Juvenile Boot Camp as punishement for delinquent juveniles, good or bad idea?

Age 20, white female, Florida resident.

It is a good idea. Although the incident here in Florida was tragic. The juvenile boot camps were actually the last step in reforming troubled teens. The next step was to send them to prison, which really doesn't reform them. It puts them in a more criminal environment where they have to basically survive without any adult guidance.

Between June 1994 and August 1995, 62 recruits entered Bay County's juvenile boot camp, and 59 of these recruits graduated. The typical boot camp graduate was a 16-year-old male; 49 percent of graduates were black; and graduates averaged 7.7 delinquency cases before boot camp admission, more than half of which involved felonies. The largest proportion of graduates were committed for felony property offenses, with burglary the most frequently committed offense. The average length of stay, including the time recycled to boot camp for noncompliance with aftercare rules, totaled 138 days. As a group, boot camp graduates increased approximately 1 grade 2 months in reading, 1 grade 7 months in math, and 1 grade 8 months in spelling on the Wide Range Achievement Test. Fifty-two percent of graduates successfully completed aftercare, graduates who were successfully released from aftercare averaged 5.5 months of aftercare services, and 36 percent of graduates were employed after release from boot camp. Of the 59 graduates, 64 percent were rearrested within 1 year of graduation and 49 percent were subsequently re-adjudicated or convicted on new charges. Boot camp graduates were most likely to be rearrested for felony property crimes. Most youths were first rearrested within 3 months of graduation. Supplemental data on juvenile offenses and demographic characteristics and placement histories of boot camp graduates are appended. 5 references, 21 tables, and 5 figures

Although the statistics show that 64% were rearrested within a year of graduation. It means that 36% were successfully reintegrated into society in Bay county Florida alone.

I'm seventeen. It depends on the person and the situation. Depending on what they're doing that is considered delinquency, it can be a good and bad idea. If it's a last resort for someone who is truly out of control and has outrageous bad behavior and they refuse to cooperate or do things they absolutely need to do and continue to resist against parents (this doesn't mean just going against parents' wishes, of course), then sending them to boot camp could be a positive way to put their life on a good track so they will be able to grow up successfully and become a decent person. If it's a punishment that parents want to give because it's the harshest they can come up with and really wouldn't solve any problems and would just make their child hate them for sending them away to a horrible place, then it would be a terrible decision.

Hello.

I am a parent of two 13 (F) and 17 (M).

I am 47 Years old.

JBC's are a great idea if you never,ever want to have a relationship with your children.

Sending your own flesh and blood to what is essentially prison for an unnamed crime without trial or conviction on top of that is good proof why some people should never have children.

Moreover, the time spent in detention gives the juvenile opportunity to make more established criminal connections as well as being exposed to sexual assault, disease, malnutrition and a further loss of self esteem.

There are plenty of well trained Doctors and Behaviorists who could do this remediation more cheaply.

Neither one

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Fantastic idea is my answer

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If you have ever been in one as a person sent there by the courts

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And not sitting at home on the couch with a beer in hand watching what goes on

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It is a lot different in what really goes on

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There are some of the want ta be tough guys there in boot camp

And when they confront one of the real and I DO mean real Nasty people

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That star them in the face from less than the thickness of a stamp away

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And these guys that are in this posture look like they belong on

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The front cover of Best of the year Edition of Muscle Magazine

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Ready to pick up these guys that are sent there to show them what the real world is all about

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Then you would see why these Boot camps make the news in how to fix the bad parts of mankind

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Stupid idea. My reasoning?

It's obvious when you throw a criminal in prison, they usually repeat their crimes and end up going back. So America knows that the prison system does not work. (Not all, most)

Same applies to boot camp for juveniles.

I don't believe juveniles behave the way they do just because. I totally believe that their upbringing plays a vital role. Families should be looked under a microscope. It begins at home. Parents need to be accountable for their children's actions. If children need to go to boot camp, then their parents should be forced to go too.

It will only cause resentment in a child.

Parents who are not looked at as an authority figure by a child deemed 'delinquent', that child will listen to someone else. Most of the time a child will behave at a boot camp but return home the same as he went in. That is usually why children are well behaved at other people's houses but is a terror in his own home. It's safer to act out when you are in your own home because the home is viewed as a sanctuary.

If children are out of control, I just believe there is a problem with the parents raising that child.

I am in my late 30's

I'm 19

I think its a bad idea to do that because your juvenile delinquent with be around other juvenile delinquents. They will probably talk to each other about what they did to get in there and that would only give your juvenile delinquent more ideas to misbehave when they get out.

Bad idea.

We live in a society like no other.

The family structure is not as strong as it once was. Families don't eat at the dinner table anymore. More and more single parents are having to take on the double role and mom and dad. I believe the media and society plays a MAJOR role in the youth of today.

Juvenile deinquency is high among single parents. Statistics show that if both parents are in the home, the incidences of problem children are lower. (Of course, not in all cases).

We cannot just blame teenagers for their behavior as a 'phase'. It is not a phase.

Parents need to step up and be parents, that's all. KNOW who your children hang out with. KNOW where they are going when they leave. Have every number of your child's friends. Do 'spot' checks at locations that your child said they will be at. Parents have become so lax in today's world.

So before putting blame on a teen, take a look at his family structure and upbrining.

Possibly good, depending on the nature of the camp. Anything with bullying or victimisation would make the juveniles worse I expect.

Did you see the show "Brat Camp"? That set-up seemed to work quite effectively though of course it's hard to tell from a show.

It's a fantastic idea.

About five years ago there was a tv series called Brat Camp. At the start of the show, the out of control teens were smug, arrogant, and defiant. They thought they could get away with anything.

But the camp performs a function I term, "Denying someone the luxury of their delusion". After just a few days in the (relatively) harsh environment of the camp, where they can't con their way out of work or self-improvement, these kids were reduced to sobbing wretches.

Needless to say, I loved watching that.

I am 49.

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EDIT: It's funny that I should get Thumbs Down for this answer, especially considering that the whole point of the tv show was how it improved most of these kids.

But what should I expect at Yahoo Answers? It's infested with Liberals who refuse to think.

they are a good idea in theory. But they only work while someone is in the boot camp. There are no programs for treatment after the kid has left bootcamp, meaning they will most likely reoffend

EDIT-- to the girl above me, brat camp is a wilderness camp that juviniles go to, it is completely different from a boot camp