A National Study Comparing the Environments of Boot Camps With Traditional Facilities for Juvenile Offenders

This Sentencing & Corrections RIB, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice and the Corrections Program Office, compares 27 boot camps with 22 more traditional facilities by measuring components of the institutional environment in each setting and their role in treatment. It also examines the results from site visits, staff surveys, surveys of juveniles given twice to examine changes over time, and structured interviews with facility administrators and finds strong evidence that juveniles and staff each rate boot camps more favorably. Perceptions among both juveniles and staff were that boot camps provided more structure and a safer environment. Further examination suggested that, perhaps even more important to the positive assessment of boot camps, their selection process admitted few juveniles who had either psychological problems or more serious offenses on their records. Together, the results from this study suggest that boot camps are successful in the first step—creating a positive environment. However, they are no more effective in reducing recidivism than are traditional facilities.