youth every month. Their control group counterparts were confined or released to probation in accordance with their original or subsequent dispositional orders. Each of the three residential programs placed different emphasis on military elements as opposed to treatment activities. Cleveland's Camp Roulston placed the greatest emphasis on treatment. Residential and aftercare services operated within the framework of the normative model, which is predicated on the concept that prosocial behavior can be promoted if youth are forced to confront the inconsistencies between their beliefs and their negative actions. In theory, the resulting discomfort, or cognitive dissonance, empowers youth to transform their behavior. Military-style training and procedures played an important role, especially during the confrontational period immediately after the youth entered the camp, but receded considerably in importance over time as youth were increasingly engaged in learning and skill-building activities in anticipation of release and graduation to aftercare. Denver's Camp Foxfire program was distinguished from its counterparts by its emphasis on intensive discipline and rigorous physical requirements. Of the three experimental boot camps, the Denver program was the most consistent with the prevailing public perception of boot camp as a military-style, punitive sanction. The residential phase could be characterized as a period of behavior modification and moral and ethical development in advance of and in preparation for the treatment, education, and life-skills activities that would follow in aftercare. The two phases were distinct from one another, with military training dominating the residential phase and treatment activities dominating aftercare. In Mobile, military training and treatment activities coexisted in relative balance. While the typical day began with physical training and chores, most of the day was filled with classroom experiences including self-paced lessons, one-on-one tutoring, and small-group exercises, followed by evening study. Military structure, activities, and influences were intended to facilitate teaching by maximizing a student's receptivity to learning. In addition, Mobile's Environmental Youth Corps featured an emphasis on environmental awareness and outdoor activities that Cleveland and Denver did not share. Characteristics of the aftercare phase The structure and delivery of aftercare services differed considerably across the three experimental programs. In each program, however, all youth were expected to advance toward individual goals, including returning to school, enrolling in a GED or vocational training program, and obtaining employment. Apart from academic instruction, each of the programs was designed to provide some form of life-skills training that included such components as substance abuse awareness, personal ethics, cultural appreciation, checkbook management, parenting, and r‚sum‚ writing. Aftercare staff were available -- although at varying levels of intensity and frequency at the three sites -- to give assistance that would support and facilitate consistent progress over the full course of aftercare enrollment and participation. After relocating twice during the first year of operation, the Cleveland aftercare program provided services to participating youth in its City Center facility. Occupying office space in a former downtown factory, City Center was located in a gang-neutral neighborhood accessible to youth from different neighborhoods of the city via multiple bus lines. Youth completed the aftercare program in three phases -- an intensive phase requiring daily attendance followed by two graduated stepdown phases -- over 8 months. Completion of each phase was monitored by a point system in which youth accumulated points for advancement through school performance, program attendance and participation, employment, and participation in other positive programs or events. Prior to release from boot camp, each of the youth worked with a case manager to establish aftercare goals that were formalized in an Individual Treatment Plan. The plan was monitored and updated by each youth's case manager from the outset of aftercare through release. In September 1993, a significant improvement in the aftercare program was accomplished when a private organization was contracted to provide onsite educational services through which participating youth could earn credits toward high school graduation. In Denver, youth released from the residential phase participated in an educational curriculum operated by New Pride, Inc., through the Wyatt Academy, which was located on the top floor of an office building in downtown Denver. The aftercare program was intended to last a minimum of 6 months. Daily educational instruction in a core curriculum of English, math, science, and social studies was provided at Wyatt by a principal and three teachers. Youth were required to appear for class in a standard uniform consisting of blazer, shirt, tie, and trousers. Those who were unable to meet academic standards received remedial instruction at the New Pride school. In addition to academic instruction, ancillary programs were available to youth at other sites. These programs included drug/alcohol, vocational, and counseling services. Each youth's performance after release was also monitored by an assigned probation officer or client manager. In Mobile, the aftercare program was designed without a central aftercare facility. Instead, aftercare was provided through the area's seven Boys & Girls Clubs. Each youth was assigned to the Boys & Girls Club closest to his home. According to the original design, aftercare consisted of attending weekly meetings at the local Boys & Girls Club, reporting bimonthly to an assigned probation officer, returning to neighborhood schools and jobs, and paying restitution under the supervision of a Strickland Youth Center restitution coordinator. This decentralized approach proved not to be workable. In December 1993, a restructured program was implemented that required all enrolled youth to appear weekly at a central Boys & Girls Club to continue in life-skills, education, counseling, and substance abuse intervention programs and to participate in weekly offsite activities. The restructured program was intended to last for 9 months. Operational issues Staff turnover was a significant problem in all three sites. In Cleveland, much of the original senior management team and the overwhelming majority of the original drill instructors had departed by the end of the first year of operations. The Mobile program was managed by four different directors over 2 years and also experienced high turnover among its line personnel. The Denver staff was relatively more stable, but turnover occurred in two key senior positions. Identification of acceptable sites for locating residential facilities was also difficult. Residential components were eventually housed either at Division of Youth Services facilities or at county facilities in all three locales. In Cleveland, selection criteria were relaxed to include some violent offenders in order to ensure sufficient monthly platoon sizes. Nevertheless, over the life of the project, each of the three boot camp programs managed to implement and sustain relatively consistent and stable service delivery systems in the residential phase. The aftercare phases, on the other hand, were beset with problems from the beginning. None of the three programs was able to operationalize its aftercare services fully in accordance with its original conceptual design. In Cleveland, the aftercare program underwent two difficult relocations before settling at City Center, which was itself limited in capabilities and not well suited for aftercare services. The education services provider changed twice. Reintegrating youth into the local school system proved to be more difficult than originally envisioned. In addition, the aftercare program struggled to develop and operationalize procedures for administratively managing youth who were absent from the program for extended periods without excuse or contact. Some planned elements of the aftercare program received little developmental attention and were not fully implemented, including establishing consistent linkages with community resources to supply supplemental services (e.g., substance abuse treatment) and to serve as mentors or potential sources for employment. More than a year was needed for the aftercare program to become stable. The Denver boot camp shut down in March 1994. Its aftercare program never matured. Transportation, attendance, confusion over lines of responsibility, and lack of a shared understanding among program staff, probation officers, and client managers were major problems. In Mobile, the aftercare program failed in the first year and was restarted with a new model in early 1994. Each of the three sites suffered from insufficient planning for the transition from the residential phase to aftercare and from the enormous practical problems and complexities in serving a difficult juvenile offender population following release. ------------------------------ Youth served Criteria for youth selection were stipulated by OJJDP in original guidance to the demonstration sites. Youth between the ages of 13 and 17 who had been adjudicated by the juvenile court and were awaiting disposition were eligible if they had no history of mental illness or involvement in violent crime and were considered to be at "high risk" of chronic delinquency and to pose a minimal risk of escape. Within these guidelines, differences in the offender populations were observed. The following sections highlight the similarities and differences in the youth populations of each of the three experimental boot camps. Youth demographics Of the three boot camps, Mobile's served the youngest population: 58 percent of the youth assigned to the Environmental Youth Corps were age 15 or younger; 15 percent were age 13. In comparison, only 35 percent of the youth assigned to Cleveland's Camp Roulston and Denver's Camp Foxfire were 15 or younger at entry, and none were younger than age 14. Denver's Camp Foxfire was the only boot camp to serve a significant Hispanic population: One-fourth (27 percent) of the experimental group in Denver was Hispanic; African-Americans represented approximately 36 percent of the youth served and whites approximately 31 percent (approximately 7 percent were classified as "Other" or "Unknown"). In Cleveland, 78 percent of the experimental group were African-American and approximately 20 percent were white; 1 percent were Hispanic and 1 percent were classified as "Other." In Mobile, 65 percent of the experimental group were African-American and 35 percent were white. Prior adjudications Across the three sites, the overwhelming majority of the youth selected to participate entered boot camp with at least one prior offense on record for which they were adjudicated delinquent. As figure 1 demonstrates, many entered boot camp with multiple prior adjudications. In Mobile, 70 percent of the experimental group entered boot camp with two or more adjudications, as compared with 63 percent in Cleveland. The Denver youth population was the least likely to have more than one adjudicated offense on record at entry (42 percent). In terms of the level of seriousness of prior offenses, youth in Cleveland were more likely than youth in Mobile to have a prior felony offense on record upon entry into boot camp. Comparable data were not available for Denver. Committing offense In all three sites, more youth entered a boot camp as a consequence of committing a property offense than any other type of offense (69 percent in Denver, 50 percent in Mobile, and 40 percent in Cleveland; see figure 2). Juvenile offenders in Cleveland's Camp Roulston were more likely to have entered as a consequence of committing a violent offense than offenders in either Denver or Mobile. One-third (33 percent) of the youth in Cleveland's experimental group entered Camp Roulston on a violent offense, compared with only 13 percent in Mobile and 12 percent in Denver [5]. Similarly, 26 percent of the youth in Cleveland entered the program after having committed a drug offense, compared with 8 percent of the youth in both Mobile and Denver. In contrast, fully 29 percent of the youth in the Mobile program had committed public order offenses, compared with 11 percent in Denver and 1 percent in Cleveland. Clearly, the Cleveland youth were generally more serious offenders. ------------------------------ Program outcomes The Cleveland program had the highest rate of graduation from boot camp, with 93 percent of its randomly selected youth successfully completing the Camp Roulston program and making the transition to aftercare. In Mobile, 87 percent successfully graduated from the Environmental Youth Corps boot camp, compared with 65 percent graduating from Denver's Camp Foxfire. As shown in figure 3, Denver's lower graduation rate was attributable partly to the fact that significantly more youth were disqualified from entering boot camp after being randomly selected to participate (19 youth, or 15.3 percent) than in either the Cleveland or Mobile programs. Reasons for the early disqualification in Denver included reassessment of security risk, judicial override, and administrative error; in some cases, the youth absconded before entry. Across the three sites, if the youth who were disqualified after selection and who never entered boot camp were not counted, the most common reasons for failure to complete the program successfully were unauthorized departure from the boot camp facility -- that is, going absent without leave (AWOL) -- and administrative termination from the program for a demonstrated medical condition that restricted physical activity. Positive youth outcomes In the two sites where standardized tests of academic skills were administered, most youth demonstrated significant progress from the initial test to the followup 3 months later (figure 4). In Cleveland, 68 percent of graduating youth improved one grade level or more in reading skills on the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-R); 60 percent of graduating youth improved one grade level or more in math skills; and 56 percent improved one grade level or more in spelling skills. In Mobile, 88 percent of graduating youth improved one grade level or more in both language and reading skills using the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE); 85 percent of graduating youth improved one grade level or more in math skills; and 77 percent improved one grade level or more in spelling skills (excludes youth who had no room for improvement at pretest). Comparable data were not available for Denver. While enrolled in aftercare, a significant number of youth in Cleveland and Mobile took important steps toward individual goals. Of all youth who graduated from boot camp and made the transition to aftercare in Cleveland, at least two-thirds returned to school or entered a GED program prior to completing aftercare. In addition, 31 percent of the Cleveland youth obtained full- or part-time employment while enrolled in aftercare. In Mobile, 21 percent of youth for whom information was available obtained employment while in aftercare. Data on school or GED program enrollment and youth employment were not available for Denver. Postrelease recidivism The comparative incidence of reoffending in the experimental and control groups after release from confinement, or recidivism, constituted the heart of the evaluation. In all three sites, recidivism was defined as a court-adjudicated new offense occurring between the time a youth was released from confinement and a preestablished cutoff, or "censoring," date. Under this standard, a rearrest for which a youth was not, or had not yet been, formally adjudicated delinquent did not constitute a new offense for purposes of the analysis. In most jurisdictions, including all three participating sites, a youth can be adjudicated delinquent following an admission to the charges or a determination by the court that there is sufficient evidence to find the youth delinquent through a judicial proceeding. To get a more complete picture of reoffending, the evaluation also captured data on technical violations. Policies and procedures for filing technical violations, which would be considered violations of probation, differed across the three sites. Relatively few technical violations were recorded in Cleveland and Denver, but a significant number were recorded in Mobile. Rates of reoffending in Mobile, therefore, were calculated first on the basis of adjudicated new offenses alone and then on the basis of adjudicated new offenses plus technical violations. All data on new offenses and technical violations were obtained from official judicial records through the cooperation of the respective juvenile courts. A form of event history or survival analysis known as Cox regression was selected for the analysis because it allows assessment of the relative risk of recidivism for both the experimental and control groups across time, while controlling for group differences and accounting for the fact that subsequent offense data were collected only until a preestablished cutoff date. The analyses include youth who were free in the community a minimum of 9 months but not more than 32 months, and they account for any known subsequent periods of detention or incarceration occurring between release and the censoring date. The observed rates of recidivism should not be compared across sites because of the considerable differences in program experiences, offender populations, and judicial environments at each site. The observed rates of recidivism for youth in the experimental and control groups at each site are summarized in figure 5. Those in the experimental group who completed Cleveland's Camp Roulston were found to have recidivated at a significantly higher rate than their control group counterparts. Nearly three-fourths of the youth in the experimental group (72 percent) committed a new court-adjudicated offense following release from Camp Roulston, compared with half (50 percent) of the youth in the control group who were released from facilities of either the Ohio Department of Youth Services or the Youth Development Center. Youth in both the experimental and control groups who had previously been committed to Ohio Department of Youth Services facilities and those in the experimental group who had committed less serious prior offenses were found to be at greatest risk for recidivism. These findings suggest that the eligibility pool for boot camp may be too broad at both ends of the offense history spectrum. Obtaining employment while in aftercare was associated with a reduced likelihood of reoffending. In both Denver and Mobile, rates of recidivism were found to be comparable in the experimental and control groups. In Denver, 39 percent of the youth in the experimental group were found to have committed a new court-adjudicated offense following release from Camp Foxfire, compared with 36 percent of youth in the control group who also committed court-adjudicated offenses following release from State institutions or while on probation. In Mobile, 28 percent of the youth in the experimental group were found to have committed a new court-adjudicated offense following release from the Environmental Youth Corps boot camp, compared with 31 percent of control group youth released from State institutions or on probation. The inclusion of technical violations did not change the overall findings. Following release from confinement, 56 percent of the youth in the experimental group were found to have committed a new offense or technical violation resulting in an adjudication, compared with 60 percent of those in the control group. A number of factors were statistically associated with an increased likelihood of reoffending in Mobile: Youth who had discipline problems at home, youth with more serious prior offenses on record, and youth living away from home during aftercare were all more likely to commit new offenses following release. At all three sites, reoffending youth in the experimental group were found to have committed new offenses more quickly -- that is, to have demonstrated a shorter survival period -- than reoffending youth in the control group (figure 6). In Cleveland, for example, reoffending youth in the experimental group averaged 176 days, or approximately 5.9 months, from the point of release from confinement to the date of the new charge (which eventually became an adjudicated offense), compared with 205 days for reoffending youth in the control group. Boot camp cost effectiveness An analysis was conducted to compare the cost of providing services in the 3-month residential boot camps and in aftercare following release with the cost of providing similar services in traditional settings. Two unit cost measures were calculated as a basis for comparison: the cost per day, which represents the average total cost of providing services to an individual youth on a daily basis, and the cost per offender, which represents the average total cost of providing services to an individual youth over the duration of the full program, or for his entire length of stay. Cost per day measures were calculated for the residential and aftercare phases separately; these measures were combined with the average number of days spent in the residential and aftercare phases to calculate cost per offender measures suitable for comparison of the experimental and control groups. In Cleveland, the estimated cost per day of providing services to youth at Camp Roulston ($103) was comparable to the estimated cost per day of providing services to those in the control group at the State-operated facilities of the Ohio Department of Youth Services ($99) or the county-operated facilities of the Youth Development Center ($114). The cost per day of providing aftercare services to youth released from boot camp ($20) was considerably higher than the cost of the aftercare services provided to youth in the control group by either the Ohio Department of Youth Services ($16) or the Youth Development Center ($11). However, the overall cost per offender in the boot camp program ($14,021), including both residential and aftercare services, was approximately half the overall cost per offender in programs of the Ohio Department of Youth Services ($25,549) or the Youth Development Center ($28,004). The considerable savings over the cost of traditional settings is attributed primarily to the fact that youth in boot camp were held for a significantly shorter term of confinement (90 days) than youth confined by the Ohio Department of Youth Services (224 days) or the Youth Development Center (221 days). Unlike the outcome in Cleveland, the results in Denver and Mobile were influenced by the fact that the control samples include subsets of youth who were never confined but were released immediately to probation authorities. In Denver, the estimated cost per day of providing residential services to youth in boot camp ($53.51) was considerably lower than the estimated cost per day of providing services to the subset of youth in the control group who were confined ($138.97). The estimated cost per day to provide aftercare services to youth released from boot camp ($16.69) was also comparatively lower than for the subset of the control group released to aftercare from confinement ($28.22). The estimated average cost per day of providing services to the subset of the control group released immediately to probation authorities without a term of confinement was $1.99 per day. Based on these estimated daily costs, the estimated total cost per offender in boot camp ($8,141) was approximately one-third the cost per offender in the subset of the control group confined in State institutions ($23,425) but approximately nine times the cost per offender in the subset of the control group released on probation ($944). Similarly, in Mobile, the estimated cost per day of providing residential services to youth in boot camp ($61.68) was somewhat lower than the estimated cost per day of providing services to the subset of the control group who were confined ($75). On the other hand, the estimated cost per day of providing aftercare services to youth released from boot camp ($2.80) was somewhat higher than for the subset of the control group released to aftercare from confinement ($1.91). The estimated average cost per day of providing services to the subset of the control group released on probation without a term of confinement was $1.91 per day. Based on these estimated daily costs, the estimated cost per offender in boot camp ($6,241) was about half the cost per offender confined in State institutions ($11,616) but more than 10 times the cost per offender released on probation ($516). The program costs per offender for each of the three boot camp sites are summarized in figure 7. ------------------------------ Lessons learned During the study period, none of the three sites was able to implement the OJJDP boot camp program model fully. Each of the programs experienced considerable instability and staff turnover. Although the residential phases were successfully implemented, none of the experimental programs was able to implement and sustain stable, well-developed aftercare services. None of the programs was prepared for the difficulties of reintegrating juvenile offenders into families, neighborhoods, and schools after release from boot camp. Consequently, the respective program models continued to evolve through trial and error to address these difficult problems. The experiences of the three experimental sites resulted in a number of lessons learned that highlighted important issues in planning, operations, and evaluation. Program planning and operations Planning and operations issues included public-private partnerships, facilities, staffing, treatment, aftercare, and community support. Public-private partnerships. All three sites encountered difficulties in their public-private partnerships. Considerable attention should be paid to building and maintaining consensus among participating organizations concerning philosophy and procedures to be followed. The division of responsibilities among partners needs to be carefully planned, established in formal agreements, and continuously monitored and refined as necessary to ensure accountability and maintain implementation activities as planned and scheduled. Facilities. Cost issues and community resistance were major obstacles in securing residential and aftercare facilities, particularly the latter. All three residential boot camps were eventually housed at Department of Youth Services or county facilities. Both residential and aftercare facilities should be capable of supporting all major functional needs, including group activities, physical training, and recreation. To maximize attendance and minimize problems, it is crucial that aftercare facilities be located in central, gang-neutral areas accessible by public transportation. Staffing. Turnover of staff -- from management to line personnel -- was a significant problem at all three sites. To reduce staff turnover and gaps in critical services and to ensure consistent programming, better procedures are needed for screening, selecting, and training staff to work in the unique boot camp and aftercare environment. Early and continuing staff training will facilitate the flow of communication, foster creative solutions, and strengthen commitment to program goals and objectives. Coordination of a multiphase program requires formal procedures at all levels of staff for disseminating information, resolving program issues, and making program adjustments that are sensitive to impacts on each phase of the program and between phases. The lack of a comprehensive and dynamic policy and procedure manual leaves staff at each phase "making it up as they go along." Specific lessons learned included: o The staff's lack of knowledge about program phases can lead to misconceptions about the program and, consequently, to misinformed youth. o Clearly defined roles and responsibilities must be established for case management, and a consensus on these roles must be achieved. o Continuity of treatment is not viable in a situation where phases are not integrated and staff in each phase are not working under the same assumptions about philosophy, policy, and procedure. Treatment. Treatment should be continuous from the residential phase to aftercare, with these two components integrated in terms of philosophy, programs, and staffing. Transition from the residential to the aftercare phase is an important stage in the program and requires coordination and commitment from all staff to ensure that youth are not "dropped." Specific lessons learned include: o Residential and aftercare staff must be fully integrated as a precondition for smooth transition planning. Case managers, in tandem with residential staff, must begin tailoring a transition plan for each youth early in the residential phase. o Transition planning should capitalize on experience with the youth gained by drill instructors, teachers, and case managers. Ideally, aftercare planning would involve all staff who are influential in the youth's boot camp experience and those who will be involved in the aftercare experience. Staff should be familiar with the family situation and should involve the family in planning and treatment. Family "buy-in" is a critical component of treatment. o Unit cohesion, so painstakingly developed in the residential phase and toward which so much energy is expended, should continue to be promoted during aftercare by maintaining groups during aftercare programming and activities to the fullest extent possible. o Case management can also reinforce group identification. Assignment of a boot camp cohort to a single aftercare case manager, rather than dividing these youth among multiple case managers, was reported to have worked well in Cleveland and later in Mobile. In Cleveland, the last cohort included in the interim report study was guided through aftercare by one of the drill instructors from Camp Roulston. This reinforced unit cohesion and unified case management. Cleveland and Mobile continued this practice with later cohorts. o The transition to full community release is often too abrupt and, essentially, counterproductive. The feasibility of a group home living arrangement for the period between release from boot camp and full release to the community (i.e., something less restrictive than the residential phase but more structured than the home environment) should be considered and evaluated. This type of setting would allow the youth gradually to integrate positive behavioral changes attained in their boot camp experience into the aftercare environment. In general, the aftercare setting must reinforce the values and behaviors promoted and rewarded during the residential phase. Aftercare. Aftercare programs are difficult to implement. More attention should be paid at the outset to developing the model and planning for the practical problems that are likely to be encountered, both initially and over time. Aftercare programs are not likely to be effective if youth graduate without receiving the quality services that are prescribed for them. Aftercare services must be broad based and flexible in order to adjust for diverse youth experiences, social/home environments, and program needs. Vocational skills and employment placement are critical components of an aftercare program. The aftercare component should not be self-contained, but should be dynamic in forming linkages with other community services -- especially helping agencies, potential employers, and schools -- for purposes of broadening and extending support networks beyond the formal aftercare program. The decision as to whether and when a return to the school system is realistic must be made on a case-by-case basis in the context of the youth's school record, remedial needs, and age. The process of returning youth to the school system at the beginning of the quarter immediately following entry to aftercare was often beset with problems, given previous performance in school and the extent to which the average youth was behind the pace in earned credits. Improved tracking procedures for youth during aftercare are required, and there is also a need to develop and put into operation standardized administrative procedures for managing youth who are absent from the program for periods of time without excuse or contact. Programs must consider the point at which noncompliance constitutes a violation of a court order. Community support. The community needs to buy into the concept of aftercare. Staff believe that a community-supported program will ultimately lead to the success of the youth in aftercare. A concerted effort should be made to promote relationships with representatives of the corporate and business communities, not only as sources of funding for supplemental services, but also as connections to potential employment, training, and job-seeking experiences for youth in aftercare. Failure to make community linkages and utilize existing resources contributes to overloading staff with multiple roles at each phase. Program evaluation Lessons were also learned that will benefit future impact evaluations. Generally speaking, a wide range of longitudinal data should be collected on participating youth to determine the benefits of a program and possible reasons for its successes and failures. Specifically: o Quantifiable information should be collected on participation in treatment (e.g., attendance, types of programs) for both experimental and control subjects. o Measures of program success should go beyond recidivism to include a range of positive outcomes (e.g., change in attitude, long-term academic and employment performance, community service, restitution). o Recidivism measures should capture a complete picture of subsequent delinquent activity, not just the first new adjudication (e.g., all new rearrests and new adjudications). This will enable measurement of suppression effect: For example, are subsequent offenses less serious? Less frequent? o Data on a new offense should include information on the origin and circumstances of the complaint to determine if there is a "monitoring" effect, that is, if a more intensive level of supervision increases the likelihood of recidivism. ------------------------------ Conclusion Within the guidelines established by OJJDP, the three boot camps for juvenile offenders funded in this demonstration project approached the concept of boot camp and its implementation differently. The balance between confrontational elements and rehabilitation varied from site to site, and aftercare designs -- and experiences -- were quite different. The three sites also had different target groups, with Cleveland treating the most serious offenders and Mobile treating younger and relatively less serious offenders. As different as their programs were by design, the three sites had remarkably similar experiences. All encountered difficulties in their public-private partnerships; all had difficulty in establishing facilities; all experienced significant staff turnover; all learned that treatment should be continuous from the residential phase to aftercare; and all learned how difficult aftercare is to implement. The three sites also learned from one another. Although the Denver program closed prematurely, its concept of the alternative school during aftercare was subsequently adopted in Cleveland. In Mobile, the residential phase has evolved steadily away from confrontation and increasingly toward rehabilitation. Despite the programs' operational problems, significant numbers of youth in the experimental group demonstrated important positive outcomes. At the two sites where educational gains were measured, youth showed impressive improvements in academic skills. At the two sites where information on employment was available, significant numbers of youth found a job while in aftercare. However, whether these gains were sustained over time could not be determined from the available data. In addition, data that would frame these findings in an appropriate comparative context were not available for youth in the control group. Despite some positive outcomes, in the 2 1/2 years of operation, none of the three boot camps appears to have reduced recidivism as compared with the control group. In Cleveland, more intensive monitoring of youth in the experimental group during aftercare may have increased their risk of detection, and thus recidivism, relative to the youth in the control group, who had considerably fewer contacts with authorities following release. The program outcome of interest to most observers is, of course, recidivism. By that measure, the results of the demonstration project might be considered disappointing if the expectation was that the rate of recidivism would be lower for youth assigned to the boot camp group than for those in the control group. In Mobile and Denver, the recidivism rates for the boot camp and control groups were statistically comparable. In Cleveland, the boot camp group had a significantly higher rate of recidivism than the control group. Two points must be taken into consideration with regard to recidivism. First, this was a demonstration project and, as with all demonstration projects, one objective is to learn what works and what does not. In undertaking this experiment, Cleveland, Denver, and Mobile have made a valuable contribution to the current understanding of the use of the boot camp model for juvenile offenders. The other side of the coin in Mobile and Denver is that, despite operational difficulties, the boot camp groups did not fare worse than the control groups. In Cleveland, the question that must be asked is, Why did the experimental group do worse? This question calls for further investigation and leads to the second point: The findings presented here are from interim reports. The groups included in this study must be tracked for a longer period of time. It is entirely plausible that the control group in Cleveland will, over time, experience a recidivism rate comparable to that of the experimental group. Cost effectiveness is another key outcome variable. The cost per day for the boot camp programs was found to be generally comparable to the cost per day for other residential care and postrelease programs. However, because youth are confined for a significantly shorter term in boot camp than in other institutional settings, the cost per offender for boot camp was considerably lower. These savings, of course, are realized only if boot camp is used as an alternative to confinement, rather than as an alternative to probation. To give the concept of boot camps for juvenile offenders a fair test, it is necessary not only to describe what has happened, but also to understand what has happened. In the next section, the lessons learned thus far from this demonstration project are considered in light of the available research on boot camps. ------------------------------ What We Know and What We Want To Know Although much has been learned about the performance of the boot camp model and its impact on juvenile offenders, much more remains to be examined. The following discussion highlights the most salient outcomes of the OJJDP demonstration project in the context of continuing research on the viability of boot camps as an intermediate corrections policy and suggests new directions for future inquiry that will ensure a fair and thorough hearing for the model. Positive change during confinement The boot camp environment appears to create a setting that facilitates learning and academic education, even for such a troubled population. Despite the extremely short period during which youth were confined in the experimental boot camps, major achievements were demonstrated at the two sites where standardized tests were administered to youth at both intake and release. A significant majority of youth improved at least one grade level in literacy and math skills in the equivalent of less than half an academic year, with many improving two grade levels or more. Considering that so many of the offenders had known only failure and difficulty in school prior to boot camp -- at assignment many of them were two or more grades behind -- it is likely that these gains contributed to building self-esteem that may well create a foundation for future gains in school or GED programs after release. Unfortunately, comparable data were not available for the control groups in the participating sites. Thus, a continuing question remains as to whether the boot camp setting is significantly better than the academic settings offered by traditional institutions. Available descriptive information, however, suggests that boot camp participants probably participated in programs that were smaller and that afforded more personalized attention than they would have received otherwise. Offenders released immediately to probation received no such services and, therefore, were no better off academically than they had been before. Boot camps have been found to be associated with other kinds of positive, measurable changes in adult inmates during the confinement period. A consistent finding across a number of different boot camp models has been that offenders who completed boot camp programs developed fewer antisocial attitudes during confinement than prison-incarcerated comparison groups. In addition, boot camp inmates were more likely to view their confinement in positive terms than comparison groups in traditional prison settings (MacKenzie and Souryal, 1996). ------------------------------ Recidivism In the OJJDP demonstration project, boot camp participants at all three sites were found to be no less likely to reoffend after release than their control group counterparts. These findings appear to be consistent with much of the research that has been conducted to date on adult boot camps, although comparisons are complicated by differences in measures and methods. At one of the OJJDP sites, both offenders who had been committed to State institutions on prior offenses and those who had committed less serious prior offenses were found to be at greatest risk for recidivism. These findings suggest that the selection net may be too wide at both ends of the offense history spectrum and that jurisdictions might consider focusing on felony offenders who have never been incarcerated. One of the inescapable conclusions of the demonstration project of boot camps for juvenile offenders is that the model, as originally conceived by OJJDP, was not fully implemented at any of the three participating sites. Thus, one of the fundamental questions that remains to be addressed is, How would outcomes for offenders completing boot camp differ from outcomes for offenders completing traditional sentences if offenders were released from boot camp to a viable and effective program of aftercare? ------------------------------ Positive indicators of adjustment following release A significant number of offenders in Cleveland and Mobile took important steps toward individual goals while under supervision in aftercare. At least two-thirds of offenders in Cleveland returned to school or entered a GED program in aftercare. In addition, one-third of offenders in Cleveland and nearly one-fourth of offenders in Mobile obtained full- or part-time employment while under supervision in aftercare. In Cleveland, offenders released from boot camp who were able to secure employment while in aftercare were at less risk of recidivism than offenders who did not obtain employment. Unfortunately, comparable data were not available for the control groups in the participating sites. Thus, the question remains as to whether offenders released from boot camp are more likely to participate in self-development activities -- indicating a more positive adjustment -- than offenders released from probation or other institutions. In addition, data were not available on the long-term performance of youth who returned to school, enrolled in a GED program, or obtained employment. Therefore, the question of whether offenders are able to translate these initial steps into a positive, long-term life change also remains to be addressed. Other research on intermediate sanctions indicates that intensive supervision can be effective in encouraging offenders to pursue positive self-development activities in the community, although whether the catalyst is primarily internal (i.e., self-driven because of real behavior and attitude change) or external (i.e., response to program requirements) remains unclear (Brame and MacKenzie, 1996). If it can be demonstrated that boot camp, combined with an effective aftercare program, is more successful in helping offenders participate in community services and activities that enhance their life chances, a critical program benefit will be realized. ------------------------------ Cost effectiveness The cost effectiveness of boot camp depends largely on the program's diversionary effect on alternative placements, with the critical factor being the relative diversion from more costly confinement. In Cleveland, where all youth selected for boot camp would have served a lengthier term of confinement in State or county facilities, the average cost per day for each youth in boot camp was similar to the average cost per day for each youth in traditional settings. However, a significantly shorter total period of time in confinement -- 3 months compared with average terms of 6 to 8 months -- resulted in considerable savings. In Mobile and Denver, the cost per day of boot camp was found to be significantly lower than the cost of conventional confinement but significantly higher than the cost of releasing offenders on probation. Assuming comparable rates of postrelease recidivism, programs that solely or overwhelmingly draw from a population of youth destined for longer sentences in traditional confinement settings are likely to result in a net decrease in correctional outlays, while programs that draw primarily from a population of youth destined for probation are likely to result in a net increase in correctional outlays. Drawing from the probation population also increases the potential for net widening (i.e., youth are sentenced to boot camp when the more appropriate disposition would have been probation), which further increases costs. Although boot camps can be cost effective in themselves, their impact on total confinement costs depends on the number of youth who are diverted from conventional confinement. Actual cost savings can be realized only as boot camps allow traditional facilities to reduce their infrastructure, staffing, and other operating expenses over time. However, incarceration costs at traditional facilities are only likely to change with major net decreases in their population. Thus, in addition to a high diversion rate from a longer term of confinement in traditional settings to a significantly shorter period in boot camp, jurisdictions must operate enough boot camps with sufficient capacity to reduce the fixed costs of these traditional institutions. These findings are entirely consistent with Parent's research on the impact of adult boot camps on correctional costs and institutional crowding (Parent, 1996). ------------------------------ Conclusion At this point in their development, boot camps do not appear to be the panacea that many hoped they would become. Nonetheless, boot camps do appear to offer certain practical advantages and future promise that warrant continued testing and examination. As an intermediate sanction, boot camps are a useful alternative for offenders for whom probation would be insufficiently punitive, yet for whom long-term incarceration would be excessive. As such, under certain conditions, boot camps can free bed space for more hardened offenders, thereby reducing the financial burden on correctional budgets. In Cleveland, where the aftercare program was significantly enhanced at the approximate midpoint in the demonstration project, preliminary analyses by the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court indicate that recidivism rates plummeted sharply among the youth in the boot camp who benefited from the modified program. Should the OJJDP-funded follow-on study in Cleveland substantiate these early findings, the Camp Roulston program may become a laboratory for further discovery of "what works" in juvenile boot camps. Future research must focus on the kinds of questions that have been raised here to provide the information needed to enable the justice system to maximize the benefits of boot camps as an intermediate corrections option. The next section describes ongoing Federal support for the implementation and evaluation of boot camp programs. ------------------------------ Office of Justice Programs Initiatives Providing support for planning, developing, and implementing juvenile boot camps, along with training, technical assistance, and evaluation, is one of the key ways in which the Federal Government can become a partner in State and local efforts to reduce crime and delinquency. The 1995 roundtable on juvenile boot camp issues and the outcome evaluation of the three juvenile boot camps are only two examples of Federal efforts to examine boot camps and disseminate state-of-the-art information about them. This section describes the other forms of support for boot camps that OJJDP and its sister agencies in OJP are making available to jurisdictions across the country. ------------------------------ Program implementation OJP established the Corrections Program Office to implement new correctional grant programs authorized in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1994. The Corrections Boot Camp Initiative was authorized through the fiscal year 1995 appropriations language for one of these programs, the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth in Sentencing Incentive Grant Program. In developing program guidelines for the Corrections Boot Camp Initiative (Office of Justice Programs, 1995), OJP drew upon the results of research, recommendations from a focus group convened in 1994 by BJA, and the guiding principles provided by an interagency Crime Act Implementation Working Group. The 40-member BJA working group included corrections administrators, researchers, retired military officers, service providers, and U.S. Department of Justice officials. The group identified reduction of the length of incarceration, of the harmful effects of institutionalization, and of the rates of recidivism as desired systemic outcomes. The desired individual outcomes were changes in attitude and behavior and acquisition of specific skills and competencies. A major result of the discussion about the best means to achieve systemic and individual outcomes was the recognition that the success of boot camp programs ultimately rests on the continuation of service delivery during the community reintegration phase. Moreover, the community-based components must be linked seamlessly to the services initiated during the institutional phase. The group also recommended that grant applicants experiment with various programmatic approaches (in addition to or other than the military approach) and encouraged corrections agencies to develop interagency, intergovernmental, and public/private partnerships as part of their service delivery strategy. The 1995 program guidelines provided a set of core principles intended to guide applicants in developing effective programs. Applicants were encouraged to develop programs using the guidance provided on the development process, organization, operations, discipline, institutional programming, staff, physical plant, conditions of confinement, innovative program delivery, and intensive and coordinated aftercare. In addition, applicants planning to implement a juvenile boot camp were encouraged to incorporate the following six key components to increase program effectiveness: o Education and job training and placement. o Community service. o Substance abuse counseling and treatment. o Health and mental health care. o Continuous, individualized case management. o Intensive aftercare services coordinated with the boot camp program. In large measure, these key components and support for the general direction the guidelines took were derived from OJJDP's boot camp demonstration experience. Technical assistance workshop Shortly after promulgation of the program guidelines, the Corrections Program Office, with support and input from OJJDP, BJA, and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), hosted a technical assistance workshop in Atlanta, Georgia, to provide potential applicants with information on boot camp program development and the grant application process. Workshop attendees heard addresses from representatives of established adult and juvenile programs who recounted their trials, tribulations, and triumphs in operating boot camp programs. A plenary session on planning a boot camp was followed by breakout sessions on what works in correctional boot camps. Breakout session topics included targeting offenders, building on research, program design considerations, physical design considerations, and aftercare. Additional plenary sessions covered staffing, statewide correctional planning, truth in sentencing, and sentencing guidelines. The workshop concluded with a session on the preparation of the boot camp grant application. Potential applicants were also provided with preliminary research findings indicating that boot camps were evolving from the predominantly punitive confrontational model toward a more balanced model that includes therapeutic intervention with a strong emphasis on aftercare. Grant awards In September 1995, OJP awarded funding to 44 grantees: 26 for boot camp planning, 7 for boot camp renovation, and 11 for boot camp construction. These boot camp facilities are to provide an alternative for nonviolent offenders, so as to free conventional prison, jail, and juvenile corrections space for the confinement of violent offenders -- those who have committed a crime that "(1) involves the use or attempted use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon against another person, or (2) results in death or serious bodily injury to another person, or (3) is a serious sex offense" (Office of Justice Programs, 1995). The grantees are spread across the continental United States, Alaska, American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands, and include two Native American programs. Of the 44 grants, 24 were awarded to juvenile programs, and of $21 million awarded, $15.6 million went to programs for juveniles. Some grants are multijurisdictional, with local agencies receiving subgrants from States. The successful applicants were those that proposed a strong emphasis on aftercare and an intervention model based primarily on leadership and youth development rather than on confrontation. ------------------------------ Training and technical assistance The Corrections Program Office has worked closely with correctional practitioners, researchers, and administrators to assess the needs of the field for training and technical assistance and has determined those needs to be broader in scope than those of the 44 recipients of Corrections Boot Camp Initiative grants. To meet the needs of the field, OJP has authorized the provision of training and technical assistance to all boot camp planning applicants who were not funded but who have continued to move forward with the development of a boot camp and to targeted nonapplicants who are in the active planning stages of developing a boot camp. The service delivery system is two tiered: (1) one-on-one technical assistance provided by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) and (2) national and regional meetings, workshops, surveys, and focus groups organized by the Criminal Justice Institute, an independent consulting firm under contract to the Corrections Program Office. The assistance provided by NIC consists of a four-pronged approach: o Supporting recipients in gathering, analyzing, and using data to ensure that their efforts to design, construct, operate, monitor, and evaluate boot camp programs and facilities are based on sound research. o Assisting recipients in the actual development and implementation of their boot camp program and facility plans. o Facilitating the support and participation of key stakeholders in the planning and implementation of boot camp programs. o Designing an effective monitoring and evaluation plan. The technical assistance offered by the Criminal Justice Institute brings grantees together with technical consultants to address issues that are common to grantees. This technical assistance includes pertinent information and materials. Juvenile boot camps national satellite teleconference In February 1996, OJJDP produced a national satellite teleconference on juvenile boot camps. A total of 288 downlink sites representing 8,600 viewers tuned in from across the country and from Guam and the Virgin Islands. The purpose of the teleconference was to explore the general characteristics of juvenile boot camps; to provide viewers with information on the Sgt. Henry Johnson Youth Leadership Academy in South Kortright, New York, which is widely regarded as a promising youth development model; to present results from the OJJDP-funded impact evaluation of three juvenile boot camps (reported on earlier in this Program Summary); and to offer viewers a forum for discussing the characteristics of juvenile boot camps, operational concepts, and implementation issues. Teleconference subscribers were able to call in questions and comments and to share their views on what works and what lessons have been learned with regard to juvenile boot camps [6]. National boot camp workshop A national boot camp workshop was held on April 9-11, 1996. Cosponsored by the Corrections Program Office and OJJDP, the workshop was designed to provide a peer learning opportunity for jurisdictions involved in the planning or implementation phase of a new boot camp program. Participants received the latest research and evaluation information on boot camp programs and information on adult and juvenile learning theory, facility and program planning, and staffing issues. Special attention was given to postinstitutional and transitional oversight (aftercare), and participants were encouraged to incorporate into their programs such innovative options as training in parenting, victim restitution and restorative (community) justice, avoidance of violence against women, boot camps as therapeutic communities, and cognitive restructuring. NIC offered onsite followup technical assistance to all interested parties. ------------------------------ Program evaluation Major evaluations funded by OJP and its constituent agencies have been under way since 1990. The cornerstone is MacKenzie and Souryal's Multisite Evaluation of Shock Incarceration (1994), which was published under the auspices of NIJ. NIJ also funded an implementation evaluation of the three OJJDP juvenile boot camps (Institute for Criminological Research and American Institutes for Research, 1992). Under the 1995 Corrections Boot Camp Initiative, NIJ is funding two other sets of evaluations, one examining existing programs and the other examining the implementation and impact of the programs that were funded in September 1995. In addition to supporting the impact evaluation of the three juvenile demonstration sites reported on in this Program Summary, OJJDP is supporting Caliber Associates' follow-on study in Cleveland, which will focus on the influence of aftercare in determining program success and will also examine positive outcome indicators and possible suppression effects from the boot camp intervention. OJJDP and NIJ will jointly support an evaluation of the performance of the Sgt. Henry Johnson Youth Leadership Academy. The issues are familiar: What is a boot camp? Do boot camps meet the needs of juvenile and female offenders? For what kinds of offenders is boot camp most appropriate? Are boot camps cost effective? What are the best practices or ideal models that exist for boot camps? The activities reported on in this Program Summary have begun to uncover answers to these questions, and OJP and its constituent agencies are committed to continuing the inquiry for the benefit of both the policymakers and practitioners who are engaged in implementing and operating the evolving model and the offenders who experience it. ------------------------------ Endnotes 1. The complete list of roundtable participants is as follows: The roundtable was hosted and moderated by Shay Bilchik, Administrator, OJJDP. The principal speakers were Doris MacKenzie, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice; Dale Parent of Abt Associates, Inc.; and David Altschuler, Ph.D., of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. The discussants included Beatrix Hamburg, M.D., President of the W.T. Grant Foundation, which supports research and has recently placed a heavy emphasis on rigorous evaluation of intervention programs; Phil Coltoff, Executive Director of the Children's Aid Society, which operates community centers throughout New York City; Marty Beyer, Ph.D., a Psychologist who has assisted private youth-serving agencies and various States in improving the effectiveness of services to delinquents; Gordon Raley, Executive Director of the National Collaboration for Youth; and Paul DeMuro, an independent consultant who has been involved in the field of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention for the past 25 years. Also contributing to the discussion were Donald Murray of the National Association of Counties and Kimberly Barnes O'Connor, Children's Policy Coordinator for the Senate Committee on Labor and Community Resources. Other participants included Marlene Beckman, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, OJP; Angela Dias, M.D., a specialist in adolescent medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York; Gwenn Smith-Engle, Legislative liaison for the American Correctional Association; Arnold Hopkins, then Branch Chief of the Crime Act Corrections Branch, BJA; and Douglas McDonald, a senior analyst at Abt Associates, Inc. The meeting was also attended by Laurie Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, OJP; Larry Solomon, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Corrections; Joe Thome of Community Research Associates, Inc.; Voncile Gowdy, Manager of the Corrections Research Program, National Institute of Justice; and by the following staff from OJJDP: John J. Wilson, Deputy Administrator; Douglas Dodge, Director, Special Emphasis Division; Sarah Ingersoll, Special Assistant to the Administrator; Emily Martin, Director, Training and Technical Assistance Division; Marsha Renwanz, Ph.D., Special Assistant to the Administrator; Frank Smith, Program Manager, Special Emphasis Division; and Gina Wood, Director, Concentration of Federal Efforts Program. 2. By adding to length of stay, recycling does produce some increase in cost, but it can still be cost effective. According to Parent, about 30 to 40 percent of those admitted to boot camp fail to complete the residential program and then serve regular confinement sentences that are much longer than the 3 to 4 months of boot camp. The relatively shorter time for recycling is less costly than confinement for a longer term. 3. It is worthy to note, however, that what appears to be net widening may actually involve the assignment to boot camp of problem youth who should be confined, but who previously would have been released on probation because bedspace was not available at a traditional facility. 4. These reports are available through the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at 800-638-8736. 5. Violent offenses were defined to include assault, menacing behavior, robbery, and domestic violence. While violent offenders were initially precluded from selection, the sites relaxed this standard over time to exclude only those who were "habitual" violent offenders or who had a "pattern" of violent offenses. 6. Copies of the videotape are available for a nominal fee through the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at 800-638-8736. ------------------------------ Bibliography Allinson, R.S., P. DeMuro, and R.A. Mathias, eds. 1984. Violent Juvenile Offenders: An Anthology. San Francisco, CA: National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Altschuler, D.M., and T.L. Armstrong. 1994 (September). Intensive Aftercare for High-Risk Juveniles: A Community Care Model. Program Summary. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Altschuler, D.M., and T.L. Armstrong. 1994 (September). Intensive Aftercare for High-Risk Juveniles: Policies and Procedures. Program Summary. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Altschuler, D.M., and T.L. Armstrong. 1992 (June). Intensive Aftercare for High-Risk Juvenile Parolees: A Model Program Design. Baltimore, MD: Institute for Policy Studies, The Johns Hopkins University. American Correctional Association. 1995. Standards for Juvenile Correctional Boot Camp Programs. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Andrews, D.A., I. Zinger, H.D. Hoge, J. Bonta, P. Gendreau, and F.T. Cullen. 1990. "Does Correctional Treatment Work? A Clinically Relevant and Psychologically Informed Meta-analysis." Criminology 28:369-404. Armstrong, T.L., and D.M. Altschuler. 1993. Intensive Interventions With High-Risk Youths: Promising Approaches in Juvenile Probation and Parole. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press. Austin, J.M., M. Jones, and M. Bolyard. 1993 (October). "The Growing Use of Jail Boot Camps: The Current State of the Art." Research in Brief. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Brame, R., and D.L. MacKenzie. 1996. "Shock Incarceration and Positive Adjustment During Community Supervision: A Multisite Evaluation." In Correctional Boot Camps: A Tough Intermediate Sanction, edited by D.L. MacKenzie and E.E. Hebert. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Byrne, J., and M. Brewster. 1993 (December). "Choosing the Future of American Corrections: Punishment or Reform." Federal Probation 57(4):3-9. Byrne, J.M., A. Lurigio, and C. Baird. 1989 (September). "The Effectiveness of New Intensive Supervision Programs" (special issue). Research in Corrections 2(2). Caliber Associates. 1996a. Evaluation of the Impact of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders: Cleveland Interim Report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Caliber Associates. 1996b. Evaluation of the Impact of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders: Denver Interim Report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Caliber Associates. 1996c. Evaluation of the Impact of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders: Mobile Interim Report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Castellano, T.C. 1995. "Enhancing the Evaluation Outcomes of Innovative Boot Camp Programs." Progress report presented to the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, September 27, 1995. Cronin, R., and M. Han. 1994. Boot Camps for Adult and Juvenile Offenders: Overview and Update. Research Report. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Fagan, J. 1990 (June). "Treatment and Reintegration of Violent Juvenile Offenders: Experimental Results." Justice Quarterly 7(2):233-263. Garret, C.J. 1985. "Effects of Residential Treatment on Adjudicated Delinquents: A Meta-analysis." Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 22:287-308. Gransky, L.A., T.C. Castellano, and E.L. Cowles. 1995. "Is There a `Second Generation' of Shock Incarceration Facilities?: The Evolving Nature of Goals, Program Elements, and Drug Treatment Services in Boot Camp Programs." In Intermediate Sanctions: Sentencing in the 1990's, edited by J. Smykla and W. Selke. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing Company, pp. 89-112. Greenwood, P., E. Deschenes, and J. Adams. 1993. Chronic Juvenile Offenders: Final Results from the Skillman Aftercare Experiment. Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation. Greenwood, P., and F. Zimring. 1985. One More Chance: The Pursuit of Promising Intervention Strategies for Chronic Juvenile Offenders. Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation. Institute for Criminological Research and American Institutes for Research. 1992 (September). Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders: Constructive Intervention and Early Support -- Implementation Evaluation. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Krisberg, B. 1991 (July). Juvenile Intensive Supervision Program Model, Operations Manual and Guide. Special report submitted to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Lab, S.P., and J.T. Whitehead. 1988. "An Analysis of Juvenile Correctional Treatment." Crime and Delinquency 34:60-83. Little, G., and K. Robinson. 1994. "Cost-effectiveness, Rehabilitation Potential, and Safety of Intermediate Sanctions: Mixed Results." Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment Review 3(1):4-7. MacKenzie, D.L. 1993 (November). "Boot Camp Prisons in 1993." National Institute of Justice Journal, pp. 21-28. MacKenzie, D.L. 1989. The Parole Performance of Offenders Released from Shock Incarceration (Boot Camp Prisons): A Survival Time Analysis. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. MacKenzie, D.L., L.A. Gould, L.M. Riechers, and J.W. Shaw. 1990. "Shock Incarceration: Rehabilitation or Retribution?" Journal of Offender Counseling, Services and Rehabilitation 14(2):25- 40. MacKenzie, D.L., and E.E. Hebert, eds. 1996. Correctional Boot Camps: A Tough Intermediate Sanction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. MacKenzie, D.L., and J.W. Shaw. 1990. "Inmate Adjustment and Change During Shock Incarceration: The Impact of Correctional Boot Camp Programs." Justice Quarterly 7:125-150. MacKenzie, D.L., and C. Souryal. 1994. Multisite Evaluation of Shock Incarceration. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. MacKenzie, D.L., and C.C. Souryal. 1991 (October). "Boot Camp Survey: Rehabilitation, Recidivism Reduction Outrank Punishment as Main Goals." Corrections Today 53(6):90-92, 94-96. Marlette, M. 1991. "Boot Camp Prisons Thrive." Corrections Compendium 16(1):1-12. National Coalition of State Juvenile Justice Advisory Groups. 1993. Myths and Realities: Meeting the Challenge of Serious, Violent and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. 1992 Annual Report. Washington, DC: National Coalition of State Juvenile Justice Advisory Groups. National Commission on Children. 1991. Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Office of Justice Programs. 1995. Fiscal Year 1995 Corrections Boot Camp Initiative: Violent Offender Incarceration Grant Program. Program Guidelines and Application Information. Washington, DC: Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. 1990. A Survey of Intermediate Sanctions. Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Parent, D.G. 1996. "Boot Camps and Prison Crowding." In Correctional Boot Camps: A Tough Intermediate Sanction, edited by D.L. MacKenzie and E.E. Hebert. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Parent, D.G. 1995. Planning a Bootcamp: An Overview of Five Critical Elements. Paper presented at the Office of Justice Programs Boot Camp Technical Assistance Workshop, Atlanta, Georgia, April 1, 1995. Parent, D.G. 1994. "Boot Camps Failing to Achieve Goals." Overcrowded Times 5(4):8-11. Parent, D.G. 1989. Shock Incarceration: An Overview of Existing Programs. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Petersilia, J., and S. Turner. 1993 (May). Evaluating Intensive Supervision Probation/Parole: Results of a Nationwide Experiment. Research in Brief. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Peterson, E. 1996 (March). Juvenile Boot Camps: Lessons Learned. Fact Sheet No. 36. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Schneider, A.L. 1986. "Restitution and Recidivism Rates of Juvenile Offenders: Results from Four Experimental Studies." Criminology 24:533-552. Sharp, D. 1995 (June). "Boot Camps: Punishment and Treatment." Corrections Today 57:81-89. Sontheimer, H., and L. Goodstein. 1993 (June). "An Evaluation of Juvenile Intensive Aftercare Probation: Aftercare Versus System Response Effects." Justice Quarterly 10(2):197-227. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 1996 (December 10). Formula Grants; Final Rule [to be codified at 28 CFR Part 31]. Federal Register 61(238):65132-65140. U.S. General Accounting Office. 1994 (January). Sentencing: Intermediate Sanctions in the Federal Criminal Justice System. Briefing Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (GAO/GGD-94-63BR). U.S. General Accounting Office. 1993 (April). Prison Boot Camps: Short-Term Prison Costs Reduced, but Long-Term Impact Uncertain. Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (GAO/GGD-93-69). U.S. General Accounting Office. 1990 (September). Intermediate Sanctions: Their Impacts on Prison Crowding, Costs, and Recidivism Are Still Unclear. Report to the Chairman, Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (GAO/PEMD-90-21). U.S. General Accounting Office. 1988 (September). Prison Boot Camps: Too Early to Measure Effectiveness. Briefing Report to the Honorable Lloyd Bentsen, U.S. Senate. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (GAO/GGD-88-125BR). Whitehead, J.T., and S.P. Lab. 1989. "A Meta-analysis of Juvenile Correctional Treatment." Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 26:276-295. Wilson, J.J., and J.C. Howell. 1993 (December). Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. Program Summary. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. ------------------------------ Additional Resources A number of publications from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the National Institute of Justice focus on boot camps and other corrections issues. The following titles represent a sample of these. All are available through OJJDP's Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (JJC), a component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), by telephone at 800-638-8736; by mail at P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000; or by e-mail at askncjrs@ncjrs.org. Unless otherwise noted, there is no cost for these publications. In addition, many of them are available online from the publications section of OJJDP's home page, http://www.ncjrs.org/ojjhome.htm. The NCJRS library and data base also have thousands of titles related to other corrections issues and options. Contact JJC for more information. o Boot Camp Drug Treatment and Aftercare Intervention: An Evaluation Review (Research Report), NCJ 153918. o Boot Camp Drug Treatment and Aftercare Intervention: An Evaluation Review, NCJ 155062. o Boot Camps for Adults and Juvenile Offenders: Overview and Update, NCJ 149175. o Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders: An Implementation Evaluation, NCJ 157317. o Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders: An Implementation Evaluation of Three Demonstration Programs, NCJ 157316. o Desktop Guide to Good Juvenile Detention Practice, NCJ 161408. o Evaluation of the Impact of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders -- Cleveland Interim Report ($19.00), NCJ 160928. o Evaluation of the Impact of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders -- Denver Interim Report ($19.00), NCJ 160927. o Evaluation of the Impact of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders -- Mobile Interim Report ($19.00), NCJ 160926. o Juvenile Boot Camps: Lessons Learned, FS-9636. o Juvenile Boot Camps -- Satellite Teleconference Video (VHS) ($17.00), NCJ 160949. o Juvenile Detention Training Needs Assessment, NCJ 156833. o Multisite Evaluation of Shock Incarceration (Research Report), NCJ 150062. o National Survey of Aftercare Provisions for Boot Camp Graduates, NCJ 157664. o A Resource Manual for Juvenile Detention and Corrections: Effective and Innovative Programs ($15.00), NCJ 155285. o YES [Youth Environmental Service] in Action, NCJ 159762. o YES Technical Assistance Package, NCJ 159763.