Pain and the Pride : Life Inside the Colorado Boot Camp [1 ed.] 9781906534547, 9781872870847

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The Pain and the Pride LIFE INSIDE THE COLORADO BOOT CAMP Brian P Block has a doctorate in pharmacology and has spent over 20 years testing the safety of new medicines. He holds degrees in pharmacy (London), criminal justice (BruneI) and Chinese (Westminster), and is a former Fulbright scholar and a post-doctoral research fellow at Yale University. He is a magistrate and a regular contributor to the national weekly journal Justice of the Peace. His earlier writings include Hanging in the Balance: The Abolition of Capital Punishment in Britain (Waterside Press, 1997) with John Hostettler and containing a Foreword by Lord Callaghan the former prime minister.

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The Pain and the Pride

The Pain and the Pride Life Inside the Colorado Boot Camp Published 2000 by

WATERSIDE PRESS DomumRoad Winchester 5023 9NN Telephone or Fax 01962855567 E-mail: [email protected] www.watersidepress.co.ukorwaterside-press.com Copyright Brian P Block All rights reserved No part of this work may be reproduced or stored in any retrieval system or transmitted by any means without the express permission in writing of the copyright holder. This copyright has been assigned to the publishers for the purposes of publication and reproduction of this edition. Publication and reproduction rights The right to publish and distribute copies of this work or to photograph, copy or otherwise reproduce the contents or binding, including the cover design, in any form or medium, or to broadcast or transmit pictures or copies of the binding or contents in any form or by whatever means anywhere in the world including on the Internet resides exclusively with Waterside Press. ISBN Paperback 1 872 870 84 3 Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library Printing and binding Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham Cover design John Good Holbrook Ltd, Coventry from original photographs by the author. Other images of the Colorado Boot Camp can be viewed in the Waterside Press Gallery at the above Internet address.

Life Inside the Colorado Boot Camp iii

The Pain and the Pride LIFE INSIDE THE COLORADO BOOT CAMP

Brian P Block

WATERSIDE PRESS WINCHESTER

iv The Pain and the Pride

Acknowledgements As outlined in the text which follows, in order to gather material for this book I spent a brief period at the boot camp in Buena Vista, Colorado. There are many people whom I have to thank for making my visit not only worthwhile but also enjoyable, but first and foremost I must express my gratitude to Major Mike Perryl who not only runs the outfit but whose philosophy pervades it. Nothing was too much trouble for him, nothing too complex or too trivial to explain whether it be the boot camp itself or the history and geography of the area or the local wildlife which he loves. Not only did he allow me free run of the facility during the day but he was available every evening to discuss points of interest in more detail. Furthermore I must thank both him and his wife Kathi for their hospitality to me and my wife, and the two secretaries, Carolyn McGuinn and Emma Turner who were ever helpful. I must also thank Elizabeth McDonagh, Director of Public Affairs at the Colorado Department of Corrections for arranging my security clearance. I owe a great debt to the second in command, Captain Jerry McFarland, who has had unequalled experience in many branches of the Department of Corrections. He spent a great deal of time explaining the legal basis of the boot camp, and one whole afternoon discussing the rights and wrongs of the prison system. The three Case Managers, Lieutenants Brian Spence, Gus Argys and Patrick Drawbridge never seemed to tire of my frequent questions (although they must have done) and went out of their way to let me know when something especially interesting was going on. Similarly the four Drill Sergeants, Cory Henderson, James Quintana, Shawn Burtlow and Joel Westbrook were unfailingly helpful and friendly. It must be the Drill Instructors, or Correctional Officers as they are also known, whom the new inmates hate most for it is they who do most of the shouting and yelling, the finding fault with everything and who demand endless press-ups2 for the slightest misdemeanour. But it is all on the surface, all done to a script, and a more amiable bunch of people it would be difficult to find. I tried, I hope successfully, not to get under their feet but it will be a long while before I forget the help and friendliness that I met from Robert 1

2

He is twice a Major. It was the rank he held on leaving the US Marines after 20 years service, and it is also his rank in the prison service. Unless quoting directly from an American source or using an American name British English spellings and words are used. Hence 'press-ups' rather than the American'push-ups', 'railway' rather than'railroad', 'offence' rather than 'offense' etc.

Life Inside the Colorado Boot Camp v

Chavaz, Jason Lengerich, Amy Larson, Bill Dent, Ruben Contreras, John O'Brien and Christopher Clarkson. On the educational side the Programmes Co-ordinator Margaret Arnett spent an entire morning explaining the programme for general education and moreover persuaded Heather Hagen, one of the general education teachers to come and join us on her morning off. To Heather and to her colleague Molly Schneider I am most grateful. I spent a great deal of my time in the cognitive education classes run by Jerry Leitshuh, Barbara Gertson and Michael Marshall for no better reason (although I had a better reason) than that they were fascinating and I learned so much from these teachers both in class and in many discussions after class. Finally, I must thank the three teachers who ran the Alcohol and Drugs Recovery Programme, Norma Warner, Marilyn Steele and Ken Howard who, I suspect, had the toughest task of all for almost without exception the inmates came in as, or had been, alcoholics or drug addicts. It would be a serious omission if after giving thanks to the staff I left out the inmates. I saw them in class, on the parade ground, in the gym, at meals and when they were in trouble. I saw them being shouted at and I saw them being complimented; I saw them relaxed in class and I saw them doing press-ups in the middle of a meal for some minor infringement. Boot camp is not an easy option and quitting must seem a great temptation at times but most go on to the end. I spoke to many of them during my stay and they were invariably amiable, courteous and curious about the British criminal justice system. I found it hard to think of them as criminals; they were mostly pleasant people who had done some unpleasant things. So I thank them too. Finally I wish to thank my friend Ron Williams for reading some of the more controversial chapters and for his mordant comments concerning the boot camp ethic. Despite all the help I received throughout my stay I am sure that some mistakes have crept in. They are all mine. Brian P Block April 2000

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The Pain and the Pride Life Inside the Colorado Boot Camp CONTENTS Introduction 7 Chapter 1 History and Geography 11 2 Staff and Intnates 15 3 Before and After 18

4 Zero and Beyond 26 5 Rules and Regulations 37 6 Drill and GyIll 49 7 Alcohol and Drugs 56 8 ProbleIlls and Solutions 67 9 Words and NUIllbers 77 10 Over and Out 84 11 Pros and Cons 90

12 TheIll and Us 105 Appendix I: Inmate Discipline and Regimented Program 115 Appendix 11: Punishment for Habitual Criminals 117 Appendix Ill: Personalised Addiction Process Chart 118

Bibliography 120 Index 122

Life Inside the Colorado Boot Camp

For Gus and Carol Levine

my special friends from Colorado

The Pain and the Pride

Introduction Whilst on holiday in the spring of 1998 touring around New Mexico and Colorado, I was studying the map to find the most interesting route from the south to the north of Colorado avoiding 1-25, the interstate highway that splits the state in two, when I spotted the small town of Buena Vista. The name promised some beautiful scenery of which there is no shortage in that area, but I also recalled that this was the town where the ~Colorado Corrections Alternative Program' (CCAP), commonly called the boot camp, was located, so there we drove. The local chamber of commerce and tourist office is situated in a small old wooden church on the main highway, attractively painted white with red trimmings. After receiving the usual useful information I enquired about the boot camp: was it possible to visit? No, I was told, they did not do tours. A conducted tour with a group of tourists was not what I had in mind and I tried to explain my interest as a magistrate, but to no avail. However, I was informed, the husband of someone else who worked at the tourist office had something to do with the camp and if I cared to come back in the afternoon when she would be working she could at least give me some information. In the interval we drove around the perimeter of the prison complex in which the boot camp is located and even stopped and daringly-and at a distance-took some pictures. The surrounding landscape is magnificent and if Colorado's scenery is spectacular the views around Buena Vista (locally pronounced not B'wayna but B'yuna Vista) are spectacular. If sites of outstanding natural beauty were an inoculation against offending, Colorado would be a crime-free zone. Back at the tourist office, not only was the assistant there but also her husband, dressed in the smart dark-blue uniform of the prison service. I explained again our interest in visiting the boot camp: that my wife and I were both magistrates and that there were no boot camps in Britain. He said that security clearance usually took about ten days but if we had any ID he would see what he could do. My driving licence seemed to suffice and we followed him to the prison. There we met the warden (governor) in charge of the prison complex, which comprised the main prison and the boot camp. We discussed the boot camp for an hour or so and then walked to the car park with our guide. Well, we thought, we managed to get in and we learned a lot. When we reached our car we were told to our astonishment that if we were not busy the next day we should meet at the gate of the boot camp and he would show us around properly. Next day, before 8.30 a.m., we duly met and were taken through the gate. We had made it inside! We walked to the centre to be signed in. The centre is a big octagonal glass-walled area set in the middle of a

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large space from which the open dormitories radiate. The inmates were lined up by their bunks for inspection and as we reached the central area a huge roar went up. Our guide looked up from the register and casually called, 'Carry on!' which they did. I said, 'Was that noise for you?' 'Yes', he replied. 'What did they shout?' 'Whenever they spot me in this area they have to shout out "Sir, Major on deck, Sir''', he replied, and at that point we realised that our friendly mentor Mike, as he was already known to us, was in fact the warden, the boss, of the entire boot camp. Our fortuitous call at the tourist office had led us straight to the top. We spent the entire day at the facility breaking off only for a brief lunch in town. We had wanted to see a boot camp to confirm our preconceptions that it would be brutal, militaristic, harsh and pointless, full of shouting and marching. We heard shouting and saw marching; the camp was run on military lines. But we saw no sign of brutality, no harshness and what was being done was far from pointless. We also saw education in progress: classes in cognitive thinking, alcohol and drug abuse rehabilitation and general education. The drill instructors yelled at the inmates during drilling or physical education sessions, but when they talked to us it was clear that they knew that they were part of a programme, and that the heart of the programme was to re-educate the offenders and change their mind-sets away from crime. The teachers were passionate about what they were doing and they in their turn recognised that the drilling and shouting were also necessary, in order to instil a sense of discipline that the offenders had hitherto lacked. We were invited to return next day but we had friends in the north of the state we had arranged to see so it was impossible to do so. We were also somewhat shell-shocked by what we had seen. There we were, a couple of bleeding-heart liberals, impressed by what was going on in an American boot camp and regretting that we had nothing like it in our own country. This was not what we had expected. Up until then there was nothing that the American criminal justice system could teach us about sentencing. One problem is that the very term 'boot camp' sends the hackles of liberals rising. Our understanding of the phrase leads to a picture of a military style prison for juveniles-a mixture of the old detention centres, Borstal training and army square-bashing. Indeed the term is an American one used to describe the army camps where raw recruits are trained. But although the facility is run on military lines, with its heavy emphasis on education it bears little resemblance to an army camp. The terms'Alternative Program' or 'Shock Incarceration' are more accurate. Furthermore, the Colorado boot camp-I shall continue to call it that-does not fit into any convenient slot of the British criminal justice system. In England and Wales there is provision for incarcerating juveniles aged ten to 18, and youths from 18 to 21. After the age of 21 custodial sentences are passed in adult prisons. The CCAP starts just

Introduction

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after where the British juvenile system leaves off, at 18, and deals with the 18 to 30 age group. This is significant. It is generally recognised that most young offenders decide in their mid-20s whether to give up crime altogether, which many do, or to embark on a criminal career, either as an active decision or by default. The British system does almost nothing to influence this decision but the Colorado system does. By isolating this susceptible age group and subjecting them to what could be called benevolent brain-washing, this unique programme has a demonstrable success rate in preventing reconviction. I decided that we in Britain could learn something from this remarkable nonpareil American custodial penalty. Back home I was all set to write a couple of articles about what I had seen. I took out my copious notes, spread out the pamphlets and other literature that the boot camp produced and at once realised that articles would not be enough; a book was needed in order adequately to describe and explain what I had seen. But I could hardly write a book based on one day's visit. I wrote to the warden explaining what I had in mind and asked if I could come again and stay for a longer period of time. Permission was sought and gained on my behalf from the Colorado Department of Corrections and I was invited to come whenever I liked and to stay as long as I pleased. The boot camp 'sentence' is for three months so that at the end of each month one batch 'graduates', leaves the course (but not, as will be shown later, the site) and a week later a new batch arrives. I timed my visit to incorporate the departure and arrival. I was given the free run of the boot camp and could go anywhere I pleased provided, of course, that I did not interfere with or get in the way of anything that was going on. I was welcomed into the classes; I watched the drilling and physical education. I attended the pre-arrival pep-talk to new recruits waiting at the nearby prison, and then watched their arrival at the boot camp on the doomsday-sounding 'Zero Day'. I witnessed a disciplinary proceeding and was encouraged to watch the consequential punishment. I talked endlessly to everybody: to the drill instructors, the teachers and very often to the inmates themselves. This book describes in considerable detail what goes on in the Colorado boot camp. No claim is made that this is typical of all boot camps; indeed, for all I know it may be unique. No claim is made that when the inmates leave they have been transformed into law-abiding, civic-minded citizens. But most of the inmates have had dreadful childhoods with parents often involved with drink and drugs and with a parent or sibling often in prison. They have had little education, many are totally or functionally illiterate and all of them have been given custodial sentences far more severe than those which would be imposed by a British court for similar offences. They are not transformed but they

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The Pain and the Pride

are educated; not neglected but taught to read; not enabled to become better criminals but shown that there is another way to a better life. Notwithstanding the previous paragraph it would be wrong if readers gained the impression that this book did nothing but describe and celebrate the boot camp. There was certainly much to admire and much to learn; but there are also aspects worthy of criticism and my aim, which I hope I have fulfilled, has been to give a fair and sometimes critical account of a custodial institute unlike anything that exists in Britain.

CHAPTER 1 History and Geography In central Colorado the upper Arkansas River valley runs between Leadville in the north and Salida in the south, two small towns separated by 60 miles. To the west are the Rocky Mountains with many peaks over 14,000 feet-the 'fourteeners'-including Mounts Yale, Harvard and Princeton, the so-called Collegiate Peaks, which are opposite Buena Vista. To the east are the prior-Rockies: lower, not much more than 10,000 feet, but some millions of years older. The two ranges are wide apart in the south but gradually converge northwards and more or less meet at Leadville, the highest incorporated town in the United States at over 11,000 feet; about ten miles further north is the continental divide. Going south from Leadville the valley widens into a flat plain and at about the midpoint of the valley, halfway between Leadville and Salida, lies the small town of Buena Vista, an old railway junction with a population of about 2,000 in the town and roughly the same number in the surrounding area. The railways are long since defunct and the local occupations are ski guiding and snowmobiling in the winter, running white-water rafting trips in the summer, plus some employment in the shops and restaurants in the town. The second biggest employer is the education system, but the main employer is the correctional facility (prison) situated at the south of the town. At the southern entrance to Buena Vista, on the same piece of land owned by the Department of Corrections as the prison, but distinct from it and with its own double perimeter close-mesh fence topped with razor wire, is the boot camp: the Colorado Corrections Alternative Program to give it its full name but sometimes referred to as the CCAP for short. Topographically, there are two Colorados. The eastern half consists of flat grasslands; in the western half are the Rockies. Western Colorado has some of the most beautiful landscape in the United States with pinecovered foothills towered over by snow-capped peaks. Buena Vista is some 8,000 feet above sea level, enjoying a dry climate with frequent sunny days and bright blue skies even in winter. With the fast-flowing Arkansas River passing through, the prior-Rockies to the east and the majestic fourteeners to the west there is only one word to describe the Buena Vista scenery: stunning. Before Columbus discovered the Americas the Upper Arkansas Valley was already inhabited by the nomadic Ute Indians. The first

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white men to pass through the valley are believed to have been Spanish and French explorers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Zebulon Pike led an expedition to the area in 1806 and named a mountain after himself: Pike's Peak. After the explorers came the traders and trappers. Towards the middle of the 1800s a fur trapper was trapping beaver at the northern end of the upper Arkansas River near its source. Trapping beaver is a slow process with long intervals when nothing is happening. To pass the time the trapper panned the river for gold. He found gold and registered his claim; which made the location public and resulted in the formation of the California Gulch Company and a gold rush reminiscent of the one in California which had begun in 1849. The first mine opened in 1859 and not only was gold found but also large deposits of silver as well as lead and molybdenum. People flowed into the area and it was not long before there was a string of mines right along the valley. It was this move westwards into previously littleinhabited territory, together with the growth of the mining industry, that were among the main reasons that Colorado became a state in the Union in 1876. By the 1870s railways were already pushing west through passes in the Rockies. The Denver & Rio Grande Western railway (D & RGW), which had already defeated its better known rival the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad tor the rights through Royal Gorge, laid rail through the valley in 1880, both to serve the mining camps around Leadville and also to move the ore to where it could be smelted. The main smelting area was Salida. The railway line was soon running between Denver and Santa Fe via Leadville. Santa Fe, in New Mexico, was already served by the railway and the new north-south line linked up at Santa Fe with the existing east-west line that ran over the continental divide and thence to California. Also in 1880, another line, the Denver, South Park & Pacific, a subsidiary of Union Pacific, came over Trout Creek Pass to Buena Vista with the intention of pushing further west over the divide, and two years later yet another line, the Colorado Midland, also came over Trout Creek Pass to Buena Vista. As more mines were opened more railways were needed, not only to take ore to the smelters, mostly in Salida, and to service the miners, but also to carry passengers travelling along a route that had been previously accessible only by horse carriage. By the late nineteenth century no fewer than five railways passed through Buena Vista, whose location halfway between Leadville and Salida was particularly convenient. By 1920 only the D & RGW survived; in the 1980s it was bought by the Southern Pacific and in 1996 it merged with Union Pacific. Today, no railways function in the valley on any regular basis.

History and Geography

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Up to the latter part of the nineteenth century, prisons in as large a state as Colorado (a rectangle some 370 by 250 miles: England would fit in sideways with plenty of space round the edges) had to be local since there was no convenient means of transporting prisoners over long distances. With the new railways this changed and in 1892, with the excellent train facilities, it was decided to open a prison in Buena Vista, where most of the railways met. It was central, almost in the exact centre of Colorado, and readily accessible by rail from all parts of the state. The mines have all closed and none of the railways exist any longer, but they have been replaced by an excellent road system, and the divide has been breached in many places by good highways over the passes so that transport to Buena Vista is still very easy. The Buena Vista Correctional Facility, as the prison is properly known, currently holds 826 mediumsecurity and 214 minimum-restrictive custody inmates, all of whom are adult males. In 1876 the Elmira Reformatory was established in New York by Zebulon Brockway for first-offence youngsters who were given indeterminate sentences. The inmates were occupied with manual labour making saleable products. This was later declared illegal and was substituted by military training which was used to discipline the inmates and organize the institution and it was this philosophy that was to be resurrected over a hundred years later. The first boot camp was opened in Georgia in 1983. Oklahoma quickly followed and they spread to other states fairly quickly so that at the time of writing most states have at least one. All are based on military discipline and the goals are to reduce prison population (because prisons are overcrowded and expensive) and to change the offenders' behaviour. After ten years the total boot camp population throughout the United States exceeded 10,000; today it is nearer 25,000. In 1990 a law, Article 27.7, was enacted in Colorado to institute a Regimented Inmate Discipline and Treatment Program. The Legislative Declaration stated: It is the intent of the general assembly that the program established pursuant to this article shall benefit the state by reducing prison overcrowding and shall benefit persons who have been convicted of offenses and placed in the custody of the department by promoting such person's personal development and self-discipline. 1

It is interesting to note that the first consideration was to reduce prison overcrowding (and thus save money). The site chosen was at Buena Vista on a piece of land not being used by the prison and the 1The full text of Article 27.7 is set out in Appendix I to this work.

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The Pain and the Pride

CCAP began operations on 3 May 1991. Initially the facility was in tented accommodation but shortly afterwards a purpose-built prestressed concrete building, specially designed as a boot camp to hold 100 minimum security inmates, was erected, and the area was fenced off so that the boot camp could be entered without going through the prison gates.

CHAPTER 2

Staff and Inmates As indicated in Chapter 1 the prison complex, which includes the boot camp, is the biggest employer in the Buena Vista area. Staff Working at the prison is sought-after employment with many benefits. The salary is good with health and life insurance, and a retirement plan. Consequently, the employer can be choosy; not only must candidates be over 21-years-old with a Colorado driving licence and live not more than 55 minutes away, the boot camp requires further qualifications of its staff. They must have either a degree in criminology, criminal justice, psychology, sociology or behavioural science, or two years' experience working in corrections, the police or the military police. In addition, those wishing to become drill instructors must pass various physical tests after first demonstrating their ability to run two miles in under 16 minutes. Once employed, drill instructors receive further training at the United States Marine Corps at Quantico, Virginia, or at the United States army base at Fort McClellan, Alabama. Academic teachers must have a Colorado teaching certificate in the appropriate discipline.

------------------------- WARDEN (Major) ------------------------------------I I I I OPERATIONS (Captain) ADMINISTRATION LOGISTICS ACADEMIC I \ I I Programmes I \ I I co-ordinator I \ I I / \ Case Managers Drill staff Co-ordinates reports I Drug and Teachers (Lieutenants) I to judges I alcohol Sergeants I counsellors I I Drill instructors (Housekeeping) Services support co-ordination

Figure 1 Boot camp staff structure

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The Pain and the Pride

As each inmate spends three calendar months in the boot camp the organization is divided into three 'phases' each lasting one month. Each batch, called a platoon, is identified by the month and year of entry, thus Platoon 6-98 entered in June 1998. Each of the case managers looks after one platoon for the duration of their stay, that is for three months, charting individual progress and preparing 30-day and 60-day reports for the judges. Thus when one case manager's platoon graduates, he will then take on a batch of new recruits. One of the sergeants takes charge of the platoon of graduates until they leave the facility, which may be some time after graduation. Inmates Sentencing in the United States is generally far harsher than that normally seen in Britain, and Colorado is no exception. The sentencing for 'habitual criminals' is shown in Appendix I but the judge has the discretion not to call an offender 'habitual'. Very serious young offenders pass into the Youth Offender System (YOS) as they are considered to be too hard core for the juvenile system. The sentence for less serious young offenders is determinate, usually between three and six years, after which they are under supervision. All offences of violence are sent to the YOS and if a prisoner or supervisee offends during his sentence he is sent to an adult prison. Non-violent offenders serve 38 per cent of their sentence and violent offenders serve three-quarters before being paroled. All non-violent young offenders between 18 and 30 years of age are available for the boot camp. Non-violent offences include drug dealing and habitual use, car theft, burglary, credit card fraud, embezzlement, vehicular homicide and manslaughter. If, however, the offence charged is the result of a plea bargain the elements of the original indictment are those used to determine if the offence is to be considered violent or not. Before being considered for boot camp admission, the offender will usually already have served six to 12 months in prison and should be dried out of drugs and alcohol, in theory at least, since these commodities are often freely available in prisons. The programme is a combination of traditional corrections coupled with military style discipline and physical fitness training (based on the Marines) in addition to general education, drug and alcohol recovery programmes and classes in cognitive education and parenting. Although according to the statute inmates can be as young as 16, in practice nobody under the age of 18 is accepted. This is because in the early years when younger inmates were accepted, they tried to impress the older ones by 'out-toughing' them. Inmates are now between the ages of 18 and 30. Females are accepted, usually three to four females in

Staff and Inmates

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every intake of about 35 to 40 inmates, so recruits are overwhelmingly male. The females are housed in a separate dormitory but train together with the males. The average reading age of incoming recruits is seven or eight years and 15 per cent have no maths ability at all. Almost all (99.9 per cent) of male inmates and half of female inmates have committed offences whilst under the influence of, or getting money for, alcohol or drugs. The goals of the alternative programme are mixed: some are for the benefit of the inmate; some for the benefit of the public; and others are to save money. They are summarised as follows: • to protect the public and maintain a safe and secure environment of staff and inmates.To maximise each inmate's opportunities for self improvement by applying recognised principles of shock incarceration. • to maintain an average daily population of at least 100 inmates • to reduce operating costs for the Department of Corrections (DOC): the boot camp is cheaper to run than a prison • to produce bed savings and avoid capital construction for the DOe • to provide treatment for drug and alcohol addiction • to train inmates in job-seeking skills • to teach personal discipline and academic study skills; and • to measure insignificant differences in graduates of the programme when based on race or sex. The educational programme, which complements the military discipline, is an essential component of the training. The Transitional Education Program, as it is known, comprises six components: addiction recovery, cognitive restructuring, learning unlimited, English as a second language, successful parenting and prison fellowship. This is an extremely ambitious attempt to turn young criminals away from a life of crime whilst incarcerating them in an environment associated with punishment. To what extent the attempt succeeds will unfold in the following chapters.

CHAPTER 3

Before and After Although this book is principally about how the boot camp operates, what happens to the inmates before they arrive and after they leave is of prime importance: the means and process of admission, and the fate of many of the inmates after they leave, represent some of the most serious weaknesses in the system. Getting in When the judge delivers a custodial penalty it is determinate in time but he has no say in where the sentence is served. All non-violent offenders who become boot camp inmates are volunteers, the advantage being a possible reduction in sentence. The average sentence length of recruits to the boot camp is just over four and a half years. To ensure that prisoners who volunteer are suitable they are sent to the Denver Regional Diagnostic Center (DRDC) of the Department of Corrections for three to six weeks. If the DRDC subsequently decides that an offender is eligible for boot camp the offender has to accept, having already volunteered. During this time potential inmates are subjected to educational and IQ tests and a mental health evaluation. Tests for AIDS, TB, blood pressure and blood sugar are carried out as well as dental and eye evaluations. The volunteers have an opportunity to proffer information that might not be officially known, but there is an incentive to withhold information about their own health or family history that might jeopardise entry to the boot camp. Occasionally criminal records may not be complete, particularly if crimes were committed in another State, but it is unlikely that such information will be forthcoming. One recruit had a reconstructed knee and metal in his hand but had said nothing. During the short wait in the prison prior to transfer to the boot camp, in Admissions and Orientation, these conditions were detected by the nurse. Another recruit had had a cartilage removed and nobody had noticed the scar. Although the knee gave way from time to time he completed the course. Another had been shot in the knee; there was a scar but no debility. Many recruits may disclose their problem only when they see how physically demanding the course is and then they use it as an exit visa'. These are not the only deficiencies with the diagnostics programme. Inmates who leave the boot camp or who are kicked out go back into the prison system and will sometimes meet prisoners waiting to enter. The I

Before and After

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grapevine is quite good. Those who pass the diagnosis are often held in Canon City prison where they can meet boot camp graduates but those who have been kicked out will often give them false information. It would be far better if those waiting to begin the boot camp programme were kept apart from other prisoners. Going out Set against the usual indicators the effectiveness of the Buena Vista boot camp is fairly impressive. As at the time of writing, no inmate had escaped or committed suicide and 77 per cent had completed the course. Of these, 57 per cent were either: re-sentenced to probation (29.8 per cent), paroled (23.4 per cent) or held awaiting discharge of sentence (3.8 per cent). The remainder were transferred to community corrections. However, what happens to them after completing their term at the boot camp is something of a lottery and is in the hands of the judges. The evaluation of each inmate is taken by the boot camp very seriously indeed. On arrival, a motion-Motion for Consideration of Sentence Reduction (Motion 35)-is sent to the sentencing court, the district attorney, the defence attorney and to the probation department in the sentencing county. During the course each inmate is evaluated twice, at 30 days and at 60 days, by the operational staff, i.e. the drill instructors (DIs) and platoon leader, by the teachers and by the addiction recovery staff. The 3D-day evaluation is concerned with the inmate's participation and has five grades from Unsatisfactory to Outstanding. The grades 'Outstanding', 'Exceeds' and 'Average' are self-explanatory. A rating of 'Needs Improvement' indicates that the performance is less than expected from this particular recruit. The recruit is warned and if there is no improvement in the next 30 days there will be a rating of 'Unsatisfactory'. This level indicates that the recruit is operating at a level considered by the rating staff member to be totally unacceptable. If there is no improvement after 30 days there may be a recommendation for regression or termination, that is he will either have to repeat the last 30 days or be removed from the programme and returned to prison. Participation in the Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) is graded 'Yes' or 'No' for ARP, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and academic classes. The staff evaluation is submitted to the case manager who writes his comments. In a typical (and genuine) 3D-day report, recruit S had scored 'Average' for participation, and 'Yes' for the three components of ARP. His case manager wrote: Recruit S has met the expectations placed upon him. He has been cooperative, works well with peers, and seems to be benefiting from the

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The Pain and the Pride program, but he does have a tendency to act immature[ly]. S has expressed the desire to change old ways and live chemically free. At this time S's progress warrants progressing to second phase.

The 60-day evaluation is extensive and is sent to the judges involved in the original sentence. There is an evaluation prepared by the DI covering the military, physical and general training aspects of the programme. In the example given earlier, inmate S gained 3 plus (above average) for self-discipline, motivation, physical effort, work ethic and peer interaction, and 4 (exceeds) for response to authority. The comments were: Recruit S has performed at an above average level in all areas. During most of the second phase, he has had physical limitations (from an injury); but it does not seem to have affected his motivation.

The next evaluation is by the ARP staff. The inmate has by now had 96 hours of the ARP and 20 hours of AA. The evaluation is too extensive to include here in full but the first part shows that recruit S has experimented with hallucinogens and inhalants, has previously indulged moderately in alcohol and severely with marijuana (his drug of choice) and heroin. He has admitted addiction and his crimes were drug related. He scores Average for participation, response to recovery and interaction with peers and the evaluation indicates which issues he needs to address: ten from a possible 14. The report writer recommends intense outpatient treatment, anger management, monitored abstinence, a supported living environment and the twelve-step recovery support group. Her comments are: Recruit S admits a substance abuse problem. He is active in group and has been addressing his drug/alcohol issues and negative behaviours. He voices a desire to be chemically free and to make positive lifestyle changes and is aware he will need follow-up treatment in order to achieve this goal. He is friendly and cooperative and displays an open attitude, his prognosis appears guarded at this time. He may be a good candidate for vocational rehabilitation counseling.

The final evaluation is from his cognitive education teacher. He has gained Grade 4 for each parameter and a certificate for GED and for parenting. The evaluator's comments are: David S is attentive as well as involved in the class activities each day. He seems concerned about making changes but is immature and sees himself as impulsive. He desires financial prosperity, but needs to learn the process in which to go about obtaining it in a way in which society approves. He must develop a work ethic, learn to set realistic goals, and acquire the selfdiscipline to pursue his goals step by step.

Before and After

21

On receipt of these evaluations it is the responsibility of the case manager, who has been with recruit S since his arrival, to make a recommendation and support it. He recommends reduction of sentence and his extensive comments are as follows: Recruit S continues to make progress and maintain the positive attitude that is needed to successfully complete CCAP. He has been an active participant in his Cognitive Education and Alcohol Recovery Program classes. Recruit S acknowledges that his continued involvement in criminal activity, is his desire for instant financial gratification and limited job skill to legally satisfy his needs. Substance abuse, impulsive tendencies and his inclination to act younger than his chronological age, has contributed to his incarceration. Recruit S has been given opportunities in the past through the legal system, which he did not capitalise. At this time, recruit S displays his personal desire and attitude to live a productive life. In considering recruit S's felony conviction history and assessing his performance, it is asked of the courts to consider a reduction of sentence. Recruit S is not eligible for parole from DOC until March of 1998 [this report was written in November 1995]. A reduction of sentence deemed appropriate by the courts would enable him to progress and meet the parole board earlier.

It should be noted that recruit S's sentence still has, over two years to run and that unless it is wiped out totally he can still be returned to prison on a sentence reduction, despite a good report. Finally, S has to sign a form authorising the Colorado DOC to release his 60-day drug and alcohol treatment summary report to any and all criminal justice agencies that have a vested interest in his reconsideration. Within six months of completing the course inmates are referred to their original sentencing court for reconsideration of their sentence. Although the judges receive progress reports whilst the inmate is at the boot camp the decision is theirs. Whilst the judge is making up his or her mind the graduate remains in the boot camp, but under the more relaxed conditions afforded to graduates and with privileges denied to the others. Does it work? In most other USA jurisdictions the judge determines not only the duration of custody but also the location. Colorado is probably unique in that it is the DRDC who determine whether a prisoner shall go to the Youth Offender System (YOS), prison or the boot camp. This is a big advantage since the battery of tests that the DRDC apply, which is unavailable to the judge, enables a more sound judgement to be made of

22

The Pain and the Pride

the candidate's suitability for boot camp. However, the relatively high drop-out rate, the admission of some who are unfit or unsuited and of some who quit after a day or so (sometimes after an hour), shows that there is room for improvement in the selection procedure. Moreover, selecting offenders who are near the beginning of a longish custodial sentence is counter-productive, since on leaving boot camp they will still have the greater part of their custody to run. Shorter sentences would be one option, but that is up to the judges; failing that candidates should be selected from among those nearer the end of their prison terms. It can take up to six months (but more often about three) before an inmate's sentence is re-assessed, during which time some of the positive effects of the regime have time to wear off. Some jurisdictions request formal hearings to reconsider the sentences, thus extending the time required to process the graduates over the 120-day statutory limitation for the programme. This produces a further delay during which the DOe has to move graduates to other facilities whilst awaiting the outcome of their cases. The judge has four options: • to make no change to the original sentence • to resentence the offender to community corrections • to resentence the offender from the DOe to a form of probation; or • to reduce the duration of the original custodial sentence. A flaw in the system is found when a custodial sentence is reduced but not altered. An offender is originally sentenced to, say, six years imprisonment, and after six months he goes to the boot camp. The report is very favourable, the judge is impressed and halves the sentence. This may seem generous yet the prisoner is gravely disadvantaged. He has served six months in prison plus three in boot camp; add on time spent at the Diagnostic Unit and time as a graduate awaiting re-assessment and call it a year served. Six years have been halved to three, of which one has been served which leaves two years outstanding less time on parole. The weakness of this disposal is that having gone through all the hardships of the boot camp programme, learned much and done well, he then has to serve perhaps a further year in prison where he will be exposed to ordinary prisoners and a prison regime which will undo much if not all of the good that has been done. It has been shown that sentence reductions for eeAP graduates had only a minimal effect on the length of time served. In one sample only two out of 27 offenders who had had their sentences reduced were

Before and After

23

1

released on their earliest release date. If this became more widely known it is possible that fewer young prisoners would volunteer for boot camp. Several boot camp inmates with considerable experience of prison confided to me that if they returned there they would very quickly sink into prison life as it was the only way to survive in that environment. Before they were released, they said, the effect of the boot camp would long since have worn off. There seems little point in sending to the boot camp those offenders serving so long a term that even with a considerable reduction in sentence they would have to return to prison. Such a prospect might even deter some inmates from completing the course. At a time when the going is particularly tough they might well feel that it is not worth all the hardship if they are to go back to prison at the end of it, even for a shorter time. The following shows the offences, sentences and hoped-for outcome of five inmates taken at random who were willing to discuss their situation (most of them were; I could have recorded 25 inmates). Inmate 1:

Sentenced to two years.

Has completed nine months in the county jail. Hopes for boot camp aftercare with no more prison. Ideal would be four months' community corrections. Inmate 2:

Sentenced to five years.

Has completed eight months in county jail followed by seven months after sentence reduced to 2.5 years on appeal. Hopes for boot camp aftercare, possibly with probation re-instated. Inmate 3:

Sentenced to 18 years. Collapsed drunk whilst holding his two-year-old baby and fell on him. Skull fractured. Child disabled but alive. No previous convictions.

Has completed seven months in county jail and five months in prison. Has 5.5 years left before even meeting the parole board. Expects a further four years in prison before being eligible for community corrections. Inmate 4:

Sentenced to 6.5 and four years consecutive for gun offences and drug trafficking.

Will serve about four years with maximum parole and has served two years. With the time served and maximum parole he will have to serve another 16 months and then he can put in for community corrections.

1

Inventory of Aftercare Programs for 52 Boot Camp Programmes, NIJ, Research Report, January 1996.

24

The Pain and the Pride Inmate 5:

Sentenced to six years for theft.

Has served five months in the county jail, two months in DRDC and two weeks in Admissions and Orientation. Has about 18 months left. There is a recommendation from his case manager for the sentence to be discharged and the judge has guaranteed sentence modification. He expects Intensive Supervision Probation (ISP).

It is clear from this random selection that there is at least a possibility and in many cases a likelihood that inmates will return to prison after they have completed the programme. It is possible that if potential recruits were guaranteed that a satisfactory boot camp report would mean that they would spend the rest of their sentence other than in prison, perhaps more inmates would complete the course. A 'good report' would mean a satisfactory attitude and at least average performance in all the course work and drill. Better still would be the provision of an on-site facility adjacent to the boot camp to develop skills that would enhance employment prospects (fire-fighting has been suggested) and to continue their education. Community corrections There is a boot camp aftercare programme known as 'Transitional Discipline' that has been going since 1995. All non-violent offenders serving a sentence of four years or more will become eligible for parole, and 18 months before parole eligibility they become eligible for community corrections. In addition, there has been legislation to enable CCAP graduates with a sentence of not more than six years to become eligible for aftercare as a client of the DOe. The idea behind this is that these graduates are not forced into the negative aspects of being housed among the general population. There is a privately run facility in Denver in which boot camp graduates are segregated and where employers are available to help them find jobs. They generally spend a minimum of six months in this facility followed by an Intensive Supervision Program until they are given parole. But there are strings attached. On arrival, they have three days in which to find a job; failure means a return to prison. Although this requirement forces them to visit locations they would be better off avoiding, finding a job is not as difficult as one might imagine. Jobs are generally available at MacDonalds and similar fast food outlets flipping hamburgers at $6 an hour, and janitors at Denver International Airport earn $14 an hour. They pay half of what they earn for their bed. Ex-inmates stay in aftercare until the parole board says they can go: usually they stay eight or nine months, thence into residential care and

Before and After

25

then back home. Whilst in aftercare they are housed, fed, have the benefits of an addiction recovery programme and are found a reasonable job. Breaking rules, associating with undesirable people-quite easy as they often work in areas where such people abound-and of course breaking the law, means an immediate return to prison. The aftercare programme for boot camp graduates is far better than that available for other prisoners. It provides a structured environment, an overwhelming pressure to find work and a transition between prison, boot camp, and probation. Although it would be better still if the facility were in the vicinity of Buena Vista rather than in a city like Denver, with all the temptations a big city can offer, nevertheless those who go on to community corrections stand a far greater chance of keeping out of trouble than those who do not.

CHAPTER 4

Zero and Beyond Three months after they enter boot camp those inmates remaining on the course graduate, with some of the ceremony of a school or college. One week after each graduation a new batch of recruits arrives. The day of their arrival is given the somewhat doom-laden title 'Zero Day'. It is a day not to be missed as I was frequently reminded. I had deliberately timed my visit to include a graduation and a Zero Day but that did not stop many of the staff and even some of the inmates from asking me 'You will still be around for Zero Day, won't you? You don't wanna miss that'. It is indeed a day and an experience not to be missed. Zero minus one Preparation for the new intake begins a few days beforehand but becomes visible only the day before. The dormitory that will house First Phase, as the new inmates will be called for the first month, has been cleared out and on each two-tier bunk are placed two sheets and two blankets, not neatly folded but in an untidy heap. The bunks are narrow and this is the only bedding allowed for the first two months. For the final month a pillow is allowed; the pillow is a 'luxury' and must be earned. By each bunk is a locker for each recruit. The following hygiene items are issued, weekly or monthly as appropriate, and no other personal items are allowed: toothbrush (once only), toothpaste, razor, soap, shaving cream, toilet paper. Female recruits are allowed in addition a comb and shampoo, items not needed by the males as will become clear later. For a few days before their arrival at the boot camp the recruits are housed in the Admissions and Orientation department of the adjacent prison. They are housed in pairs in a single row of cells with barred fronts and sliding barred doors so that the inmates are at all times clearly visible whether eating, sleeping or defecating. The cells open on to a long corridor. On the afternoon before Zero Day one of the case managers-the one who will case manage the incoming platoon until they graduategoes over to the prison to give a pep talk to the new recruits and to answer any questions. The prisoners are out of their cells in the corridor. Most are sitting on chairs provided, some on the floor and a few prefer to stand. They are wearing variations of prison garb. Some have beards, some short hair, a few have had their heads shaved and some have hair down to their shoulders and one to his waist. Most exhibit the cheerful

Zero and Beyond

bonhomie that masks apprehension; others are obviously nervous and some sit grimly still. It is a Tuesday afternoon. Outside, though the sun is bright and the sky blue the temperature is below freezing and the snow sparkles on the nearby mountaintops, invisible to the waiting prisoners. The lieutenant introduces himself and then talks to them for ten or 15 minutes. What he says, more or less verbatim, is as follows: I'm here to tell you what boot camp is about. It's what you make it. Everyone here signed a paper volunteering for boot camp. Boot camp is difficult, but by you volunteering for boot camp it means you want to improve your life. Also, I know you want your 35bs [Rule 35b is the legal authority for the judge to re-open their case] and the possibility of reconsideration [of sentence]. Those who complete boot camp will change for the better, but not all of you will complete boot camp. The paper you signed said that once you signed up for boot camp you cannot quit, you are here for the duration. But on Thursday, Friday, perhaps even Monday three or four of you will come to my office saying 'My - - hurts, sir'. I don't want to hear it. The last platoon started with 44 and 26 graduated. You belong to boot camp. I'll decide who leaves. If the Dls [drill instructors] know your name after the first day that is not a good thing. I know what you are going through and the drill staff know. They've all been through it. You do it for discipline. You will be drilled inside your head. Do you all want to change? [All hands go up] At boot camp we are not going to change you. You are going to change yourselves. We are going to give you an environment and tools to help you lead a crime-free life. We've had some good recruits who got out and screwed up. There are inmates in this facility [the prison] that want to go to boot camp, but they haven't got the opportunity. You graduate boot camp, you get a 35b, that's State law. There's an evaluation every month. You get reconsideration but no guarantee you'll get probation or a cut in sentence. But usually the judge will follow my recommendation. A good evaluation from me, you get a good evaluation from the judge. You give 100 per cent and I'll give 100 per cent. I'll battle for you with the judge, but the judge has a mind of his own. I'll guarantee to get you back to what you need. You apply yourselves. You will test for GED [General Educational Development: a certificate more or less equivalent to high school graduation] if you need it. You will complete alcohol recovery and cog[nitive] ed[ucation]. Our success rate is very high. The alternative is to lie down with the Dls screaming in your face. There's method in their madness. All you have to do is what you're told. Otherwise the Dls will deal with you. If they ask you to do 100 push-ups [press-ups] you try your damnedest, you don't quit. You got an attitude, they'll go after you. The reason why the judges go for our recommendations, they know how difficult our program is.

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28

The Pain and the Pride My intention is to get you something other than prison. We aren't going to kill you. You'll be sore, you'll bleed a bit, but it can be done. It's done every single month. Before I make my recommendation to the judge I'll sit down with each and everyone of you. Hell week will start tomorrow [Wednesday] and go on till Sunday. You're going to be tired. A recruit starting at 300 pounds here lost 110 pounds because he wanted to be there [i.e. under 200 lbs]. We have females go through the course. Hands up who is weaker than females? [No hands go up]. We have the best addiction recovery in the Department of Corrections. The best staff, who have been here for years. Our mindset is to help you succeed despite yourselves. The DIs' job is to find your weakness, for this weakness is the reason you are here today. They are not there to get you to quit. For the first week you will be crawling in dirt, doing all kinds of shit. It won't kill you. Sundays are fairly laid back; services are available and time for reflection. After the first week you are in class more than with the DIs. If you are using your body more than your mind there is something wrong. You will be allowed to send out two letters a week and unlimited legal mail. Incoming legal mail is unlimited. Who played sports? What did the coach say? 'Get yourself mentally prepared for the game'. You can't comprehend what will happen to you tomorrow. I can't explain what will happen. You've never done it before. In 90 days when you graduate and your family comes to see you they will see a change in you. Everything you've previously tried to do you've quit. We won't allow this. We'll force you to succeed. You can't quit. We decide if you don't cut the mustard; we decide-you can't quit. A poor attitude will get you kicked out. Society owes you nothing. You've had chances, you blew them.

Although there are a number of questions following this talk most of them are for clarification as most of what can be explained in advance has been. It is clear from the questions, however, that one thing the lieutenant has said is perfectly true: they cannot comprehend what will happen tomorrow. The Big Bang For logistical reasons not all, though most, of the boot camp recruits are held in the adjacent prison; some are at a different prison and the females are brought in from a women's facility. However, all are brought together at the prison on Zero Day to be bussed the few hundred yards to the boot camp to arrive at 1.00 p.m. The boot camp building is quite small since it cannot comfortably house many more than 150 inmates. It is surrounded by a high mesh security fence topped by razor wire in such a way that at the back, to the east, there is a very large area that can be used for drilling, physical

Zero and Beyond

exercise and a variety of other activities. In the front, to the west, is the main entrance. Here there is a large sliding gate in the main fence and some way either side of the gate are two other wire fences running at right angles to the main fence and meeting the wall of the building, thus making an enclosed area perhaps 40 yards square. In the northern fence there is a small door allowing access to the rest of the perimeter area and in the southern fence there is a larger sliding gateway that allows access to the large area at the back. In front of this gateway, painted on the ground in three rows are 32 pairs of red footprints. When the recruits enter the main gate the building is ahead of them and the gate with the footprints in front is to the right. The Zero Day that I witnessed presented Colorado weather at its very best. The sky was cloudless and of that deep blue as seen from 8,000 feet. The temperature was barely above freezing but the sun in the thin air was hot. Visibility in the relatively unpolluted air was remarkable so that details could be clearly seen on mountains dozens of miles away. A little before one o'clock all was quiet. The drill staff in immaculate dark blue uniforms and Mountie hats lurked inside. Some of the teaching and administration staff waited with me outside in the enclosure. One of the teachers explained that what I was about to witness would seem like pure chaos, but it was all carefully orchestrated and choreographed. Meanwhile, the snow sparkled and the sun shone. At 12.59 a motor engine could be heard and seconds later a green single-decker bus rounded the corner and pulled up outside the closed gate. Then nothing happened. Nothing would happen, I was told, for 15 minutes. The recruits in the bus could see the gate, the enclosure and the boot camp building. They could probably see a few of us in the top left corner. But there was no activity, no movement, all designed, my informant said, to raise their anxiety levels. After weeks of thinking about the boot camp, after the pep talk of the day before, they had finally arrived with absolute punctuality. .. and waited. At 1.15 p.m. on the dot the gate slowly slid open, actuated electronically from within, and simultaneously the drill staff marched out in single file. It was dramatic. One inmate who had completed the course confessed to me later that of all he had gone through, no experience matched that heart-clenching moment when from within the bus he watched the gate slide open and the DIs march out. When they reached the middle of the enclosure the drill staff broke line and ran in different directions. Some stationed themselves between the bus and the footprints, a couple stood by the footprints, some near the now open gate and three got on to the bus. Two went to the back of the bus and one remained at the front and gave a short greeting speech.

29

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The Pain and the Pride

He finished his speech by yelling at them to get off the bus and this was the cue for the two at the back, the pushers, to start shouting 'Get off the bus! Get off the bus!' over and over and over again. The startled recruits leapt up and tried to rush the door which was wide enough only for one person at a time. A mele formed in the gangway and a pushing crowd around the door. As each recruit stumbled out he was met by a DI who shouted, 'Get over there!' without indicating where. Other DIs shouted at them and by running from one DI to the next they finally reached the other gate where they were told to stand on the red footprints. There were 45 recruits and only 32 pairs of footprints. The recruits did not know this and those without footprints to stand on panicked and began running around looking. When all the recruits had arrived, the Dls at the footprints began shouting, telling them they had 'got off the bus wrong' and that they didn't know how to get off the bus properly and that they would have to do it again. 'Get back on the bus!' they screamed over and over. The recruits rushed back but the mob that formed around the bus door prevented anyone from getting on. Four or five Dls gradually pushed them in, using only their shoulders with hands clasped behind their backs. Once they were again seated on the bus the recruits were further berated for the hash they had made of getting off and again shouted at to get off again and stand on the footprints. Exactly the same pandemonium broke out again but finally they were all standing on or near the footprints. This time they were shouted at for longer than before, but there was a reason. At that altitude one becomes breathless very quickly with the slightest exercise. I knew this myself; stairs that I would normally run up two at a time I had to walk up slowly. The recruits were not acclimatised and had been running about in near panic for ten minutes. They needed a rest and their rest was disguised as a prolonged telling-off. Once more they were sent back to the bus; once more they besieged the entrance; once more they sat in their seats. 'Now watch this' my informant said. He knew exactly what was going to happen next: every move was carefully scripted like a stage fight. The recruits were sent off yet again to the footprints. By the time the first few reached them many were still on the bus. When roughly half had arrived they were told that it still was not good enough, were screamed at yet again and told to get back on the bus. They ran back towards the bus only to meet the others who had just got off the bus and were running towards the footprints. Two groups of recruits were running in opposite directions trying to push each other out of the way. After a minute or so of this the DIs waded in and shouted at the recruits to go back to the footprints where,

Zero and Beyond

panting for breath, they were told to sit on the ground while they were told yet again how hopeless they were at getting on and off a bus. Norms crisis The purpose of the carefully created havoc of the first 15 minutes is to create anxiety. Anxiety is first created by the 'greeter' in front of the bus and the 'pushers' at the rear. The recruits in the middle are aware of DIs at each end. Next, the lack of enough footprints, not noted at first, creates further anxiety so that on the next foray they actively compete with each other to stand on the footprints. They are told that they got off the bus 'incorrectly', which of course means nothing when there is time to think about it, but they are not told what is the correct way to get off a bus. The anxiety level is slowly but inexorably notched up/ by getting on and off the bus several times, by trying to push each other out of the way and by being encircled by the staff who shoulder-push them back on the bus. This physical contact, albeit without the use of hands, is a violation of the norm, for in the United States the police may not touch you. So those who are actually pushed compete even more to avoid the physical contact. It should be noted that the contact is rigorously controlled. Each DI has his or her hands clenched behind the back and only leans on recruits with the shoulders; there is no barging or striking. It is the reaction to the anxiety by the recruits that is of interest to the staff. During this early stage there are always a few staff just watching. What they are studying is the body language. Some recruits rush to get off the bus first; others sum up the situation and hold back, realising that rushing 'does little good. Some recruits will not comply with a simple but useless instruction: some do not even attempt to stand on a footprint. Some assume a fighting stance: this is how they have always behaved on the street. Others have negative facial expressions and some make sarcastic responses and give other negative cues. When a negative response is identified, the DIs confront the recruit and invade his space. One will stand immediately behind and another in front will yell at him, inches from his face. On the street such confrontation precipitates either running away or fighting: there is no third option. At the boot camp recruits quickly learn that neither of these options is available: the only option available is submission. Such a confrontation will be watched by other DIs. If the recruit does nothing-neither attempts to fight or run away yet does not submit-another 01 will come over and say 'Come with me' and they walk off out of the way where the DJ will talk quietly to him. He may be placed with his back against the wall of the building when, with no risk of anyone behind him, he will usually calm down.

31

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The Pain and the Pride

When genuine trouble-makers are identified-usually quite easily in the first 30 minutes-the DIs start to wear them down physically. There are usually three or four trouble-makers. On the Zero Day I observed one was thrown out within an hour: when sitting on the ground he refused to get up, saying he had 'had enough of this shit'. The reason for raising anxiety and precipitating the norms crisis is to 'identify the bad-arses'. At breakfast time the next day there is usually some confrontation: 'Sir, I'm quitting the programme'. They are put in a small detention room and left entirely alone for three hours, after which time when asked if they would really like to return to prison immediately they have usually changed their minds. By the second day the job of identification is done and the staff can begin backing off. The first three hours When the recruits are at the gate by the footprints for the last time they are constantly told that they are doing everything wrong and being made to do press-ups as punishment. Of course, they do the press-ups badly, too, which gives the staff frequent opportunities to shout and yell at them while they rest. Usually two minutes' vigorous exercise is followed by ten minutes' rest, but the recruits do not recognise the rest periods as such; they are resting only physically. After about half an hour of this they are told to run around to the back of the building where there is another set of footprints. Of course, they do this 'wrong' and are made to do it again. The distance is about 100 yards. While they are there they are given further physical tasks such as jogging around the perimeter and learning some basic drill movements. One of these is walking in 'lockstep'. They are one behind the other in single file, very close together. Hands are placed on the shoulders of the man in front (females walk separately) and the feet move together so that the toe of the man behind is almost touching the heel of the man in front. It is a rather childish movement and somewhat humiliating. Once the course is underway it will be dropped. Whilst the drilling is going on outside recruits are taken into the building for the first time in small groups. Their first port of call is the barber. The barbers are from the prison and each 'haircut' takes barely a minute. The closest clippers are used and the head is virtually shaved. When they arrive the recruits with their various hair styles look different; once their heads are shaved it is remarkable how quickly they lose all trace of individuality. Females are allowed to keep their hair to just below their ears. With the haircuts completed, all the inmates' personal property is removed, an inventory is made and it is placed in a box where it will be

Zero and Beyond

stored for the duration of their stay. They are then issued with the only clothing they will get: Men

Women

5 T-shirts

5 T-shirts

5 boxer shorts

1 boxer shorts

5 pairs socks

5 pairs socks

3 state issue trousers

5 state issue trousers

3 state issue shirts

5 state issue shirts

1 sweat shirt

1 sweat shirt

1 sweat pants

1 sweat pants 3 bras 3 knickers

Recruits are also issued with navy blue stocking caps which are worn by all those in the first phase. When after 30 days they become the Second Phase, they exchange their stocking caps for green and navy baseball caps; in the third phase these are exchanged for all green ones. Teaching and administration staff help with the collection of property and the issue of clothing. The recruits take their newlyacquired kit to their dormitory and have a first sight of where they will sleep for the next month. Double bunks are ranged along each side with a wide passageway down the middle. By each bunk is a double locker. They are taught how to make up their bunks and how to arrange their belongings in their lockers for inspection. Two more things they can get wrong; more reasons for shouting and press-ups. Eventually even this comes to an end: miraculously, they seem to get things right when it is time for the evening meal, between 4.00 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. When they come back an hour later after their first meal, they will find their bunks and lockers topsy turvey. They have 'done it wrong', they are told again, and again and again. But they are never told what is right. Right is when the DI says it is right. It is usually right by 9.00 p.m. when they have their shower and, exhausted, go thankfully to bed. When they lined up by their bunks at attention, ready to march to their first meal they probably noticed for the first time that high up around the walls of the dormitory are posters containing little homilies about loyalty, comradeship, work and so on. The biggest one of all, right at the end and facing every inmate as he enters, is one that proclaims in huge letters, 'Pain is temporary. Pride is forever'.

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The Pain and the Pride

Day two On the second day there is a partial recovery. Much of the day is spent standing by their bunks, remaking their bedding, getting it wrong and doing more press-ups, which with sore muscles and fatigue become increasingly difficult. They are also given meaningless work such as moving bricks from one place to another, digging over sand and shifting logs. By the end of ten days things become less intense. The staff have identified the remaining difficult recruits and begin to show them that conforming is in their interest as they cannot fight the staff and cannot run away. It is time to begin the real work of the boot camp: education. But it is not without reason that the system is called 'shock incarceration'. Does it work? Zero Day at the boot camp is very similar to the first day in the army on which it is based. The recruits know that it will be bad but they do not know how bad or in which way. The staff, mainly the drill staff, know exactly how bad they want it to be and they control it at that level. The aim of Zero Day, over and above the prosaic requirements of getting the recruits organized, is to confuse and to absorb them into the system; to shock them into forgetting their previous life and focussing on the next three months. It is somewhat analagous to electric shock therapy. When considering whether or not it works it is necessary to separate the aim from utility. There can be little doubt that the primary aim is fulfilled. Norms crisis, shock incarceration, disorientation: whatever name the method is called by, the recruits are totally confused. In fact, they are doubly confused for what they do not realise, and what I as an observer would not have realised had I not been told, is that the confusion, which looks total, is only on their part. The staff are not confused, they are in control. It is as if they are holding a winch and as required turn it up or down a notch or two. Nor are the staff bullies as are some in the army or prison service, drawn to such a career to give rein to their sadistic tendencies. Their shouting, yelling and mild abuse is for effect, not because they mean harm or feel contempt. They have their script, they have their stage: it is a drama not a battle. So the plan works; but does the purpose? To attempt to answer that question it is necessary not only to decide whether the plan answers a purpose but whether that purpose justifies the undoubted humiliation and dehumanising activities that the recruits are required to undergo. Any assessment of their mindset on arrival is not easy and may be totally wrong. However, a few facts are known and may assist. Most come from poor, dysfunctional families with a history of crime and

Zero and Beyond

substance abuse. Most are poorly educated. Most have a history of petty crime, drug or alcohol addiction. Many have partners and children with whom they have lived only occasionally. Since being sentenced they have spent some time at the DOC's relatively relaxed Denver Regional Diagnostic Centre and then a short time in the, again relaxed, Admissions and Orientation area of the prison. The previous day they had been told about the boot camp by the lieutenant who explained that it was a tough programme but that the staff were there to help them change from a life of crime into useful citizens. That is what they brought with them as the green bus drew up to the gate at precisely one o'clock. Inside the bus-indeed, outside it too-all is quiet. They look to their left and see through the gate the neat purpose-built facility and a few casually dressed civilians quietly chatting near the door. They look to their right and see the snow-covered Rocky Mountains, the lower afforested slopes and the fields in the foreground. The small town of Buena Vista is not visible. Probably a few jokes are made about being kept hanging around, the staff not being ready, the cock-ups to which they have become habituated. After the jokes, inevitable anxiety. Fifteen minutes is a long time in a stationary bus, doing nothing. They are left with their thoughts: what is going on here? Suddenly, as if by magic, they see the gate slowly glide open all by itself. At the same time the door to the building opens and a single line of blue-clad drill instructors march towards the gate. After that, total chaos. If my own experience of the first day of National Service is anything to go by, still etched in my memory after many decades, they are thinking only of how to get through the next few minutes not how to buck the system. They are wondering what they have to do to stop the DIs' endless yelling, not realising there is nothing they can do: whatever they do will be 'wrong'. After the first 15 minutes the initial shock is over. What happens next is tough and physically demanding, but more orderly. Already a few have left the programme either because they are physically unfit or grossly overweight or as a result of refusal to obey. The drilling that follows is exhausting but more like what they expected, as are the haircuts. In some way the haircut is the most dehumanising event of them all: it is quite astonishing, watching the haircuts being given, to see the recruits' identities vanish before one's eyes. Whereas when they arrived it was quite easy to recognise and distinguish many of them after only a few minutes' observation, post-haircut it was difficult to tell them apart.

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Apart from about 30 minutes spent eating their 'evening' meal, which they do standing up, they are on the go non-stop until they fall into their bunks. The next day it begins all over again. Whether the end justifies what many might regard as brutal means, is difficult to assess. The first hour announces, 'This is boot camp. It's going to be tough. You must do everything our way'. It is one way of telling the recruits that they are about to experience something different and that they will have to alter the way they think in order to accomodate the new regime. Checking in as in a prison, where they would be strip searched, given prison garb and shown to their cell undoubtedly would not have had the same effect. Furthermore, although the recruits do not know this at the time, Zero Day is the worst that happens to them during their entire three months' stay. Later in the course they can look back and think to themselves, 'If I could survive that I can survive the rest of my time here'. As one inmate halfway through the programme said to me on the morning of Zero Day, 'These guys don't know yet what's gonna hit them. From the moment those guys march out that door it's hell. But when you've gone through that', he added, unconsciously straightening himself up, 'you can go through anything.' A few days later during the routine medical one of the female recruits was found to be suffering from a mild form of hepatitis and had to be removed from the boot camp. Having experienced only the worst part of the programme, she was broken-hearted. I remember her sobbing inconsolably, being comforted by two Dls who were explaining that she was not being thrown off the programme but merely being hospitalised for a couple of weeks and that she would certainly be back in 30 days. Her sobbing subsided, she lifted her tear-wet face and asked, 'You promise? You promise I'll be back?' Sure, they assured her. You'll be on the next course. We promise. She had seen Zero Day. She had seen that the bad guys could be good guys. She had glimpsed the future and, for her, it worked.

CHAPTERS

Rules and Regulations Rules and regulations are the life-blood of the 'military', as opposed to the educational, side of the boot camp. They can basically be divided into three types, with some rules overlapping. The first group are those realistically necessary for the smooth running of any establishment like a school or prison. The second group are those designed to instil disciplined behaviour into people who have had little or no discipline in their lives. The third group are those that are deliberately designed to confuse, to ensure that the inmates get them wrong, but to make the inmates think about what they are doing at all times. Breaches of the rules are punished immediately. The small change of punishment are the press-ups, usually six or ten at a time. Higher denominations are a dressing down, the motivation bay or, for a serious offence, regression for 30 days or even removal from the boot camp back to prison. There is no corporal punishment; indeed, no member of staff ever touches an inmate nor even uses foul language. Physical violence by an inmate towards another inmate or staff member, or verbal abuse of the latter are treated very seriously and will almost certainly result in termination of the inmate's stay. Swearing within the hearing of a staff member will usually result in press-ups or other physical punishment. The naming of names One of the first things that new recruits must learn is that things are not what they seem to be. There are no such things as floors, walls, doors and so on. Because the first (and so far only) governor of the boot camp is an ex-Marine he decided that common items should be referred to by the recruits using naval nomenclature. Thus, walls are 'bulkheads', floors are 'decks', bunks are 'racks', doors are 'hatches' and so on. Recruits are not taught this: they pick it up the hard way. As soon as the first recruit refers to his bunk as a bunk he is yelled at and told that it is not a bunk but a rack. To enforce this the entire platoon (as they have quickly become) do ten press-ups. If one of their number, say recruit Smith for example, does not put enough effort into his press-ups, the whole platoon is made to do ten more and told why. During the second set they all chant, 'Thank-you-recruit-Smith' in time with their exertions. However, the DIs are not looking for perfect press-ups, merely maximum effort. If a recruit has difficulty due perhaps to unfitness or excess bulk, provided he makes an effort and progresses with a positive attitude the staff are satisfied. Thus, early on, the relationship and

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interdependence between the platoon and each component individual is established, a relationship that will be built upon during the ensuing three months. If one recruit has a problem that is causing difficulties or unwanted punishment for the whole platoon, it is in the interest of the platoon to help the recruit solve the problem. They help him or her and perhaps for the first time in their lives they experience co-operation whereas they have previously encountered only confrontation.

Learning the language The heart of the boot camp building is a large glass-walled control room in the centre of a more or less circular area from which the dormitories radiate. The end of each dormitory is of glass with a glass door so those in the dormitory and in the control room or its surrounds can always see each other. The recruits spend quite a lot of time during the first week in their dormitory (they have to do things over and over again because they are constantly deemed to have done them wrong) and they quickly learn that as soon as the governor or his deputy is spotted they must spring to attention and shout out, 'Sir, Major (Captain) on deck, sir!' The major or captain then calls out 'Carry on!' and normal activity resumes. But if anyone is spotted as being slow to react, the inevitable press-ups for all in that platoon follow. On the first day when the recruits have collected their clothing, they are told to take it to their dormitory and then return outside for more drilling. While I was there, two Dls planted themselves near the door. As each recruit approached the door and thus the Dls, he was asked where he thought he was going. To the dormitory, the recruit naively replied. 'Sir, to the dormitory, sir!', the DI screamed back. 'Sir, to the dormitory, sir', the recruit repeated. 'Louder!' The recruit, having learned what was required, shouted his answer back. 'That's better', growled the DI and the recruit started again for the door. 'Stop!' yelled the DJ. 'Go back ten feet away from me.' When the recruit had retreated to the correct distance the DI shouted at him, 'Sir, leave to pass, sir!' The recruit shouted back the magic words and the DI said 'Carry on.' As the recruit, clearly shaken by having broken rules he had no idea existed, passed the DI, the latter stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and said quietly, 'Don't worry. You'll soon pick this up. Now you'd better get to where you're supposed to be going'. He then turned to me with a grin and said, 'I hate this part. I can never get used to talking to people like that. They're mostly nice kids.' He then turned back and yelled at the next startled recruit. The learning curve is steep. Within days all recruits approaching a staff member will stop yards away and call, 'Sir (ma'am), leave to pass, sir!' Once they have got used to the procedure, as they stop and often

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before they have a chance to speak, the Dl will tell them to carry on and wave them past. Many of these petty rules seem silly and seen in isolation are silly. But it must be remembered that the inmates are mostly feckless, having led totally unstructured lives with no rules or yardsticks that they lived by. Nor did they ever think before they acted, which is why most of them were sent to prison in the first place, for like many offenders in Britain most of them are inadequate rather than evil. Surrounding the recruits with rules like trip-wires means they constantly have to think about what they are going to do next, for the first time in their lives. The alternative is to become very proficient at press-ups and to develop very pronounced pectoral muscles! Conditions The regime in the facility is rigorous and the conditions spartan. What are considered privileges in similar institutions are non-existent in the Buena Vista boot camp. Three full meals a day are provided. The food is simple, of high nutritional quality and provides 4,500 calories daily in acknowledgement of the high level of physical exertion the inmates must employ. However, there are no frills. There is no tea, coffee or cocoa, nor are there any fizzy drinks of the cola or lemonade variety. The boot camp is caffeine free and, of course, no alcohol is available. Milk is provided at one meal a day and the drink provided at all meals is a vitamin-enhanced Cool-aid, which tastes like flavoured water. Because of the physical exertion, the high altitude and consequential low humidity, water-bottles are issued to inmates to wear on their belts at all times and from which they are encouraged to drink frequently. Smoking is strictly forbidden, as, of course, are all drugs. Incoming mail (other than legal mail) is restricted to two letters a week and incoming and outgoing mail is opened. No parcels are allowed in; there is no access to a telephone. Sweets, chocolate and any other delicacies are not available. The inmates have no money during their incarceration and there is no 'tuck shop'. Consequently, the only food and drink that pass the inmates' lips is that which is handed out at mealtimes. Thus their entire three months' stay is totally devoid of any luxuries. This is enforced by a no-visitor policy: the inmates are allowed no visitors until they graduate. With nobody other than the staff entering or leaving the facility it is easy to maintain such a strict regime. In prisons and other penal institutions in both the USA and Britain, it is visitors who bring in not only allowed treats such as chocolate but also tobacco and drugs. This cannot happen at Buena Vista and the inmates, nearly all of whom

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have taken or dealt in drugs, have no access either to them or to tobacco or alcohol. There are no clocks in the facility and inmates' watches are removed on arrival for the duration of their stay. No newspapers or magazines are available, so not only do inmates not know what the time is but they do not know what is happening in the outside world. There are no radios to be heard nor television sets to be seen; there are no recreational periods or association. (While I was there the American football Super Bowl match was played one Sunday, the United States sporting equivalent of the FA Cup Final. The inmates were not allowed to watch, even though a local team (Denver Broncos) were playing.) For a short while, the inmates possess only the clothing and toiletry items they are issued with, and at any time they are always doing something physical, something educational, eating or sleeping. These are three very tough months. Some other boot camps use sleep and water deprivation as a means of toughening the inmates, who are also given salt tablets and very limited showering facilities. These practices are frowned upon at Colorado: the inmates are in bed between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., they carry water bottles and are allowed one shower daily. But some infringements of the regulations are taken very seriously. If anyone is caught smoking they are off the course. (This is extremely rare and could occur only if an inmate found a cigarette butt in the grounds and then found the means to light it.) Any fraternisation between male and female inmates results in the same penalty for both participants. Female inmates are treated only slightly differently from the men: there is less 'in your face' confrontation-the DIs stand further away when they are shouting at them! At meals the females sit slightly apart from the men: a short gap on the bench. Three 'square meals' a day The gymnasium, an area somewhat bigger than a basketball court, is where the meals are served. Foldaway tables and benches are hidden behind folding shutters in one of the long walls and it takes several people, usually graduates, only a few minutes to unfold them and pull them out, and the same time to put them back again. The tables, when pulled out, are ranged at right angles to the long wall. On the opposite wall, at one end, is the serving hatch. In the space between is a long table parallel to the length of the gym, which is where the duty DIs eat, facing the inmates. Mealtimes are a minefield for the inmates. They are told that they have two minutes to eat their meal but the DIs have the same food and

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when they have finished they assume that everyone else has had enough time so they call a halt. The inmates, sans watches, have no sense of time. Meals are taken in total silence, and, for the first few days after arrival, standing. To ensure that the inmates have to think carefully about everything they do, including eating, the boot camp has given a new meaning to the term 'square meal': everything has to be done in right angles. The inmates line up facing the serving hatch in a single line so straight it would do guardsmen credit. They step forward slowly one at a time until they are in front of the hatch. Then they take the tray with their meal laid out and hold it in front of them at chest height. They do a sharp right turn and walk slowly for a few paces to a trolley holding their drinks which are placed on their trays. They cannot then take the shortest route to their table. They must walk the length of the gym close to the wall and do a right turn. They then walk roughly half the width of the gym and turn right again, walking back the way they came. When they are level with their own table, they turn left and walk to the nearest vacant space on the bench. They place their tray on the table in front of them and stand at attention behind the bench. When the entire platoon is standing properly at attention, one of the DIs calls out 'Sit!' They reply in unison 'Sir, sit, sir!' and step over the benches and sit at attention. At a further order they begin to eat. But their problems are not yet over. Squareness still prevails. Eating only with a fork or spoon (Americans, unlike Europeans who wield knife and fork together, mostly use only one implement at a time) they cannot just pick up a piece of food and eat it. The fork or spoon takes up the food; it is then lifted vertically to mouth level; it is then moved horizontally to the mouth where the food is ingested; the empty implement is then moved away from the mouth horizontally then down to the plate where the process is repeated. Thus the fork or spoon is moved only vertically or horizontally, never diagonally or in a curve, changing direction only at right angles. When they have finished eating the inmates sit at attention with their trays in front of them. At a command from the DI the trays are collected by one of their number and returned to the serving hatch and at a further command-'Stand!' 'Sir, stand, sir!'-the inmates rise, step over the benches, form a line and march out. There is so much to think about during meals that mistakes are inevitable and few errors pass unnoticed by the hawk-eyed DIs. Failure to move squarely or to eat squarely results in press-ups and press-ups in the middle of a meal are no joke! However, with speech banned there is little else for the inmates to do whilst eating except think about not making punishable mistakes, and it is surprising how quickly they learn

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the routine. The graduates sit at their own table and eat like normal people which must act as some encouragement for the others. Discipline Minor infringements are punished with strenuous physical exercise. Very serious rule breaking will result in the inmate being thrown off the course. But there are two disciplinary procedures in between. For the less serious of these two there is the Motivation Bay, known as the Motobay. The Motobay is used for several purposes, not all of them disciplinary. Inmates who are being removed because of a medical condition or who have been kicked out of the programme will stay there until they leave. Although, apart from two hours exercise outside, they must stay in the Motobay, they can do there more or less as they please: read, play cards, talk. For medium infringements inmates can be sent to the Motobay for 24 or 48 hours. Such infringements might be being turned out of an educational class for indiscipline or for not completing an assignment. They spend their time in what is known as a 'dry cell' (without toilet facilities: they have to be taken out), where they wear an orange coloured uniform and are virtually in solitary confinement with one book or the bible. More serious offences go to the Aptitude Review Board which has the authority either to throw the inmate out (termination); regress him, that is to put him back a month into the next platoon down; issue a reprimand; or do nothing. It is run on due process lines. A written incident statement is made by the complainant to the board of three: one teacher, one DI and the chairman, usually one of the case managers of lieutenant rank. The person making the allegation is not allowed to sit on the board. The inmate is given 24 hours' notice of the hearing. The case that I was allowed to watch was initiated by one of the teachers of cognitive education who asked for 'termination'-that the inmate, known (here) as recruit L, be thrown out of the boot camp because he was a habitual liar. He had claimed that he had a Bachelor of Science degree and proficiency in various trades. The problem was not just that he had been lying about the degree which he did not have, but in the monthly report to his judge the fact that he had a degree was included. The judge, in trying to verify this claim, found that he had no degree. He was about to enter the third phase; he had been at the boot camp for two months. The inmate entered and stood at attention in front of the table behind which sat the three-member board. The chairman asked him if he knew why he was there. 'Sir, this recruit lied, sir'-referring to himself, as he must, in the third person.

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When asked what schooling he had had, he answered up to twelfth grade. He admitted to telling 'partial truths and partial lies'. He had claimed to have a Bachelor's degree and to starting a Master's in order to make himself look better to everyone including 'this recruit'. The chairman became loud and aggressive. 'Are you a chronic liar?' he shouted. He started to explain but the chairman interrupted, 'We don't want any psychobabble from you. Just say 'Sir, yes, sir'. 'Sir, yes, sir.' He did maintain that he had a high school diploma, however. The teacher present asked, 'What's partial lying?' 'Sir, this recruit wants to make himself look better. This recruit feels he has a self-esteem problem.' His criminal offences were passing bad cheques, criminal impersonation and fraud: all variants of lying. 'So you've come to the realisation that you need help?' 'Sir, yes, sir.' 'Why do you minimise your failings? Are you an alcoholic?' 'Sir, this recruit has admitted his alcoholism and needs help. I find the ARP class [Addiction Recovery Program] useful and I think I'm doing well there.' 'You are below average in cog. ed. [cognitive education] and in drill. Why should we waste time with you? So you like the ARP class but in cog. ed. and drill you are poor. You know you need help, so why aren't you an outstanding recruit?' 'Sir, I participate in cog. ed. quite a bit. I didn't know I was below average.' 'Why are you here?' [meaning in custody] 'I got put in here for writing bad cheques.' 'You didn't think about the consequences. How old are you?' 'Sir, 27, sir.' At this stage it is interesting to note several things. The chairman was unrelenting. He was throwing everything negative at the inmate in a deliberately aggressive tone that cannot be reproduced in print. Not only was this extremely detrimental to recruit L's cause but the accusations and the tone in which they were made were extremely humiliating for a 27-year-old forced, as the custom has it there, to refer to himself by the belittling title of 'this recruit'. Yet the inmate, knowing he was on the ropes, for he had been told that the complainant had asked for a termination, held his own, answering incriminating questions truthfully, calmly and articulately. Anything less, of course, and he would have been scuppered immediately. The relentless questioning continued. 'You started your criminal activity at 19. You are an old hand. You have an old [prison] number. You've been in and out a long time. We have plenty of recidivists and they are all in the Doe [prison]. You've done time before; you aren't afraid of doing it again.'

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This was a clear reference to the fact that if he was terminated he would go straight back to prison. 'Sir, this recruit screwed up'. 'You screwed up in 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997 and 1998. You haven't learned. 'Sir, this recruit needs to learn to change, sir.' Teacher: 'You are afraid of failing so you always fail. You're the only one who can change.' Chairman: 'You know how to get into prison-you're a bright guywhy can't you get yourself out?' 'Sir, I've learned a lot in the last few weeks. I've learned a lot about denial'. He was dismissed and told to wait outside the office, where he had to stand at attention facing the wall. Inside, the atmosphere relaxed. The chairman, recently so aggressive, became quite genial. They discussed the session. Teacher: 'Termination-isn't that a bit extreme?' Chairman: 'I'm thinking regression. But I don't think that he's scared to go back to prison.' Teacher: 'I think termination is extreme. He'll make it.' There was a further brief discussion during which the board kindly explained the reasons for their decision to me. What they knew but I did not was that the inmate had been kidnapped and raped as a teenager by a known sex offender. His parents were drunkards and were addicted to LSD: his family were completely dysfunctional. Although they had confronted him with his deficiencies unflinchingly, they recognised that his background-similar to that of so many inmates, as I would soon learn-was some mitigation. The board's decision was that he must do three laps of the motivation pit within 30 minutes to earn regression. Failure, refusal or giving up halfway meant termination. The motivation pit, 'motopit', is a kind of very difficult assault course, of which more later. The regression (the chairman explained to me) was designed to help him and give him more time to change his way of thinking, but the motivation pit was a disciplinary measure to punish him for and make him confront his lying. If he were given regression alone it would seem to ignore the reason he was there: it would look like he was being regressed merely for poor performance. Also, it gave the inmate the opportunity to demonstrate how keen he was to take regression. He had the opportunity to refuse to do it, to do it too slowly or to quit halfway through and opt to be returned to prison. Recruit L was called back in. He was immediately confronted with the fact that he had completed a 45-day alcohol treatment programme in

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1995, but had relapsed. He admitted this, saying he fell to temptation. Asked the circumstance, he replied that he had had no job. 'Sir, this recruit started running around and visiting bars without drinking. Then I was in a car accident which put me in a wheelchair and I had a drink on New Year's eve.' Chairman: 'That's life, L. If that's how you're going to solve your problems, you're 27 now, by your mid 30s you'll put a rope round your neck and finish it. Do you want to be here, L?' 'Sir, yes, sir.' 'We could file charge on you for lying. For that you're going to run three laps of the motopit in 30 minutes. For doing badly in classes and drill we could terminate you, but we are going to give you a second chance and regress you. I don't give a shit whether you've got a college degree or not. We're going to give you another 30 days to try and help you.' Teacher: 'Why don't you make your lies real? Why don't you get out of here and get your bachelor degree? You're bright enough. That's how you'll raise your self-esteem.' Chairman: 'But you're going to be held accountable for the lying. If you complete the motopit you'll have another 30 days.' 'Sir, yes, sir.' 'Deny request for termination. Substitute three laps of motopit and regression.' After a brief discussion recruit L was told to report at the motopit at 1.00 p.m. as an hour's gap after lunch was thought advisable, and he was dismissed. The attitude of the chairman was very interesting. During the interview with the inmate he was extremely confrontational, spoke in a loud voice just short of shouting and his manner was aggressive and challenging. He did not allow the inmate to get away with any vague replies and when he thought he was being evasive he would confront him, for example, 'You're a habitual liar, why should we believe you now when you've lied to us for two months?' Yet after the decision was made and L was called back in, the tone was quite different. His manner of speaking was conversational and he carefully explained that the recruit would have to do three laps of the motopit to earn regression; and that if he thought it too difficult he could quit at any time and he would be off the course. But, he was told, the board believed he could make it and with an extra month he should graduate easily. After it was all over the chairman told me that it had all been roleplay: the shouting and confrontation were really to force the inmate to accept that he had lied and been caught, and that the lying had done him

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no good. They really wanted only to regress him, not throw him off the programme. Provided he tried hard at the motopit he would be regressed even if he did not complete the three laps in 30 minutes: after all with no watch he could not know what 30 minutes was. The motivation pit The motivation pit is a very difficult assault course. It involves a lot of crawling on the ground on one's back and front under low cross poles, clambering through tyres suspended vertically, stepping over rows of them laid horizontally on the ground, and clambering over obstacles, through tunnels and carrying logs up slopes. For an ordinary person one lap would be very tiring although fit DIs have completed it in under ten minutes. However, doing three consecutive laps is exhausting and in under 30 minutes seems barely possible. Recruit L arrived promptly at 1.00 p.m.; two DIs were already there to make sure he did the course properly and to time him. They were also there to goad him: 'You're too slow', 'Faster-you want to quit, don't you?', 'You're never going to make it.' They also asked him questions about whether he wanted to stay, whether he would really like to go off the course, and he had to reply, 'Sir, yes, sir', to each one, although very much out of breath. Halfway round it did not look as if he would complete the course in time. Another 01 joined in but as the time got shorter and it looked very close their cat-calls turned to encouragement: 'Come on, L, you've got time'; 'You're getting there, you'll make it, you're almost done!' In the event he completed the three laps of the course in 29 minutes 39 seconds! I asked what would have happened if he was a minute or two over 30 minutes. Just a minute or two, I was told, we would have told him he just squeezed in, because we could see he was trying. Longer than that and he could have had another attempt in a few days' time. But if it had been clear he was not trying he would have been off the course by that evening. The iron fist of discipline is certainly covered by the velvet glove of concern. The 'tough guy' attitude of the DIs is mostly role play but their solicitude for the inmates' welfare is real. Does it work? The confusion wrought by naming some things differently is clearly part of the Zero Day programme and is designed to add to the disorientation. In this regard the trick works but only at the margins. There is so much to learn in the first few hours and the subsequent few days after arrival at the boot camp that the need to re-learn the names of common items is

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a drop in the ocean. After all, how often does one need to refer to walls or doors or ceilings? Learning the language of the various rules falls into the same category but lasts longer. There have to be rules of engagement between the staff and the inmates; their absence would render impossible a formal and regimented institution which is one of the philosophical keystones of the boot camp. If it is accepted that the programme is to have a quasi military aspect (and even if the people running the boot camp did not approve, military discipline is enshrined in the legislation), having the inmates to begin and end their sentences with 'Sir' (or 'Ma'am') is no different from what goes on in basic training in the American or British services. Asking for permission to pass a staff member seems at first rather excessive but both requirements soon become a habit. Furthermore, in the USA the use of these terms in normal conversation is much more common than in Britain. When Americans are not actually shooting each other they are very polite. Their use of 'Sir' does not imply a master-servant relationship as it does in Britain: it is closer to the French 'Monsieur' or the Spanish 'Senor', a means of referring to someone. Accosted in the street by a stranger who requires information or directions, a normal entry would be, 'Pardon me, Sir, but could you ...' and would end, 'Thank you, Sir'. American shop assistants, waiters, policemen are far more polite in general than their British counterparts and 'Sir' and 'Ma'am' litters their conversation. However, this had not been the practice of the inmates before arriving at the boot camp. Their life before prison has been one of confrontation and aggression, so it is not unreasonable for them to start off on the right footing, within minutes of arriving, and to be shown that politeness is to be expected and that there is a hierarchy in the camp. When the recruits begin classes after ten days it is made clear to them that the 'Sir . .. sir' structure of address need not be adhered to but politeness is expected, and rudeness, undue familiarity or interrupting anybody who is speaking will not be tolerated. In class the instructors called the inmates by their surnames and were themselves called Mr A, Mrs B, Sir or Ma'am. The 'square meals' take, so to speak, more swallowing. The purpose behind the idea is, of course, clear: to make the inmates think about what they are doing even when they are doing something as normal as eating. If this is the aim, it works. If they get it wrong in the early days they are made to pay for their backsliding with press-ups, but after a while it must become almost automatic, in which case little thinking about what they are doing is actually taking place. Moreover, whilst insisting that the inmates are formally polite is a good introduction to the niceties of

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normal social intercourse, the 'square meals' procedure is somewhat dehumanising. Perhaps there is a case for relaxing the system after a while so that in the third month meals may be eaten in the normal way, albeit in silence; a natural progression to graduation after which the graduates may talk during meals. It would also be a marker of the progress they have made in the previous two months: something they have earned, like the pillow to sleep on. The restrictions under which the inmates live are undoubtedly harsh. The restriction on mail and visitors is designed to isolate the inmates so that to a great extent the only influences that impinge on them are from the staff. In addition, by banning visitors altogether the bringing of 'contraband' into the boot camp is eliminated. Drugs in American prisons are as big a problem as they are in British ones, but they are not a problem at all in the Buena Vista boot camp. Most penal institutions have some kind of shop where inmates can buy little luxuries: sweets, toiletries, even cigarettes. Not so at the CCAP. (Smoking has recently been banned in all Colorado prisons, and in prisons in some other States). The diet is carefully balanced and there is no wish on the part of the management to unbalance it with sugary food or drinks. Similarly, caffeine-containing drinks are not provided. Furthermore, the inmates have no money with which to buy such wares nor any means of earning any; they are not required to perform paid work as in prison. Every recruit is provided with what is needed and every recruit has exactly the same. With this system there can be no cigarette barons, chocolate kings or inmates cornering the postage stamp market as is rampant in the prisons. It may hurt but it works. Discipline, for all its harsh appearance in theory, is minimal in practice. This is mainly because the vast majority of inmates want to stay the course with its reward of sentence reduction. Those who take an instant dislike to the boot camp, those who wrongly believe that they can impose their street or prison culture on it and those who are terrified of the difficulties in store are weeded out early on. As for the remainder, most are never bothered by anything more stringent than press-ups and everyone has their fair share of those. Fewer than a handful of recruits are regressed as was recruit L mentioned earlier in this chapter; occasionally for a breach of a rule but often as not because of a failure physically or educationally that the staff believe can be overcome by an extra month. The motobay is often empty; the motopit rarely used as punishment.

CHAPTER 6

Drill and Gym I remember once remarking to the programmes co-ordinator, who was in overall charge of the education side of the boot camp, that the teaching part of the timetable was impressive but might it not be better without all the marching, drilling, shouting and yelling that made up the military part? I expected agreement, for such an idea if put into practice would double the time available for education. Moreover, what teacher wants to have to teach students who must spend half their time conforming to silly rules and coming to class half-dead with exhaustion? The answer I received, however, was not what I expected. The military part of the course was necessary because the inmates needed discipline, which they had never had before. It was much more difficult to teach an undisciplined rabble. They needed a certain minimum discipline in the classes and in the context of the much greater discipline imposed by the drill staff the teachers' needs were easily met. The teachers could afford to be friendly and relaxed and leave the drill instructors to be the bad guys. Furthermore, most of the inmates had not completed school. Many had truanted, had got little out of it and hated going. Here in the boot camp, after several hours of hard, fatiguing work, being shouted at, having to do endless press-ups, it was quite a relief to come into class. For the first time in their lives they actually looked forward to it. Later, I asked a senior member of the drill staff the opposite question. Given that the job of the DIs was to lick the recruits into shape, get them fit and instil into them a discipline they had never known, would it not be better if they did not have to waste all that time in class? Did the DIs not resent the fact that much of their good work was being undermined by the relatively sloppy regime in the classrooms? Would the course not benefit if it was run on entirely military lines: more drill, more marching, more physical exercise and the elimination of all the classroom stuff? He was horrified. 'Let me get one thing clear', he said. 'I have spent my entire career in the corrections service and my job here is totally on the drill side of the programme. But you must understand that the heart of the course here in Buena Vista is education. Everything revolves around the education classes. Without them this boot camp would be worthless. The purpose of the drilling is to get the inmates into a state of physical fitness, to show them that a disciplined attitude is more effective than a sloppy one and to get them into a frame of mind that

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The Pain and the Pride

makes the task of the education staff easier. Without our input the teachers would have a hell of a time trying to teach'. It would therefore seem that the teachers and the DIs are in a perfect state of symbiosis: the teachers need disciplined students and the DIs recognise that the main point of the boot camp is education. However, a little less than half of the available time is taken up with physical activity. This activity takes three forms: drill, work and what might be loosely termed physical education. Drill A considerable amount of time is spent early on in drilling. For one reason it is easier for the platoons to move around if they march in step and it keeps the platoons cohesive. It requires a mental as well as a physical effort and whereas on the one hand it affords plenty of opportunities to get things wrong, on the other it enables the inmates to appreciate their own progress. A central feature of the graduation ceremony is a marching display which is possible only after a considerable level of marching proficiency has been achieved. And marching is a collective activity; the quality of marching consists in everyone marching together in perfect time. One poor marcher, one person slightly out of step and the entire spectacle is ruined. Marching emphasises that they are part of a team and that any defect in one of them spoils the whole. Along with the drill comes inspections. The main inspection is in the morning when the dormitories are examined. The bedding on the bunks has to be made up in a pre-ordained manner and there is a specific arrangement of personal items on the locker shelves that is strictly adhered to. Any slight deviation results in the inevitable press-ups, occasionally varied with sit-ups. Personal dress is relatively casual and not up to military standard. Inmates wear green shirts and trousers and shoes which are expected to be clean but not spit-polished. Clothes and bedding are laundered regularly.

Work It is a matter of regret that very little meaningful work or work training is available at the boot camp. Instead, a considerable amount of useless work is carried out. This has several functions. First, it is hard, physical labour which has a positive effect on the inmates' fitness. Second, for many of the inmates who have never had a continuous job, they learn that work may be unpleasant, it may be fatiguing and it may even be useless-but they are told to do it so it must be done. They have had a long history of either nobody telling them what to do or of not doing what they have been told to do. Consequently, they have either not had

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a job or have lost jobs quickly through sloppy work or disobedience. Finally, the work is regular and this introduces them to a routine, which is one thing to which they have never before been subjected. Not all of the work done is useless. There is a certain amount of cleaning, sweeping and so on that must be carried out as part and parcel of everyday living. Not only are the dormitories spic-and-span but the washrooms are immaculate, too. The modern washrooms, shower and toilet facilities are spacious and adequate; there is no slopping out here. A large part of the outside area behind the boot camp building consists of a huge sandpit which is generally left in a raked-over state. One of the jobs that inmates have to do is for half of them to line up across the width of the pit with spades. They dig over the smooth sand and advance slowly forward in line. A few yards behind, the rest of the platoon also stand in line abreast, this time armed with rakes. They rake smooth the dug-over sand. Hard work with precious little to show for it. Other jobs consist of carrying bricks or logs from one end of the yard to another and for other inmates to carry them back. Gym The physical education is more conventional although it is often interspersed with some drill. If the class is outdoors, advantage may be taken of a certain amount of wooden equipment such as climbing frames and things to crawl under and over: a mini-assault course. Out in the open air under the blue Colorado sky this could be enjoyable for some and nothing is done to make it less so. However, when the weather is too cold or there is snow on the ground, as happens for much of the time, these classes take place in the gymnasium, which, it should be remembered, doubles as a dining room. A class I witnessed in the gym for a Second Phase platoon who had been at the boot camp for about five weeks was physically very tough. The first thing they had to do was to run from one end of the gym to the other along every line laid out for basketball. Then they had to run back again. If they did that badly, which meant, too slowly, with not enough effort or just not to the liking of the DI, they were made to travel from one end of the gym to the other using the 'worm crawl'. This is an extremely exhausting procedure. They lay prone on the floor with arms behind the back and hands clenched, then progressed by using the knees in a half-crawling, half-rolling movement. They had to end up in a straight line across the gym, each with hands clenched behind the back. After two minutes' rest they were off again, this time to the end of the gym and back using a straight crawl on their hands and knees. During this event there was one bad straggler who lacked either the strength or co-ordination or both. She was a short, rather dumpy girl

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who had already been regressed for lack of progress. Two inmates who had finished that exercise quickly were sent back by the instructor to crawl back alongside her and encourage her. Every now and again they were told to take a drink from their water containers which both prevented dehydration and enabled them to get back their breath. After a short break, they had to make another visit to the end of the gym and back, this time on all fours, another exhausting procedure after which they had to stand still at attention, another device to enable them to catch their breath. Whilst they were resting two inmates at the end of the line were given brooms, and slowly and carefully swept a strip of the gym floor in front of them from one end to the other and back. They then handed the brooms to the next pair in line, until gradually the entire gym was swept clean, for the next use of the area was for lunch. Whilst two inmates were sweeping the others were given small tasks to do, like arranging their headgear, so that they are not aware that they were actually resting. The sweeping took about 15 minutes so they had quite a long cooldown period and this was followed by a marching session. They had already had more than a month of marching practice so were quite good at it, trying more tricky manoeuvres such as counter-marching. When one inmate did a double about-turn wrongly, the entire platoon had to do 15 press-ups. It took three attempts (and 30 press-ups) before he got it right. The physical exercises are exhausting and quite difficult despite the frequent rest breaks. However, there is no doubt that this, the regular routine and the nutritional food minus any junk food, have in one month made them fitter than most have ever been before. Four weeks earlier they would have been unable to attempt most of what they are now achieving physically. When they leave the boot camp they are extremely fit, but whether they are fit for work or fit for crime depends on a number of factors, not all within their own control. Does it work? Physical activity, some might say to an excessive degree, has long been a feature of juvenile custodial institutions; indeed, the treadmill, which physically ruined Oscar Wilde and others was part of the English adult prison system up to the early part of the twentieth century, and 'hard labour' was only abolished in England as recently as 1948. Yet prisons for young offenders have always been known for their high level of physical activity. In British Borstal training centres, the inmates had to move about at the double; in detention centres they did that and in addition did a great deal of physical training and 'physical jerks'. In Britain, National Servicemen, mostly 18 to 21-years-old, were subjected

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to 'square bashing'-boot camp in United States parlance. But this served a different, military, purpose. Marching was necessary in order to move large numbers of soldiers about in an orderly manner; they learned how to move quickly and slowly and how to turn. Only when marching is elevated to a spectacle akin to dancing, particularly when accompanied by a military band, is any intricacy required, and a marching display is choreographed with the moves being called out by the drill sergeant who acts as dancing master, or in square dancing, caller. The intense physical training of gymnastics, marching, drilling and various kinds of assault courses likewise serve a military purpose. Fighting soldiers, and even supporting armies, must be fit. The work is demanding and physically arduous: soldiers are required to walk or run long distances often over rough terrain whilst carrying heavy equipment. Square bashing, or basic training as it is more formally known, is a preparation for the real thing. What is the rationale for giving young offenders a quasi military training when a military career will not follow? It is like teaching them to dance knowing that they will never set foot in a ballroom. Basic training is a prelude to a prolonged period in an army that reinforces the behaviour required at the training camp; the penal boot camp is a short-term experience for young people who will return to the communities from whence they came and who will again mix with the crowd with whom they engaged in unlawful enterprises. The military style operation serves a number of purposes, not all of them equally relevant. It is vital that the boot camp is run in an orderly manner; any breakdown in discipline would soon descend into chaos, or at least the sort of chaos that currently prevails or has prevailed in many prisons, both in Britain and the USA. Whether it is necessary to go so far is a matter of opinion: some will say that needing to reply 'Sir, yes, sir' to every order is unnecessary; others will believe that a formal response which emphasises each time who is the boss is no bad thing. Large numbers of boot camp inmates never have to move around together so a great emphasis on marching could be considered unnecessary. But there is no great emphasis on marching or drilling, merely enough so that small groups can move around without getting in everyone's way and enough for the graduates to put on a small display at their ceremony. Nonetheless, opinions concerning the usefulness of the military nature of boot camps are conflicting. On the one hand, 1 the militarism in penal institutions has been called 'an exercise in nostalgia' rather than an .

1

Simon J, 1995, 'They Died With Their Boots On: The Boot Camp and the Limits of Modern Penalty', Social Justice, 22 Issue 2, p.25.

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indication of penal policy. Studies by the military 'have suggested that the classic boot camp model is counterproductive for many of the military's own goals.' The boot camp is a 'wilful nostalgia' for an 'imagined past' and will not prove a 'penal paradigm for the future'. On the other hand, however,2 a study involving two juvenile and two adult programmes that de-emphasised the 'military model' found that the 'traditional boot camp appeared to generate improvements that paralleled those found in the other two programmes'. Formal physical training, in addition to the marching and drilling, is vital. Whether the inmates have come straight from the outside or from prison, most of them are extremely unfit. By following a fitness regime their physical condition improves. Over and above the inherent value of this, being fit enhances their mental ability and alertness which is vital for the attention that they need pay in class. One of the responses to the increase in crime, in particular violent crime, in the USA, and one that has found its way, albeit to a lesser extent, into the criminal justice system in Britain, was the 'get tough on crime' movement. This resulted in tougher and mandatory penalties, the decreasing use and sometimes elimination of parole, longer and harsher sentences. Other measures to crack down on crime included the boot camps. Members of the public, in the USA as well as in Britain, can be swift to declare that prisons are a 'soft option', are like 'holiday camps' and give the inmates a better life than they were accustomed to outside. For some inmates, who have had a most terrible existence outside prison, this is sadly true. But the fact remains that as well as its more genuinely positive aspects, the military side of boot camp does help to get across to the public that boot camp is a tough regime. As Professor Christina Jacqueline, writing in the Tallahassee Democrat, has said, 'Whenever you see media coverage of boot camps, you normally see a man yelling into the face of a juvenile or other offender, chastising him, dressing him down, reading him the Riot Act.' Not only do such scenes slake the public thirst for toughness in the penal system but a certain amount of military style training is required by the legislation that set up the boot camps in the first place. The United States Code requires inter alia 'a highly regimented schedule of discipline, physical training, work, drill and ceremony characteristic of military basic training'.3 There can be little wrong with a regime that gets people who have done little or no work used to doing it on a regular basis. To this extent 2

3

Castellano T. and Soderstrom 1. 1997. Developing the mature coping skills of criminal offenders. The impact of boot camp interventions. S. Illinois University Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency and Corrections. 42 sec. 5667(t) and (t) - 2.

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the work the inmates have to do for the inspection of their bedding and dormitories and the general cleaning duties is worthwhile. But it is a pity that much of the other work that they are made to do is artificial. Digging over sand and then raking it, moving heavy objects from one place to another and then back again not only serves no useful purpose but could induce an element of cynicism into the recruits, as the painting of coal white and cutting grass with small scissors did to thousands of National Servicemen in Britain. When forced to perform pointless tasks, the questioning of the relevance of such work could easily radiate into questioning the relevance of other parts of the programme. Given a little imagination (which was far from lacking at this boot camp) and possibly a little more money, there is no reason why the work part of the programme could be not only useful but carry a strong jobtraining element, an aspect singularly lacking. Then the inmates, on leaving the prison system would be trained to do one of several jobs that were available in the area. Such job training is already in the minds of the senior staff and its implementation would certainly enhance the physical side of the regime and complement the educational programme outlined in Chapters 8 and 9 too.

CHAPTER 7

Alcohol and Drugs Not all of the inmates are or have been alcoholics but few are strangers to alcohol. Not all of the inmates have been drug addicts but many of them have been and almost all have taken drugs on a regular basis. Many have dealt in drugs; many have committed their crimes in order to finance their drug or alcohol habit. Many come from families where one or both parents have been addicted to alcohol or drugs, and have been or are still in prison. It is very rare for any of the inmates to have come from a family where Mum, Dad, brothers and sisters all lead normal lives and none have a criminal record. Most inmates have come from an environment where drugs, alcohol, sexual and physical abuse and criminal activity are the norm. The Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) is compulsory for all inmates whatever their alcohol or drug status. Classes are semi-formal; they are relaxed, the inmates are seated how they like and they talk in a normal fashion: they do not have to begin and end each sentence with 'Sir'. However, interrupting someone else is frowned upon, and casual chatting to each other, leaving the seat, horseplay or threats are strictly forbidden. Each inmate is issued with a set of rules which must be read and signed. Each is also issued with a list of 'clients' rights' (they are the clients) and a further list of 'clients' responsibilities', which include understanding their problems and asking questions, and preserving the confidentiality of other members of the class. The Alcohol Recovery Program The staff who run the Alcohol Recovery Program must be ex-alcoholics themselves or closely related to an alcoholic or ex-alcoholic. Thus they are not teaching from a theoretical perspective; they know the problems and understand what alcohol dependence feels like. It is not possible, of course, to describe a daily course lasting three months in a single chapter. The programme begins with a discussion of individual and group goals. Examples of these-I8 are listed-are: to learn how to trust others and myself; to recognise that others struggle too; to provide support and challenge to others; to learn to ask others for what I want or need; to become sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. Plenty of printed material is given with the course and after discussing goals they get down to the basic realities of having explained to them, and discussing, the effects of alcohol on the body. In a handout

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the various effects of alcohol on the different bodily organs are described. For alcohol addicts this does not make for pleasant reading. For example, the section on the pancreas reads as follows: Alcohol irritates the cells of the pancreas, causing them to swell, thus blocking the flow of digestive enzymes. The chemicals, unable to enter the small intestine, begin to digest the pancreas, leading to acute haemorrhagic pancreatitis. One out of five patients who develop this disease dies during the first attack. Pancreatitis can destroy the pancreas and create a lack of insulin, thus resulting in diabetes.

Not very exciting reading for alcoholics. The item on the brain is worse: The most dramatic and noticeable effect of alcohol abuse is its effect on the brain. Alcohol depresses the brain centres, producing progressively: lack of co-ordination, confusion, disorientation, stupor, anaesthesia, coma and death. Alcohol kills brain cells. The brain cannot grow new cells. Thus, any brain damage caused by alcohol is permanent. Alcohol abuse over a period of time causes loss of memory, judgement, and learning ability.

This sort of information is certainly attention-gathering and has probably never been told to the inmates before. They discuss the effects of alcohol in detail, learning probably for the first time that what they had thought was an entirely pleasurable experience was slowly killing them. Most of them have heard that alcohol has a detrimental effect on the liver but the effect on other organs and on sexual activity is new. In the following session they have a written quiz on what they have learned. By the time these introductory sessions are complete the inmates know a lot about the effects of alcohol that they did not know before, and none of it is very comforting. One session that I attended was impressive for its detailed discussion. They were first introduced to the three stages of dependency, as follows: • Use The first stage is a type of social dependency. Chemicals assist us in dealing with other people. Our use is primarily social in nature, and we find it very difficult to relate to individuals without a mood-altering chemical to help with the relationship. • Abuse The second stage is a type of psychological dependency. A chemical is used as a way of dealing with ourselves, and handling feelings that we have no other way of handling. They can be either negative or positive feelings, but they are feelings that overwhelm us and consequently, we use chemicals as a way of dealing with these.

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The Pain and the Pride • Dependency The third stage is physical dependency. Depending on the chemical we're using, it has become necessary to use the chemical to feel physically 'OK'. Physical addiction is the easiest part of chemical dependency to treat.

These stages were readily recognised by all the inmates present and all admitted to being on one or other stage. They then discussed the behaviour that characterised the three stages. These were: • Early stages Tries to control drinking. Makes promises to quit. Gulps drinks. Frequent drinking to relax. Changes in personality. Blackouts. Preoccupation with drinking. Using alcohol as medicine.

• Middle stages Loss of control. Sneaks drinks. May drink in the morning. Harder to feel good. Goes on the wagon. Protects supply. Persistent remorse. May drink alone.

• Late stages Binges. Loves to drink. Decreased tolerance. Tremors. Impaired thinking. Indefinable fears. Cannot operate without alcohol. Loss of tolerance.

All of the inmates present recognised the symptoms of the first stage; many were familiar with those of the second; and one or two admitted that they had reached the third stage. They were told to turn to the Personalised Addiction Process Chart (reproduced in Appendix Ill) and given a few minutes to fill it in. They then discussed the process of addiction from the chart item by item, in great detail and from their personal experience. The following is not quite a verbatim account, but a summary from contemporaneous notes of comments made by the inmates relating their own experience to the items on the chart. Each item refers to the list in Appendix Ill.

• Sneaks drink or drugs Hide it from your family. Go outside to the garage to drink. Sneak cans of beer and shuffle them up. At a party sneak some drink away.

• Preoccupied with alcohol Counsellor, 'If you go back to drink I'm going to make you feel so guilty you'll see my face at the bottom of the glass.'

• Gulps drinks They all recognised this sign of getting the drink down quickly.

Alcohol and Drugs • Avoids reference to drink All had denied drinking and avoided talking about it.

• Increased alcohol tolerance Counsellor, 'You start out with one or two cans. Then a six-pack. Then a twelve-pack.' He then explained how increased tolerance leads from packs to cases to kegs. The inmates recognised this readily-it was exactly what happened to them. One wished he still had all the money he had spent on drink. The counsellor explained how money spent on drink or drugs could have been used to buy a car or nice clothes, etc.

• Memory blackouts The counsellor explained that a 'blackout does not mean a loss of consciousness but a loss of awareness of where you are'. You can 'wake up' somewhere else. Inmate: 'I had a blackout that lasted two to three weeks. I was offered speed (amphetamine) and took eight 200mg tablets. Then next day after no sleep I went with my dad to buy weed (so much for parental control). I smoked weed and went dizzy and felt ill. When I got up I just passed out. Although I came round I had no memory of what happened for a month.' Although he was talking about drugs, not alcohol, his experience readily chimed with that of the other inmates. Another said, 'Sometimes someone drives home in a blackout and next morning finds that the front of his car is damaged. He reads in the newspaper of a four-year-old girl killed by a hit-and-run driver.' The counsellor told of his own experience, 'I started drinking at 13 and stopped at 37. You can have blackouts and not even know about it.'

• Drinks before and after social occasions You have to get in a good mood to get through the occasion.

• Begins relief drinking You wake up with a hangover, stagger to the 'fridge and take a drink for relief. You take the same thing as got you the hangover to get yourself going again (the hair of the dog syndrome).'

• Feels uncomfortable without alcohol You reach the point where you've got to have something.

• Experiences loss of control None could recall such an experience.

• Is dishonest about alcohol use You don't tell the truth about alcohol use, you lie.

• Feels increased use for relief They all recognised this: 'You start drinking at 8.00 a.m'.

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The Pain and the Pride • Hides and protects supply They hid their drink outside the house. It was like buried treasure.

• Feels urgent need for first drink You wake up and you have to have a drink. The counsellor explained the social ('so shall') drinker. A: 'I'm going for a drink.' B: 'So shall I. '

• Has periods offorced abstinence You tell yourself to slow down. You give it up for two or three days then drink even more to make up. They all recognised this as something they had done.

• Others disapprove of drinking No comment.

• Rationalises drinking The inmates said they always had an excuse. Sometimes it was the wife's fault for nagging them to do something around the house. Minor adversities prompted them to get drunk. A good event (for them to celebrate) or a bad one (to forget) was always an excuse for drinking.

• Experiences aggression You get irritable or angry. Drink mellows and you can deal with the aggression, but when you sober up the aggression returns.

• Feels guilt about drinking They all said they felt guilty then. It should be remembered that none of them have had a drink for at least two months, some for much longer.

• Neglects eating Money spent on drink was not available for buying food. 'When I was drunk I never thought about food. Now I don't think about drink, only food.' They explained that they sometimes got a job where food was free (in MacDonald's, for instance) so that all their money was available for drink.

• Builds unreasonable resentments They explained how they could always justify their behaviour. They got to dislike everybody so went off to drink alone.

• Devalues personal relationships They all admitted that they lost interest in their family and close friends. They would sooner be drinking with their cronies.

• Considers geographic escapes They reached a condition where they could not handle anything. 'I went to another State to start anew. But when I arrived I carried on as I left off.' Some said they wanted to go to another country, or to Europe. When asked where and how, their absolute lack of even elementary geography was total. One inmate had considered crossing from Alaska to Siberia, then walking westwards across Russia to Germany or France!

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• Quits or loses job One inmate admitted to quitting his job before inevitably being fired.

This was as far as was reached in that session, but that was a lot of intense discussion and revelation of their alcoholic past for an hour and a half: these sessions went on nearly every day for three months. When the inmates had left the room, the counsellor explained to me that most of them in that class had reached the lower middle of the list (in Appendix Ill) and that a few were in the later stages. This is appalling since none was older than 30 and it illustrates that the course was tackling not young men who liked to drink a little too much, but serious alcoholics. I'What I am trying to do', he said, I'is to get them to lose the thought. After they leave here they are clean and go back to their environment but for some the thought about drink or drugs is still there. My aim with them is to make them feel guilty when they think about drink even if they submit to the temptation, so that when they have a drink they think to themselves I'If I go on like this I'll end up with nothing and spend the rest of my life in prison. I try to replace their old thoughts with my new thoughts.' Alcoholics Anonymous meetings One morning every week there is an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting lasting an hour and a half. It is conducted purely on AA lines following the twelve-point programme and the reason is that when they get out they can go to any AA meeting anywhere in the US and instantly feel at home there. The success rate of the AA is not spectacularly good, around four per cent, but it is probably better than any other programme. When I slipped into the room where the meeting was being held the group was being addressed by a 20-year-old black man who spoke quietly and with considerable authority about his own background. He had the complete attention of his audience who seemed riveted. The meeting was composed of inmates from all three phases and the speaker was in the Third Phase. He had been regressed in his first week after having had a problem with a DJ. 1'1 was regressed in kindergarten', he said: I had a home with a fridge full of food, but I ran away at 13. I remember when one of my Mom's boyfriends threw a brick through a window. I saw my Mom beaten up. I didn't understand. I went to my room and played Nintendo. From this day forward put your heart into everything you do. If you don't it won't work. People only use a small part of their brains. That's why you've got to fire 150 per cent. You must find the trigger-you guys gotta

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The Pain and the Pride pin-point-what makes you angry. Maybe it's seeing your Mom and Dad fight. My parents divorced when I was four and my brother was three and we were separated. I had a new dad and then I had a new brother and a sister and I saw them getting a lot of attention. You can't go forward unless you know what's holding you back. We're all brothers-the Indians came from Asia, Columbus from Spain, pilgrims from England. We're all mixed up together. You're all part of a brotherhood.

He sat down; it was a remarkable performance from a young criminal alcoholic. A Mexican boy stood up and said, 'I always blamed everyone else for what I did. I came from a drug-dealing family. That's what we all did. If I can get on with 22 people in my platoon I can get on with everyone outside. I don't need to take that drink or take that drug.' The meeting was at an end. They all stood up and formed a circle; these alcoholics, drug addicts, dealers, car thieves and fraudsters, all held hands and quietly recited the Lord's prayer. The drug addiction programme Classes concerned with drug addiction follow roughly the same format as those for alcohol. They begin by studying the various drugs in considerable detail, and to ensure that the information has been absorbed and understood there are regular written quizzes. Because the sessions are daily and each lasts an hour and a half, the classes are not rushed nor the topics glossed over. The recruits are given plenty of handouts bound as booklets to back up the classes. They begin with a study of marijuana. They are told about the hemp plant and the chemicals in marijuana, particularly the most active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol; they learn about the resin, hashish. (They were not told, but might have been interested to learn, that Indian bandits used to dose themselves up with hashish and were known as the 'hashisheen' giving us the English word, assassin.) They next learn about how marijuana enters the body: into the respiratory system by smoking or by the digestive system when eaten. The effects of marijuana on the whole person are discussed: fatigue, depression and, most importantly, loss of motivation. This is followed by a study of the effects on various parts and functions of the body. It interferes with cell function, with cell division, and with cellular immunity. The effects of marijuana on the nervous system are discussed in great detail since they are readily recognised by most of the inmates: impairment of speech and comprehension; loss of memory; irregular sleep patterns; blurred vision, lack of co-ordination and so on. Inmates are told about the adverse effect of smoking cannabis on the respiratory

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system and how it can lead to sinusitis, bronchitis and lung cancer; and the effects on the cardiovascular system: blood pressure and heart abnormalities. The effects on male sexuality hit home hard: a decrease in masculinity, potency and fertility; the effects on females such as masculinisation, infertility and complications of pregnancy. Finally, they discuss a number of myths associated with marijuana use. This first class they attend has a big impact on the recruits who have almost without exception considered that marijuana was a safe, social drug rather in the way tobacco is traditionally regarded (most inmates have been smokers) and with a feel-good effect similar to that given by small quantities of alcohol. Now they are learning for the first time that there are dangers associated with its use. Had the classes been run in a preaching manner they would have had little impact. But they are seminar discussions, fed by information that is authenticated if challenged, and the recruits are encouraged to say whether they recognise any of the various effects cited as having happened to themselves, which they invariably do. Similar classes take place concerned with cocaine, heroin, anabolic steroids, inhalants and hallucinogens. Not only are the physiological effects discussed but also the social implications. During the sessions on heroin, for example, it was mentioned that 15 per cent of those who die from heroin actually die from heroin-related violence and that the average heroin user commits some thousand crimes a year, so desperate is the need for money. The risks, not only from heroin itself but from injections, are discussed: hepatitis, brain abscesses and AIDS. Early in the ARP course the recruits are shown a long video on AIDS which is watched with great attention. From the video they learn for the first time that intra-venous drug users account for 25 per cent of AIDS victims in the USA. The use of hallucinogens amongst young people is as popular in the USA as it is in Britain. They discuss with great animation the effects and dangers of LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamine); MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), more commonly known as Ecstasy; and pep (Phencyclidine Hydrochloride) known as Angel Dust', now considered by the American authorities to be the most dangerous illegal drug of all. Even lesser-used drugs such as Mescaline (from a species of cactus) and Psilocybin (from mushrooms) are considered. I

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After all the drugs have been discussed in great detail together with their impact on HIV and AIDS, inmates go through the various stages of dependency, the effects of drugs on the users and their families and there are a number of sessions on relapse. It was interesting to sit in on a class which was discussing its own experiences and attitudes towards drugs. Each member had tried them, many had been regular users and some were dealers. There were 14 inmates in this particular class. Table 1 below shows the crime that had earned them a prison sentence and what the sentence was.

Offence

Sentence

Drug possession

4 years

Burglary

5 years plus 5 years parole

Dealing x 4 and car theft

4 years and 6 months

Burglary of $35,000

14 years

Drug dealing and GBH

6 years

Aggravated vehicle crime (chase)

5 years

Possessing 3 grammes mushroom

4 years plus 3 years parole

Burglary whilst on bail

4 years

Intending to possess and sell

5 years plus 3 years parole

Possession and dealing [ClassA]

2 years

Vehicular homicide whilst drunk

12 years

Aggravated vehicle theft (whilst on probation)

4 years plus 2 years parole

Possessing and dealing cocaine

4 years

Menacing with a gun

4 years

Table 1 Crimes committed by class members and their sentences

Some of them discussed their own criminal activities involving drugs. One earned $800-$900 a week, of which he spent $400 on drugs. Another maintained his habit by selling MDMA. He made $1,200 profit on every $500 worth he obtained. He also had a friend who broke into a

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vet's surgery and stole animal drugs. A girlfriend of his nearly died of an overdose, after which he said he mixed all his drugs together and took them but never thought he would die. He then drove from Ohio to Colorado (over 1,000 miles) with a cylinder of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and described how he drove at 60 m.p.h. with a hose in his mouth inhaling the gas. J'I'm the luckiest person to be able to come in here', he said. J'Now I'm going to sever my ties with myoId friends'. Another told how during a time when he was injecting methamphetamines he was once awake continuously for 26 days. He took one gramme at a time which lasted 24 hours. He was hallucinating all the time: J'Every car looked like a cop car'. The counsellor running the class asked one of the dealers present whether he cared about the fate of some of the people he had sold drugs to, knowing their harmful and addictive effect. The man looked genuinely astonished at such a naIve question. J'There's no such thing as a caring dealer', he said, and laughed at such a curious notion. A car thief joined in by saying that he never considered the victim as he never came in contact with one. And the only female in this group-a dealersaid, J'When I sold drugs I never considered the purchaser: how they took it or what happened to them'. Does it work? The extent to which the addiction recovery programmes are so effective that they stop the inmates going back to alcohol or drugs after they are released will probably never be known. Research into the efficacy of such programmes is extremely difficult since the overlapping effects of the different parts of the boot camp programme are almost impossible to unravel. However, a number of people who participated in a studyl all agreed that offender rehabilitation should be a goal of the programme but found that the substance abuse education programmes actually carried out in boot camps were not likely to achieve this goal. They called for more psychotherapeutic intervention, more input from substance abuse treatment professionals, more individualised approaches and, something that has an even greater chance of working, a pre-release and postrelease package ensuring continuity of care throughout the institutional and aftercare phases of the programme. Alcoholics are particularly prone to relapse and a great deal will depend on other factors, such as whether they return to their old environments or live in a different area, and whether they can obtain I

Cowles E L, Castellano T C and Gransky L A, 1995, 'Boot Camp' Drug Treatment and Aftercare Interventions: An Evaluative Review, National Institute of Justice, Maryland.

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reasonable employment. A high proportion of the inmates have wives and children who will also have a big impact. But the two courses at Buena Vista, for alcohol and for drugs, are anything but superficial: the effects both pharmacological and physiological, as well as the social and criminal impacts of addiction are explained and discussed in great detail. The inmates are encouraged to tell the class of their own experiences, and the alcohol counsellors tell freely of their own experiences and are living examples of how it is possible to give up drinking despite all the odds. Theirs is not a softly-softly approach. At first many of the inmates are reticent and wary. They are unwilling to give too much of themselves away. But the classes are not occasional, they are not an infrequent relief from the military programme; they are frequent, virtually daily and they are unrelenting. Everyone is required to speak. Everyone is encouraged to challenge what is said. No holds are barred; no punches are pulled. The inmates are motivated to describe their experience but are not allowed to get away with justifying themselves. At first the counsellor will jump in, pointing out that something they have just referred to in a casual tone is criminal or immoral or both, but it is not long before the other members of the class are just as quick to criticise their classmates' previous behaviour. By the time the inmates move out from the boot camp they will have been removed from alcohol and drugs for four months or longer. If they then are given a non-custodial alternative for the rest of their sentence which includes community care and probation, they will stand a good chance of keeping clean' for good. If, on the other hand, their sentence is left alone or even reduced but involves a return to prison albeit for a shorter time, it is likely that many boot camp graduates put in that position will not be able to withstand the temptations to return to their old habits whilst in the prison system. All the benefits of the ARP classes may come to nothing. It is not that the boot camp will have failed the inmates, but the system will have failed the boot camp. I

CHAPTER 8

Problems and Solutions Written in huge letters across a wall of one of the classrooms used for cognitive education are the following words: 'Change cannot occur until

we look at ourselves NOT as victims, but as one who victimises others.' Fortunately, this is a class about thinking, not grammar and the message on the wall pervades many of the discussions. Thinking the unthinkable It might seem odd, ambitious-pretentious even-to run classes in thinking for groups of criminals who are largely not very articulate and mostly semi-literate. However, it does not require a great deal of thought to realise that it is their inability to think, particularly their inability to think through problems, that has steered them not only along a criminal path but along an unsuccessful criminal path that has led straight to gaol. For nearly all the inmates crime has not resulted in success, wealth or happiness: it has led to incarceration. Not only that, it has led to quick incarceration. Most of them were barely out of their teens and some still in them before their stuttering criminal career hit the buffers. To explain away not only their lack of success in life generally but their failure even as criminals, many of them claim that they are victims-of society, of their upbringing, of their colour. Another excuse is that they mixed with the wrong crowd. Another wall notice is designed to disabuse them of this. It reads: 'Who is the wrong crowd? We're the wrong crowd.' No punches are pulled in 'cog. ed.'. Classes are relaxed affairs. The inmates have to march to the classroom and line up outside but once the order is given to enter the atmosphere changes. They troop in, greet the instructor, find a seat around the table. They each have a thick tome of photocopied sheets which make up part of the course, bound in a cover with the single word 'Think' on it. On the first page are ten 'Rules for Being Human'; rule ten is: 'You will forget all this', i.e. the other nine rules. One of the last pages is the 'I used to be ... but now I am ...' sheet on which the inmates are required to write down as many characteristics as they can recall which have changed in the course of the three months at boot camp.

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Warming up One of the instructors always begins with a 'warm-up' session. He points out that when beginning physical exercise it is advisable to warm up, to introduce the muscles to exercise slowly so that when the real exercise begins they are in a state of readiness and will not damage themselves. He maintains that this is just as necessary for intellectual exercise. Coming straight from some drilling or from a meal it is necessary to get the mind into gear in order to prepare it for an hour or more of thinking. This he does by giving them a few puzzles. This is popular, it is fun, and not only does it provide an intellectual warm-up, it also gets the class into active mode and gains their attention as they grapple with the problems. It also starts them thinking. One of the problems in the session I witnessed was, 'Some months have 30 days and some have 31; how many have 28?' They all thought they knew. They thought the instructor would believe that they did not know that February was different from the other months. 'One!' they all shouted triumphantly. 'Wrong!' the instructor called back. Several discussed the matter together, but discussion did not readily yield an answer to this type of problem. Others called out the names of months randomly, believing that with only 12 of them they must sooner or later hit on the correct one. The instructor told them not to guess but to think. Some announced that they gave up; they were not so interested in the process of working it out as to finding out the trick After a while one recruit said, 'I get it!' Silence. All eyes were on him. But he wished to extend his moment of triumph. He had only one pearl, perhaps the only one he had so far ever had, and he was going to hold on to it a little longer before casting. 'Yeah, I see it now. That's neat, it's really neat. That's a good question. It's easy when you know the answer'. And so on. The others became impatient. They called out. The instructor said nothing. Then, 'OK the answer is: all of them. All months have 28 days. Some have a few more, that's all.' Most laughed at themselves for not having worked it out. Some congratulated the one who had. When they had exhausted that topic the instructor told them that the key to success was to listen carefully to the words of the question. They knew in advance that there was a trick to it so they must listen to the words carefully. He gave them another. 'I have in my hands two United States coins which total 55 cents in value. One is not a nickel. Please bear this in mind. What are the two coins?' This is met with total silence. They have immediately worked out that a half-dollar coin (50 cents) and a nickel (five cents) fit the bill and are trying in their minds other combinations of two coins. Of course, the lack of a 30 cent coin doomed their efforts to failure. One by one they called out that it could not be done. 'Yes it can', the instructor assured

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them. 'Listen to the words of the question', and he repeated it. Again, after a long silent pause, someone called out, 'I got it! 1 know the answer!/ 'What is it?', they called. 'What are the two coins?' 'A half dollar and a nickel'. 'Ah!', they shouted in disgust. 'He said one of the coins is not a nickel!' 'Yes', agreed the triumphant one, 'but the other one is!' They loved it. They had been 'had' again but there was no rancour, no jealousy of the inmate who solved the conundrum. The instructor again pointed out that by paying attention to the words the answer became obvious. To emphasise his point he gave them, finally, a different sort of question. 'Do they have a 4th of July in England?'. They were not going to be caught out with that one, particularly in front of me. 'No!' they chorused. 'We have 4th of July to celebrate our independence from England'. Sly glances in my direction to see how 1 received that. The instructor was impassive. He said nothing. They began to have second thoughts. They were not so certain. One called over to me, 'Hey, do you guys celebrate 4th of July? You don't, do you?' 'Listen to the question' I replied piously, and the instructor repeated it. Suddenly they all seemed to know the answer at once. One was picked out to announce the result. 'You have 4th of July in England', he said, hugging himself, addressing me, 'but you don't have Independence Day!' Then they all joined in, pointing out the wording of the question and how they had at first thought of 4th of July and Independence Day as one and the same thing. The instructor drew this opening session to a close by emphasising the importance of using words accurately and listening to the words actually spoken carefully and to ways of alternative thinking. After the fun and games, which were no less productive for being enjoyable, they got down to business and discussed victims, but the inmates were not to realise this for a while. Victims The instructor led the discussion in the direction of the theme of choice. They had the same choices as everyone else and had chosen to commit crimes. This assertion was disputed. Their choices were limited. They came from poor families; they were surrounded by alcohol and drugs; their parents, siblings, close relatives were no strangers to prison; education was regarded as a waste of time. After a short discussion in which they competed with each other for the accolade of having had the worst upbringing, the V-word was finally introduced. 'We're victims', one of them said. 'That's right', another joined in. 'We didn't really have a chance. We didn't get properly educated, we never had a decent job. We're victims all right.' Murmurs and shouts of agreement.

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'OK' the instructor said amiably. 'So you're victims. Let's examine that. You', he said, pointing randomly to one of the class, 'what are you in for?' 'Burglary', the inmate replied. 'Did you do just one burglary, or many?' 'Quite a few.' 'Pick a typical burglary you committed and describe exactly what you did.' The class was silent, listening intently. 'OK, there was this time I broke into a house about 1.00 a.m. I broke a downstairs window at the back of the house and let myself in. Everyone was asleep upstairs. I went through the downstairs rooms picking up anything I could carry easily or put in my pockets. A few bits of jewellery, a watch, a portable CD player, one of those little computer things. I found a bag and put in some bottles of drink. I can't remember everything-whatever I could find. Then I left. I was only in there maybe ten minutes.' 'What did you do with the stuff you stole?' 'Sold it. Didn't get much. Not what it was worth. Never do. Probably 50 bucks.' 'And what did you do with the money?' 'Crack'. The word hung in the air and the instructor allowed the silence to extend. Then he waded in, but quietly at first. 'When you burgled that house, how were you the victim?' he asked innocently. Interrupting the bluster that followed he asked, 'How do you think the people felt when they came down next morning and found their things gone, and the window broken. The wife finds her jewellery missing, the teenage boy finds he no longer has a CD player. To replace the things you got a lousy 50 bucks for, they had to spend a few hundred. Do you think they thought of themselves as victims?' 'S'pose they might.' 'Do you think they were victims?' 'Guess they were.' The instructor was now on a roll. These inmates had been in boot camp only two or three weeks. They had had so far few classes in thinking and this was the first time they had been made to face their crimes and really think about them. They were not going to be let off the hook. The instructor randomly selected another two or three inmates and took them through their crimes: one a car thief, specialising in highpriced cars; one a drugs dealer; one (a young woman) a credit card and cheque fraudster. When he had finished with them he said, 'Let's get one thing straight. You are not victims. You are the ones who victimise others. You burgle their houses, steal other people's property, take their cars, defraud people of their money. You create victims. Until you stop thinking of yourselves as victims and realise that you make other people into victims you will spend your life in and out of prison. Mostly in.' There were mutterings of agreement. 'That's what I am here to do. To

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help you to see that you are not victims. To help you understand that you are not on some sort of treadmill that you can't get off. You've all got records. Criminal records. You've got them for life. You have to live with that, they won't go away. You have to overcome it. That's what boot camp will help you do.' A general chatter of approval and agreement broke out after this little speech, but one inmate called above the hubbub, 'I agree with what you just said, about us making victims and that, I can see what you getting at, yeah, we make victims most of the time. But me, I really am a victim. I might make them sometimes but I'm a victim myself.' 'Really, how's that?' asked the instructor. "Cos I'm black. I get picked on. The p'lice always pickin' on me. White people don't get stopped as much as I do. I'm victimised an' that makes me a victim.' The inmates liked this, black and white alike. They called out that he really was a victim, black people did get picked on. 'What you say is true', the instructor said. 'But d'you think you're the only one? Aren't Hispanics picked on? Don't you blacks pick on other blacks? Don't you sometimes beat up whites? Don't you all pick on Jews? You can't go through life beating people up or taking their property because you're being picked on. They won't let you. They'll lock you up where you can do no harm. Is that what you want? So you're black.' He walked over to the black inmate and from a distance of about 18 inches looked him squarely in the face. 'Do you think you're gonna wake up one morning and find that you're white?' There was a shocked silence as the sheer indisputable, unchallengeable, obvious sense of what he had just said seeped through. In a quieter, more conversational voice, he went on, 'Sure, you've got problems. You've got records. Some of you are black. None of that is going to change. But it doesn't mean that you can't change. Change the way you think about yourselves and you will change the way you act. What you can't change you must overcome. How many of you have kids?' About half the class raised their hands. 'Do you want to go home and play with them and teach them how to ride a bike and take them fishing and cheer them on in the Little League? Or do you want them to visit you once a month for an hour and to be forever asking your wife, "When's Daddy coming home?" and your wife replying, "Oh, sometime soon" meaning about 15 years or so? Think about it. See you tomorrow.' They left quietly, chastened, with plenty to think about. After they had gone I commented to the instructor about his going for the jugular. 'These kids have been bullshitted all their lives', he told me. 'They have to be made to confront things as they are. They have to listen to some straight talking before they can do some straight thinking. You have to

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strip away their layers of deception and self-deception and tell them the truth'. Work On another occasion a different class, one that had been in boot camp for more than two months and was looking forward to graduation, was discussing the importance of getting work when its members were finally released. Good jobs are of course hard to come by for young exprisoners and the same instructor was trying to instil into them the need at first to take any job, no matter how uninteresting and poorly paid, because it would give them some money and therefore some independence and establish a work record on which they could slowly build. They discussed the sorts of jobs that were open to them and the instructor suggested that there were always jobs available in fast food restaurants, working at the grill. One inmate, a young woman of about 22 who was serving six years for a series of credit card frauds, said, 'I ain't working in no fast food joint flipping hamburgers.' The instructor turned to face her and with a look that could itself have charred a hamburger said, 'Why, do you think they'll put you in charge of the till?' Strip away their layers of deception and self-deception and tell them the truth. They had certainly come to the right place for that. Anger Another group, another instructor. Whilst waiting for the class to begin some of the inmates quizzed me about sentencing in Britain. They told me of their offences and resulting sentences which were over the horizon according to our guidelines. One typical example was of a young man of 20 who had been convicted of three burglaries of commercial premises. His total 'haul' was $4,000; his sentence, seven years in prison. The subject on that day was, 'Your thoughts: a key to change'. They talked about things that made them angry. They turned to the section on anger in their notes and were each asked to give an example of when their anger: • kept them from getting their message across to another person; • prevented another person from understanding what they were trying to say; • caused someone to refuse to listen; and • made them so mad that they refused to listen to another person. One inmate gave an example of his own experience of anger when his girlfriend left him in favour of his own brother. His brother he

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considered his best friend, so he was particularly hurt, upset and angry, especially as his brother turned on him and called him names. Once, when drunk, he went to his ex-girlfriend's house when his brother was there and threw a rock through a large window. The consequences were that he lost the friendship of the girl with whom he had much in common. He owned up to breaking the window. The girl was upset and all three had suffered pain. This all happened in the month before he went to prison and he was still badly hurt by those events. He said, 'I could have just let things be and walked away and been happy for my brother. I've always been angry and I'm 27-years-old.' Their printed notes gave hints for de-escalating conflicts; described the importance of different forms of breathing when trying to avert anger; how to recognise the physical signs of anger in themselves and others. They discussed this and eventually, with the help of the instructor came to the realisation that when angry one is out of control and that when one is out of control that is the end of rational thinking. One inmate rather sagely pointed out that there was no quick fix for a lifetime of anger; it will take time. Semiotics One last example will serve to demonstrate the diversity of the cognitive education classes. This one was about drawing inferences from nonverbal communication; the inferences can be correct or not. They first were shown a video with no talking. The video depicted people rooting around a rubbish dump with a modem city in the background. The inmates then had to infer what the video indicated. They inferred that the point was to show the contrast between rich and poor. One or two went so far as to infer that Americans were lucky as they have higher standards of living; one even went so far as to suggest that even the prisons there were better! Other inferences were that the video showed global diversity; showed that Americans were more materialistic-they cared more about what car they drove than how beautiful their churches were. They summed up that the information was communicated visually, musically, by facial and body expressions, personal experience and knowledge and by using their own values. These were the means by which they interpreted information. They then turned to a section of their printed notes which would show them how necessary it is to be careful when making these interpretations. There were four scenarios, and they were required to make an interpretative choice. One scenario said, 'A little girl is walking down a lonely, dark street. Suddenly a man appears dressed in a black suit. She screams. She is probably (a) surprised or (b) frightened.'

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They discussed this, analysing the various descriptions: dark street, man appears suddenly and so on, and came to the conclusion that she was frightened. They then turned over the page where one further item of information was given: 'When she screams she runs up to the man and hugs him'. They realised how easy it is to misinterpret body language. They ended by drawing up a list of non-verbal signs which yield information: gestures, facial expression, posture, movement, eye contact, appearance, dress, hygiene, hairstyle. Think Probably the thing that the inmates have done least in their short lives is think. Their actions have been impulsive and visceral. Logical, linear thinking has not been part of their programme. Where other people think, they have instead engaged in confrontation, violence or flight as solutions to their perceived problems. When asked why they had chosen a career in crime they all answered that it was for the money and what it could buy: material advantages. When further questioned about what they would buy if they had been successful and had accumulated great wealth it was evident how low were their horizons. Nobody mentioned extensive travel to see the world. It was nobody's ambition to live in a grand mansion surrounded by acres of parkland or to purchase works of art. No-one had entertained the possibility of buying companies or setting up charitable trusts or otherwise widening their experiences. A sea-going yacht or a private jet were never mentioned. No: what they would do with their wealth was 'get myself a real fancy car', or 'buy some nice clothes' and even 'not have to work, and sit on the beach all day if I want' and 'go to my favourite restaurant whenever I like'. For this they were risking years and years in prison. They had linked their crimes to their pitiful ambitions but not to the probable-some would say inevitable-eonsequences. They had not thought.

Does it work? The classes in cognitive thinking are undoubtedly the sine qua non of the boot camp experience. That is not to minimise the rest of the programme as the other components each have a role to play, but for people who have never given thinking a thought, the core of the course is being taught how to think. The classes promote critical thought processes which are conducive to linear thinking. The objectives of the course are set out at the beginning of the brochure 'Think' as follows: • explore the thought process • identify target behaviors and thoughts that influence them

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• examine distorted thinking patterns and where they lead • identify barriers and plan strategies to promote permanent change • develop your ability to discover positive alternatives for solving problems • improve your communication skills • discover how choices are guided by ethical awareness and how a code of ethics defines your character • learn goal-setting techniques • become aware of the impact of crime on victims; and • discuss current parenting issues. To consider the course in cognitive education in isolation would lead to an error of judgement; it must be seen in the context of the entire boot camp programme. Although the cognitive education course gives formal instruction in thinking, many other aspects of their experience at the boot camp force them to think more often and more deeply than they have hitherto. From the beginning they have had to remember that certain things have different names, that there is a particular way of eating or of walking past a member of staff. If they forget to think on these critical occasions there is a price to pay not only for themselves but often also for their colleagues. In prison they had been left largely alone but in boot camp they were never left alone. Even whilst they slept their dormitories were open to view by the person on duty at the centre. Nonetheless the classes in cognitive education offer the inmates something that is completely outside their experience. Indeed, it is outside the experience of most people. It is not taught in school: the one thing upon which almost all of education depends is not taught to children, with the result that most of the population have to approach linear thinking and problem solving in an entirely ad hoc way when the occasions arise. The consequence of this educational lack is that often problems are approached in a way that is not effective and the gullible are preyed upon by the sharp-witted. Newspapers, politicians, spin doctors and television advertising can easily shape the opinions of a population unused to thinking for themselves. This being the case, what better chance have boot camp inmates got merely as the result of a short course in thinking? There is little doubt that during the three months that they are there their thinking capacity improves. Some inmates are quite intelligent but have not had their intelligence channelled into pathways that lead away from crime. Other

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inmates who are much less intelligent, or who come from criminal or inadequate families, have rarely attempted or even considered consecutive linear thinking leading from an action to a consequence. Such unpromising rocks cannot be transformed into polished diamonds in three months. But they can at least be shown that there are different ways of approaching problems and situations from those that they had previously employed and which had landed them in such trouble. Listening to many inmates towards the end of their three months' sojourn leads one to believe that most of them have benefited from their experience and they believe that they have learned to think in a more structured way than they previously knew how, and far more than anyone would have believed possible. Whether this newly-acquired ability has any permanence after they leave is another matter. Some will go back to prison where it will be their old skills of confrontation, sharp practices and criminal minds that will offer them the greatest chance of survival within that system. Others will go to probation and they will for some of the time at least be in the company of those who can build on their recent experience and enhance their nascent skills in thinking. This is provided that the rest of their time is not spent in the company of those who might quickly lead them back into the old ways of thinking and action. Yet others will go more or less straight back to their old haunts: same family, same friends, same area. For them cognitive education, indeed the whole boot camp programme, is likely to prove to have been a waste of time. All that said, it cannot be denied that at the very least the course in cognitive thinking for young prisoners is a bold attempt to re-educate them and to introduce them to a different method of thinking, a method that is not even taught in school but should be. For many boot camp graduates their new skill is likely to have a very short half-life but for some others it may change their lives permanently for the better. If that is all the course can achieve it is a worthwhile expenditure in time and money. The recidivism rate amongst convicted offenders in Britain varies between 50 per cent and 70 per cent, depending on the method of calculation. If there was a possibility of changing these offenders' patterns of thinking so that they thought about what they were about to do and then refrained from doing it even now and again, it would be a worthwhile achievement.

CHAPTER 9

Words and Numbers From the middle of the Second Phase, that is after the recruits have been in boot camp for six weeks, a course begins on General Education Development (GED). This course takes place after the 'evening' meal, between 5.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m. and is of 40 hours' duration. Aptitude It goes almost without saying that the general educational level of the recruits is very low. Many inmates have never been more than 25 miles from where they live. In a country where away from the coasts parochialism abounds, their field of vision is minute. There are some exceptions: now and again an educated person goes along the criminal path or gets into bad company; sometimes a university graduate goes off the rails. While I was there the highly-educated daughter of a dentist was an inmate for a series of drugs offences which her boyfriend had induced her into committing with him; another inmate was a graduate in computer science who had used his undoubted skills for hacking purposes to his considerable advantage until he was caught. They, and those like them, usually do very well at boot camp with a resultant major cut in sentence. But they are the exceptions. For the most part recruits are ill-educated, partially or totally illiterate and functionally innumerate. Of those inmates entering the Department of Corrections system 42.5 per cent have neither a High School Diploma nor a General Education Diploma; 44 per cent have one or other diploma; 11.1 per cent have had some college education; just over two per cent have a degree and 0.04 per cent have a post-graduate degree. The average reading age of incoming recruits is about nine years. Further, 27.6 per cent are totally illiterate; 52.7 per cent are functionally illiterate and a mere 19.7 per cent are literate with a literacy level from 9.0 to 12.9. The proportions at the Buena Vista boot camp were different. In a continuous sample of 233 inmates, 16.3 per cent were totally illiterate with a reading level of 0.0 to 3.9; 33.5 per cent were functionally illiterate; 50.2 per cent were literate with reading levels from 9.0 to 12.9. Possibly those selected for boot camp were somewhat better educated on average than those entering the prison system generally.

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Of the above sample 61 recruits (26.2 per cent) had a starting reading level of the maximum 12.9 so could not be improved,l although a few actually deteriorated slightly. Of the remainder 133 improved (57.1 per cent), seven remained the same (three per cent) and 32 deteriorated (13.7 per cent), mostly slightly. Assessment There is little time for proper educational assessment at the boot camp so the GED teachers have to use the assessments made at the diagnostic unit of the Denver Regional Diagnostic Centre, which are of somewhat limited value. What is used is the Adult Basic Education test which is expected to reach a maximum level at aptitudes expected of a 14-yearold child. The test results are on a scale of zero to 12.9, the top of the scale being the expected level (fluency) to be reached in the ninth month of the twelfth grade at school. The boot camp teaching staff try to avoid putting the recruits through tests again as they already have a low selfesteem and further evidence of failure would lower it still more. They therefore use a simple flip chart of words of increasing complexity to test literacy and make do with that as an assessment. For maths there are no tests; instead recruits are asked fairly neutral questions such as 'How many of you have trouble with fractions/ division/decimals?' Most recruits are better at reading than maths although some high school graduates have a reading level as low as 6.5 (reached by children in the fifth month of sixth grade). Curriculum In Colorado the Department of Corrections has developed a core curriculum for GED. Having only 40 hours at their disposal at boot camp an adult basic education curriculum is taught and the teachers attempt to make it fun since most of the recruits have an antipathy to school learning. They are taught not only by the teachers, but also by some of the graduates; those of a reasonable educational attainment are also used as 'peer teachers'. In many respects the peer teachers are more effective than the real teachers. They are closer to the level of the inmates and although the inmates may not reveal problems to the graduates, the latter, because they have gone through some of the experience themselves, are better able than the teachers to infer what the problems might be. In some prisons it may take a year and a half for a prisoner to gain a General Education Diploma whereas at the Colorado boot camp many recruits have their reading and maths raised to GED standard in the 40

1

Of course the reading can improve, but it cannot go off the top of that scale.

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hours allotted. In six weeks some inmates have their reading level raised by as much as three years. But unlike those in prison, boot camp inmates are free of drugs and alcohol. GED teachers, just like the drugs and alcohol counsellors and the cognitive education instructors, do not regard the drilling and regimented side of the programme as a necessary evil that has to be tolerated, but as an integral part of the education system. Without the drilling, they believe, the inmates would not be so alert nor so receptive to education, apart from which, after the physical exertion the inmates are glad to get to classes. Furthermore, with the daily exercise and balanced diet they become physically fit, which undoubtedly helps their mental acuity: they may not have mens sana when they arrive but they certainly have corporo sano when they leave. They seem genuinely hungry to learn. One actually said to me, 'I never thought that learning could be such fun.' In school they were often shamed for their lack of ability but they are never shamed at the boot camp. Three teachers work together, each different in style. One is traditional and teaches more like a regular schoolteacher. One is more relaxed in her manner and in the way she thinks. The third is more emotional in her way of thinking and in her thought patterns. The latter two have the ability to 'tune into' the inmates' unspoken problems. The reading and writing course On completing the course the inmates receive a certificate, but before that they must complete their writing assignments to a satisfactory standard and must also participate in class. In one class I observed they had been given a homework assignment to complete: a piece of writing of about 100 words which described in any way they liked their favourite food without actually mentioning it, but giving clues so that the class could identify it. They all had their assignments with them and could hardly wait to stand in front of the class and read out their piece of writing. As one finished they would jump up to be next like MPs at Question Time. This was from people who had previously barely strung together two or three words and had had no occasion in their lives to write down anything at all. Not only that but it was such manifest fun. The readers were delighted when their favourite food was guessed, and equally delighted when it was not, as that demonstrated the subtlety with which they had surrounded their identification. These occasions, where they do a piece of writing, get to read it out to a silent audience, and are praised (almost invariably) by the teachers and sometimes applauded by their fellow inmates, are the first successes they have ever had in their lives. They can at last display a talent.

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When they receive their certificate there is overwhelming excitement just to have it in their hands as a token that they have at last succeeded in something. They have an opportunity on that occasion to display other talents that the staff did not know about. Some sing, some dance and-very popUlar-impersonate the drill staff. Subsequently, when they go to post-graduate classes they take their certificates with them in a folder. During the class they can be seen opening their folders, examining the certificates, turning them over, straightening them and replacing them, closing the folder. After a while they open the folder again and repeat the process. They have never had anything like a certificate of their own and seem never to tire of taking it out and looking at it. The maths course The maths course is basic; many inmates can do little more than add up and some can barely do that. It is not surprising, therefore, that from such a low baseline great progress is made. Patterns of numbers are taught and for those who cannot cope with numbers in an abstract way kinaesthetic maths is taught, which is an ingenious method of multiplying using all ten fingers. By the time the course is finished, nearly every inmate will have mastered the four basic arithmetic skills and some will progress even further. In a sample of 54 recruits six were at level 12.9 at the beginning so could not improve; 38 improved by 0.96.7 levels, a difference of more than five years; one showed no change and eight deteriorated from between 0.1-3.2 levels. Although in their life after prison the inmates will still have little use for much arithmetic or even reading and writing, one of the big attractions of the course is for those inmates who are parents. They will be able to go home and help their children with their homework, with their maths and reading, whereas hitherto they have had to sit idly by and when asked for help made some excuse for not being able to give it. This was about to change. The emphasis of the course is on creative writing skills and basic maths and the staff meet every month to discuss each inmate's progress in detail. This not only enables the staff to keep track of progress but prevents inmates playing off one teacher against another, as some are wont to do. The parenting course Since half of the inmates are already parents and the other half expect to be, the parenting classes, part of General Education, are very popular and, it would appear, very necessary.

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Near the beginning of the parenting course which I attended the class was shown a video of the development of babies from embryos to childhood, followed by a discussion on how babies grow and develop. They had never seen anything like that before and had absolutely no knowledge of embryonic development or of how young children progress. 'Looking at the video I realise that I've missed the development of my kids and I'll have to make it up to them.' They were also taught how to look after and hold babies and not to shake them; about the care of toys, that they should inspect them for sharp edges and splinters and ensure they are coloured with lead-free paint. There was so much that they did not know that most of this information was like a revelation to them. They had a class or two on the baby's brain and its development. They were given suggestions how to improve their children's ability to learn by interacting with and touching them, playing, communicating with them and reading to them, which many would be able to do for the first time. They discussed, and were given literature on how a child develops in its first year and how to recognise the signs of development and the order in which they should arrive. All this was, of course, completely novel to nearly all the inmates and they were riveted. The course also covered the relationships between them and their partners, girlfriends and wives. In discussion it appeared that the Hispanic inmates had a very macho and rigid view of how their female partners should behave. Inmates were asked to say how they expected to be received when they returned to their partners after a long spell in prison. A typical Hispanic response was, 'I'm the head. I'll take over.' Typical responses from white inmates were, 'I'm going to be careful. It will be difficult for both of us.' and 'My girlfriend has had to work for herself and the kid, it's very difficult. She also has independence. I'll have to deal with that.' They also discussed how their children would react on their return, and any mention of their children caused great sadness among them. They obviously realised how much they had lost by being incarcerated and how much the children had lost. They said that daddies should be near to their kids and soon they would be able to be. 'I'll be able to read to my kids!' This may read like a cliche but they were hearing it and saying it for the first time. The instructor talked about his own children and how he dealt with them and the class was entranced. More advanced parenting classes involved the use of dolls. These were not ordinary dolls but special, electronically monitored dolls produced by the company Baby Think It Over. Three types of doll were used. One was normal; one was a crack baby'; one had a floppy head. Facially, the dolls came as black, white or Hispanic. Each doll had an I

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electronic monitor inside which could be accessed only by a member of staff. It recorded the times and duration of the doll's crying. The crack doll shook most of the time if held wrongly or was upset, shaken or otherwise abused. The doll with the floppy head would cry whenever its head was not properly supported and the normal doll would cry whenever it was held incorrectly. The class was shown the correct way to hold babies, how not to hold them and what might happen if they were held wrongly. They then took turns in 'looking after' the dolls for six-hour stretches. Wherever they went, whatever they did, they had to try to look after the dolls in such a way that they would not cry. Graduate inmates in the class would take them for a walk. They would find pieces of cloth to cover them with; one found a small stocking cap for its head. When they were in class they held them on their laps and occasionally stroked them as if they were real babies. When their time was up they handed the dolls over and the instructor would tell them for what proportion of time the babies had been crying and how well they had done at looking after them. Most did very well indeed. The impact of crimes on female victims was another aspect of the parenting course that drifted into discussions of 'relationships'. The class were asked if any of them had ever hit his wife. Whatever the response the instructor did not mince words: men who hit women were cowards; they used physical violence instead of thinking through a resolution. They were shown a video of different offences: • a woman who had been raped. She talked about how she felt. This was a very uneasy session and the inmates were very uncomfortable • assault. The woman assaulted described her injuries and how she felt • an older woman who was raped described the effect on her and her family; and • car theft: the effect on a single mother of having her car stolen. Most of the inmates in the class tended not to treat women very well as they saw everything from their own viewpoint. The video seemed to have a noticeable effect on them and the subsequent discussion forced them to see things from a view other than their own. Does it work? Whether the inmates revert to their criminal ways after their release is another matter but there can be little doubting the advantages gained

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from the education classes. Many of the inmates started from such a low base of illiteracy and such a complete absence of mathematical skills that improvement was rapid and the gains were considerable. Most inmates who could barely read when they arrived had a reasonable standard of functional literacy and ability with numbers by the time they left. It could be argued that if the course began earlier or went on longer even more significant gains could be made, but given the circumstances as they are the achievements are remarkable. Furthermore, there is no doubting that the ancillary effect of gaining a real certificate that they can take out and look at, hang on the wall and show their friends is a source of genuine pride. For many it is probably the first thing that they have ever done that they can be proud of that is not unlawful. There seemed to be genuine enthusiasm for the parenting classes. The inmates had not realised that there were certain aspects of being a parent that could be taught. Hitherto they had been parents on a day-today strictly ad hoc basis and their criminal behaviour and its consequences had often separated them from their children. Because they knew so little they learned quickly. Whereas those who had learned to read and to perform simple mathematical tasks were unlikely ever to forget them, parenting skills were more likely to be forgotten or disregarded after they returned home, particularly when confronted with tricky parenting problems with children. However, in regard to babies it is much more likely that they would remember what they had been taught about caring for them, since, for example, there is no point in holding a baby the wrong way when the right way to hold a baby is known. General educational development will not in itself convert criminals into right-minded citizens but even a modest educational attainment is conducive to a lowering of the emotional temperature when the going gets tough. When people cannot read, can barely count and when relationships between them and their partner and children are constantly stormy, they are always operating on the edge, or beyond the edge of their ability to cope with situations and constantly aware of their inability to do simple things that everyone else seems to be able to do. But what they can do with a moderate degree of success-for they are not caught all the time-is commit crimes which yield a tangible and material reward. It is just possible that their enhanced self-awareness combined with their increased abilities and their manifestly certificated success might plant the idea in their minds that there is a way other than crime that might lead to a happy life and an absence of separation from those they care about.

CHAPTER 10

Over and Out The horizon ahead for almost all the inmates is the graduation: it is always uppermost in their minds. This is somewhat surprising since whilst they are in the boot camp they are safe, secure and the immediate future is certain, whereas once they have graduated they do not know what will happen to them: probation, aftercare or back to prison. At the boot camp they are travelling hopefully; when they graduate they have arrived. Preparation The concept of graduating from prison, albeit a specialised version like a boot camp, is also somewhat difficult to understand. After all, although the inmates are there through choice, their choice was rather limited: boot camp or prison. Inmates of other penal institutions serve their time and are released. Anyone who has been at the gates of a prison early in the morning has seen the side door open slightly and a few men carrying bags slink out. They are taken in and let out; there is no celebration about it unless they are celebrating their new freedom, no feeling of crossing a threshold or of having succeeded at anything. But graduating from the Colorado boot camp is celebrated as a success. Not everyone does graduate: there are casualties along the line. In the graduation I watched about 30 inmates graduate from an intake of 44; the overall graduation rate is 77 per cent. Other aspects of graduation may have a meaning for the graduating inmates. They can have visitors, usually close family, whom they have not seen at least for the duration of their sojourn, if not longer. Family are not generally local, for the area around the boot camp is not highly populated; neither is the whole State of Colorado. Families sometimes live out of the State and fly in specially for this ceremony, just to be with their son or husband for an hour and where possible to show their children their dads. Another reason for looking forward to graduation is that after the ceremonials the graduates get to drink coffee for the first time in three months. The graduation day when I was there dawned as usual bitterly cold but bright and sunny. It was too cold for the ceremony to be held outdoors so it was held in the gymnasium-cum-dining room. All morning there was a feeling of suppressed excitement around, rather like that on Zero Day (Chapter 4) but somehow more flippant. Three

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graduates were selected to give a short speech to the assembly. The speeches are not censored so that if an inmate wants to blow the top off' the boot camp, now is his opportunity! Some of the morning was spent in practising the speeches in front of their colleagues and in smartening up clothing. For the first time they would be on parade to outsiders. Visitors At around lunchtime the visitors began to trickle in, mostly by car but some had flown in, one mother all the way from California. Considering that the airport at Denver is some 120 miles away, and the total visit lasts a little over an hour, flying in for graduation is no mean commitment. Even car journeys may entail round trips of several hundred miles. Just inside the first gate several tables were set out at which sat members of the staff, as a sort of gauntlet through which the guests had to pass. Just because it was graduation day there was to be no let-up in the rules: no alcohol, tobacco, chocolate or any of the nice things the inmates may have looked forward to were allowed in. No cameras or video devices were allowed, nor were purses. Anything of that nature that visitors had brought had to be left behind and picked up on their way out. Many of the visitors brought children and it was made clear that they could not be carriers of 'contraband'. Nor could the guests dress in a provocative manner: shorts were not allowed, undergarments had to be worn to avoid indecent exposure, backless, low-cut, strapless or halter-top dresses were not allowed, nor were split skirts. However, all these inspections were conducted in a very light-hearted manner since the rules had been explained when the guests were invited. Inmates, too, were expected to conduct themselves in a highly respectable manner and were warned that any deviation from polite decorum would result in their visitor being removed. Most of the inmates had guests. A few did not, either through distance or work commitments, but those without visitors though disappointed were reasonably content. In a class a few days before graduation one of the graduates-to-be said that his family were unable to make it as they had a family business to run. He could understand that but was nonetheless disappointed. Then he asked the instructor, 'Will you be there, ma'am?' 'Oh, yes', she replied, 'I'm looking forward to seeing you all graduate.' 'Then you'll be my family', he said. The ceremony We assemble in the gym, the guests in the seats specially laid out, the graduates in the body of the hall whilst the teachers and administrative staff watch from a corner. The deputy warden briefly welcomes the guests. He says that one of the most important things they can do as

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individuals is to give the inmates their support. i'Being here today and offering your support is the first step in reintegrating back into our society. It is very important that the support you have given today continues.' He then goes on, i'I ask you to remember one thing-this is the easy part. Boot camp is the easy part. The hard part begins after today when they must go back into the society from which they came and those issues that were there when they left are still there.' He then emphasises the non-military aims of the boot camp: i'We do not make soldiers at boot camp. This is not a place where we turn people into soldiers. They come here to learn ... and to develop some tools so that they can go back into our community. Again, your support is critical.' That the boot camp is the easy part at first surprises some and possibly surprises the graduates themselves, who have just completed a gruelling three months. But as he speaks the truth of this becomes obvious. The inmates have lived for three months in a tightly structured community with all temptations removed, surrounded by people trying to help them to change their lives. But they will, sooner or later, be released into the milieu from which they came, full of temptations and crowded with people encouraging them to continue their criminal lifestyle where they left off. Next, the three graduates in turn deliver their speeches. Here is one of them, written by himself, committed to memory and delivered faultlessly: Hello, I'm recruit P----. We would like to thank all the families for attending platoon 10-98's graduation. Ninety days ago we began with 46 nervous men and women. Today in your presence we stand 28 confident and motivated recruits. We are dedicated to change our lives, we are willing to go forth with the skills we have learned here at CCAP boot camp, to live productive lives in society. Platoon 10-98 has learned to work together as a team, trusting one another. We would like to thank Drill Sergeant Q, Drill Instructor A and Drill Instructor L for instilling in us the qualities to be successful. The drill staff turned platoon 10-98 into a motivated platoon. This platoon personally learned the meaning of motivation with the help of drill staff caring enough to bring it to our attention that we still had more motivation to bring out of ourselves. Like they say here, i'pain is temporary, pride is forever', once you've overcome certain obstacles you are filled with a sense of pride, not even pain can remove that feeling! We would also like to thank Lieutenant A for working with each recruit's situation, to place us in the appropriate environment needed to integrate us back into society, and for giving us information to further our job skills. Finally we would like to give a special thanks to Major Perry [the warden], Captain McFarland [deputy warden] and the staff of CCAP boot camp, for making this the number one boot camp in the nation. Thank you for coming.

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What is curious about this speech is that all the hardship, the physical effort, the military discipline, the shouting and yelling, the endless pressups have come from the drill staff. The more relaxed attitude, friendliness and more normal relationship have come from the education staff. Yet it is the drill staff who get all the thanks whereas the education staff do not merit a mention! However, one of the other two speeches thanks the teaching and Addiction Recovery Program staff and they are all well received, not least by the families of·the speech-givers who are astonished that their mumbling cygnets have turned into such articulate swans. Although the deputy warden's speech is meant to be upbeat, urging families and friends to help the inmates all they can on their release, to the detached observer the enormity of their task becomes apparent. 1 am irresistibly reminded of the American judge who, giving a non-custodial sentence to a young man from a dreadful background, said, 'I can't give you a second chance. 1 can only give you again the same lousy first chance you had before'. However, nothing can detract from the triumph of the graduates. Like real graduates from college who can think only that the tough years of study are behind them and that they have passed their exams without giving a thought to the lifetime of employment ahead, boot camp graduates at that moment know only that they have got through three gruelling months; the future will be left to the future. Led by a drill instructor the graduates then embark on a marching display and watching the marching, counter-marching and complex movements that they achieve in a small area without any music to keep time to, it is difficult to believe that these same people only three months ago were running to and fro in breathless confusion trying hopelessly to make sense of the requirements of Zero Day. The short ceremony-it lasts only a total of about 20 minutes-ends with the platoon standing and kneeling in a group. They are presented with a collection of certificates: graduation from boot camp, for completing the ]anitorial Training Program and for completing the Addiction Recovery Program. Up to that time everything the inmates have done have represents a string of failures and this is the first thing they have succeeded at. They are given recognition as a group and individuals do not stand out. Finally they are given the official accolade of graduation by a senior staff member at the end of which the graduates let forth a loud cheer and in the American tradition throw their hats into the air. After the show is over ... After the formal part of the proceedings light refreshments are served to both visitors and inmates and for the first time they can mingle.

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Husbands meet wives, mothers meet sons, inmates meet their young children. Many of the young children do not know their fathers; others are wildly excited and tearful when they have to part. Mostly they split up into families, sitting at the tables, eating and drinking tea and coffee and various refreshments. Families are proudly introduced to the staff who circulate and say encouraging things. All the graduates I talked to were excited, almost on a high. They all proclaimed how much the boot camp had helped them and how once they were released they would change their ways and go straight. One inmate I spoke to came from California where he had spent a long time in prison. He told me: Until I came here I was institutionalised. I found prison congenial. I got clothes, three meals a day, a place to sleep, a job that paid reasonably and my family could visit. Through the programme here I was led to realise that I had other options and now I don't want to go back to prison. I have a financee, a 12-year-old daughter and twin baby girls. Being here has changed my life. I don't think this is true, I know it is.

I am reasonably sure that at the time of speaking he was telling the truth. The boot camp had changed his life; the question is, how permanently? They had all entered through one door and were leaving by another to that old cliche the 'sunny uplands'. For how long will the sun continue to shine for them? Does it work? The beginning and the end of the boot camp experience each provoke rhetorical questions: How can you get off a bus wrongly?; and How can you graduate from prison? There can be little doubt, however, that whatever happens afterwards, the concept of a graduation ceremony for these boot camp inmates is inspired. Whether or not the whole boot camp experience is a success, whatever that means, graduation, for those who complete the course, is an experience few of them would wish to miss. For a start it early on becomes a horizon, a focus that the inmates can look forward to at the end of their three months stint. It could be argued that they could just as well look forward to the end of the three month stint, but in that case they would be looking forward merely to completion whereas graduation represents success. College graduates mayor may not attend their graduation ceremony (although most do) because gaining a degree is just the latest in a line of successes; standing around in a hood and gown to be mumbled at in Latin is just another option. But boot camp inmates have had no past successes. Completion of the programme is more than just that: it is a rite of passage that should

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be celebrated with due solemnity. They are not patronised, the ceremony is not belittled, nor is it treated as a joke by the staff. Inviting the inmates' families adds another dimension to graduation. Without outsiders present the occasion would be marked but would be somehow incestuous. To whom would anyone give a speech? To whom would a drill demonstration be directed? By making the occasion semipublic it extends beyond the prison fence into the real world, and the success of the inmates can be observed by outsiders. Furthermore, the inmates have had no visitors or any contact with the outside world for three months. By inviting families the visitor drought can be broken without breaching the general rule: the two non-graduating platoons are kept well away from the area. Finally, graduation is a landmark, a demarcation between the three months of the course and the time spent in the boot camp whilst awaiting the judges' decisions. The graduates, as they are known, are given privileges. They may eat in the ordinary way at meals and may talk to each other. They have spare time and may associate, play cards or basketball, go for runs around the grounds. They are often invited to help in the education classes. They are no longer shouted at. They are treated more like ordinary human beings than as recruits. They have entered the ante-room of the outside world. There are no obvious disadvantages to graduation. Whatever the ultimate value of the boot camp is, the concept and execution of the graduation ceremony are a success.

CHAPTER 11

Pros and Cons Although this book is about one boot camp in particular it is not possible to consider it entirely in isolation. For although the boot camp in Buena Vista mayor may not be unique in many ways it must share many characteristics of other boot camps. There is an enormous literature about boot camps despite the fact that they have been in existence for a relatively short time. Much of the literature is contradictory and the quality of the papers is varied. The one thing that they are all agreed upon, however, is that boot camps are difficult to evaluate. This is not altogether surprising. Most States have boot camps and there are more than 50 of them, giving rise to great variation. Some are well-established and some are new; some are inside prisons and some have separate facilities; the age range of the inmates varies even when considering only adult, and ignoring juvenile, boot camps. The one thing that they all have in common, however, is a military component, for it is that which makes the facility a boot camp. Because of this variation it is difficult to unravel the successful components even where a particular boot camp is deemed to be a success. The question is often asked by researchers: How do we know which part of the programme is responsible for the success? If one boot camp, for example, has a good record for reducing recidivism, is it the military training, the education classes or the substance abuse rehabilitation classes that are responsible? If another boot camp is successful at reducing drug addiction, is it the rehabilitation programme, the counselling or the education that is the cause? If it is the counselling, could the boot camp be run without the education and rehabilitation? Is the regimentation really necessary? There is no answer to these questions. That the success may be the result of the combination of components of the programme rather than any single one is unanimously believed by the staff at the Buena Vista boot camp. Possibly the physical training results in a feeling of wellbeing that makes the inmates receptive to the drug rehabilitation programme. Perhaps the military discipline is conducive to the inmates' paying attention during the education classes. Maybe the strictness of the drill instructors combines with the more relaxed attitude of the teaching staff to create a climate that contrasts positively with the anomic criminal environment they have previously inhabited. Trying to find which part works is like trying to find out whether it is the violins or the cello or the viola that is most important in a string quartet.

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Remove one component and whatever else happens the quartet will no longer exist. It is probably the interaction of the various parts of the boot camp programme that is responsible for any success that may be identified. That said, it is still easier to discuss the pros and cons of the boot camps mainly in terms of individual components and individual aims. However, some aims, such as completion of the programme, are so basic that they are a sine qua non of the boot camp, so it is hardly surprising that upward of three-quarters of the inmates stay the course. Other aims may be achieved, such as politeness and respect to the staff, but it will have no relevance in the greater scheme· of things if too many polite exinmates go out into the world and continue with their criminal activity. Money One of the stated aims of the boot camp is to cut costs to the Department of Corrections and to reduce prison overcrowding. Indeed, Congress has appropriated many tens of millions of dollars to be distributed to the States as discretionary grants to be used in the construction of boot camps. Prisons are phenomenally expensive. The prison system in Britain costs around £2 billion a year to run; second only to the cost of the police, HM Prison Service costs almost as much as the rest of the criminal justice system put together. Although the population of the USA is only about five times that of Britain, the prisonl population is almost 30 times as large. Thus, taking population into account the USA prison population is proportionally almost six times greater than that of Britain. The latest figures (for 1997) show that there were almost two million people incarcerated in State and Federal prisons and in local jails: an incredible one in every 155 USA citizens is behind bars. 2 The maintenance cost of prisons in Colorado is $418 million a year,3 over $100 for each of Colorado's four million inhabitants. The cost nationally is approaching a massive $40 billion and anything that will reduce it is welcomed. There is little doubt that the cost of boot camps is less than that of prisons. The Buena Vista boot camp is no exception; every prisoner in the boot camp who otherwise would have been in the prison represents a saving. Whereas the annual cost per inmate in prison is estimated at anything between $25,000 and $40,000 the cost at Buena Vista is just over 1

2

3

The term 'prison' is here used for both State and Federal prisons as well as county jails. Bureau of Judicial Statistics, 1998, Prison & Jail Inmates at Midyear 1997. Governor Roy Romer, 25 January 1998.

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$60 per bed per day: an annual cost of about $22,000 per inmate. More importantly, whereas the average time served by a prisoner is 21.9 months, that served by a CCAP inmate is only 7.9 months. It was claimed by the Illinois boot camp that the cost of prison was $16,000 per year per bed and the cost was the same in the boot camp, but as in one year a boot camp bed was occupied by three inmates, the boot camp cost 4 only a third of the prison. However, shorter sentences in prison would achieve the same savings. The total operational savings to the Colorado Department of Corrections is some $2 million a year. It is also estimated that the cost avoidance for new prison construction that would have been necessary if the boot camp did not exist is $6 million. Whereas any saving is worth having, and certainly $8 million is worth saving, the overall impact on costs throughout the country is marginal. The reason for this is that the total capacity of all boot camps in the country is too small to have a significant effect on costs (or on overcrowding). With an incarcerated population of close to two million and the boot camp capacity at around 25,000 nationwide-just about 1.25 per cent-the overall impact on cost savings is negligible. In 1993 the USA General Accounting Office reported that the shock incarceration system in the state of New York showed the best example of cost savings. This was despite the fact that it was more costly on a daily basis to run the shock incarceration programme than to run the prisons. However, it was calculated that as each of the boot camp inmates would have spent on average 546 days in prison but only 216 days in DOC custody there was a net saving of 330 days per inmate. It is not the cost per bed space but the saving of bed days that saves money. The same amount, or even more, could be saved if these young first-time offenders were sentenced to shorter periods in custody or even given non-custodial sentences. The Colorado boot camp is run very prudently and compared with DOC prisons represents a considerable saving for every inmate. But the incarcerated population in the Colorado prison system is approximately 13,000 and the population of the boot camp is about 130, just one per cent of the total. The cost savings would have to be enormous to have a significant impact on the total cost of the Colorado corrections system. Overcrowding A similar argument may be made in the case of overcrowding. Prison overcrowding is supposed to be reduced by diverting offenders from prison and sending them to boot camps in which inmates spend less

4

BBC2, 9 November 1999, This is Where You Pay.

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time. In many states offenders are sent to boot camp by the judge. Whereas some of those sent to boot camp might thus have avoided prison, others might otherwise have been given probation: a judge faced with a moderately serious offender would possibly consider probation if prison were the only other option but might sometimes use the boot camp as a compromise. Moreover, if offenders who should have served a term on probation are sent to boot camp and subsequently drop out or are thrown out, they may spend the rest of the term in prison; if they complete the programme and subsequently break the terms of their aftercare they may also be sent to prison. This, of course, has the effect of increasing the incarcerated population. In any event, the boot camp and prison populations quoted above have the same negligible effect on overcrowding as they do on costs, for similar reasons. In Colorado, as has been stated, the judge commits only to the DOC and not to an institution. It is the DOC, with the consent of the prisoner, which decides who goes to boot camp and who goes to prison and since they have control they can, to a limited extent, reduce the prison population by making more use of the boot camp where prison is an option and avoiding both prison and boot camp where probation is more appropriate. But the effect can be only marginal. Military training In the military, writes MacKenzie,5 boot [Le. basic training] camp represents an abrupt, often shocking transition to a new way of life. Discipline is strict, there is an emphasis on hard work, physical training, and unquestioning obedience to authority. The new recruit is told when to sleep, when to get up, when to eat; he marches with his fellows everywhere he goes, to meals, to training; orders must be obeyed immediately; personal liberty is almost non-existent. By the end of boot camp, the young recruit has become a different person. Such was the hope for boot camp, or shock incarceration, programs in American prisons: that young, non-violent offenders could be diverted from a life outside the law using the same tactics successfully employed by the military to turn civilians into soldiers. This reliance on a military atmosphere still provokes controversy over boot camp programs, with proponents arguing that the rigid discipline promotes positive behaviour and opponents arguing that it is a harmfully negative influence.

The one component that all boot camps have in common is their military-style training. In the USA some aspect of military training is 5 MacKenzie, D Land Herbert, E E (Eds.), 1996, Preface to Correctional Boot Camps: A Tough Intermediate Sanction, National Institute of Justice, Maryland.

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The Pain and the Pride

required by statute and without it the boot camp would not be a boot camp. It is this military aspect that splits researchers, commentators and the public down the middle. The 'get tough on crime' lobby want punishment, discipline and for the staff to 'give 'em hell'; others, less punishment-minded, feel that there is little moral justification for psychological intimidation, verbal confrontation and harsh treatment. Most of the intimidation, confrontation and harshness at Colorado comes right at the beginning of the programme, on Zero Day. But even this is offset in advance by the chatty talk given to the recruits on Zero Day minus one, and by the DI staff backing off soon after. However, it is not always like that. In Georgia, boot camp recruits were at one time 'welcomed' to the programme thus: You are nothing and nobody, fools, maggots, dummies, mother f- S-, and you have just walked into the worst nightmare you ever dreamed. I don't like you. I have no use for you, and I don't give a f- who you are on the street. This is my acre, hell's half acre, and it matters not one damn to me whether you make it here or get tossed into the general prison population, where, I promise you, you won't last three minutes before you're somebody's wife. Do you know what that means, tough guys? 6

Of course, even strong advocates of the military regime might baulk at such a speech (although others may believe it sets the right tone) but noone would condone the physical abuse of inmates by drill staff, reports of which have been seen in the press from time to time after instructors have been indicted for violence. Extreme forms of corporal punishment have resulted in serious injuries to youths in Georgia, according to the National Institute for Justice. 7 However, such a speech may be a thing of the past as it has more recently been stated that Departmental policy forbids the use of profanity,8 although verbal confrontation is integral to the programme: You must break them down so you can build them up. The following description was written in 1986 for Georgia's boot camps: ... the fundamental program concept is that a brief period of incarceration under harsh physical conditions, strenuous manual labour, and exercise within a secured environment will/shock' the younger and less criminally oriented offender out of a future life of crime.

6

Fay, Martha, 1988, 'Squeeze You Like a Grape' in Georgia, A Prison Boot Camp

Sets Kids Straight, Life 82, 82. 71 June 1998 Erwin, Billie S, 1996, 'Discipline in Georgia's Correctional Boot Camps'; NIJ Report, Correctional Boot Camps: A Tough Intermediate Sanction.

8

Pros and Cons

95

There is little evidence that this has had the desired result and such an approach has been frequently criticised as 'a fad that doesn't work,9 and that an approach that is based on the hope that 90 days of training will undo 17 years of family troubles is naIve. It was further pointed out that when they get out the inmates are not going to do press-ups for a living. However, at Illinois this is still the philosophy. There they have a regime of humiliation followed by merciless discipline. 'If it works for the United States army it should work for them'.tO They break them down to breaking point-lIt might take an hour or a week'-and when they reach that point they start to bring them back again. ll But there are other objections to the military aspect of the regime. The primary purpose of such regimes in the army is to convert civilians into soldiers who are physically conditioned, motivated and selfdisciplined. The army drill staff are seen as role models to emulate not as people to be feared and avoided, as is often the case in correctional boot camps. The military philosophy is to build on the soldiers' strengths and shore up their weaknesses, not to break them down so that they can be built up again. Members of the British Prison Service Senior Management Programme visited the boot camp in Maryland in 1993, prior to setting up the schemes at Thorn Cross, Cheshire and Colchester, Essex. They were not impressed. They did not believe that a brutalised and 12 degrading system can rehabilitate. In the event, the extremely military HM Young Offender Institution (YOI) Colchester, which got off to a gung ho start in February 1997/3 lasted little over a year, closing at the end of March 1998. The average annual cost per place of an English YOI was then £17,300 but the cost at Colchester was £31,300 yet it was still no more effective in preventing re-offending than other initiatives. 14 HM YOI Thorn Cross, discussed in the next chapter, is still running.

Tucker, Neely, 1996, quoted in Shock Incarceration in New York State: Philosophy, Results and Limitations, Clark, Cheryl and Aziz, David, NIJ Report, ibid. 10 BBC, ibid. 11 Zachariah, John K, 1996, An Overview of Boot Camp Goals, Components and Results, NIJ Report. 12 Whetton J, Taylor P & Welsh C 1993, 'Boot Camps', Prison Service Journal, May 1995, Issue 99. 13 Crowe, J, 'HMYOI Colchester', Prison Service Journal, September 1997, Issue 113. 14 Hansard, 22 January 1998, Col. 639, Written answer. 9

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Doris L MacKenzie, who has studied and written about boot camps more than anyone, has commented that 'there is little evidence that the getting tough element of shock incarceration will, by itself, lead to behavioural change,.ls However, the 'getting tough element' is never used by itself: it is an integral part of a larger programme. As Clark and Aziz comment, and the Colorado boot camp staff would agree, 'the selfdiscipline taught through drill and ceremony and physical training has many positive benefits ... in the academic classrooms ... military bearing and physical training support [the inmates'] ability to concentrate and learn.' With more than 50 boot camps in the USA, each of which has a military training component in its programme, there will be more than 50 variations on the spectrum from harsh to moderate. It is more than likely that a very harsh regime, in which the inmates fear rather than respect the drill staff, will be counter-productive. It is also likely that a regime that is sloppy, or in which unfit drill staff require the inmates to perform physical feats that they are unable to do themselves, will not be conducive to enhancing self-discipline. Without having seen any other boot camp it is not possible for me to make comparisons, but it is clear that the military programme at Buena Vista is tough without being harsh and that the (extremely fit) drill staff display a 'no nonsense' attitude while on parade that is strict but fair, whilst maintaining a pleasant and humane attitude when dealing with inmates in non-confrontational situations, which commands and gains respect. To sum up, the military aspect of boot camps has both pros and cons. In favour it is claimed that the inmates are developed physically, quickened mentally and are given an insight into the benefits of discipline. On the other hand, it is feared that too much shouting, yelling and summary punishments are psychologically intimidating and morally unjustified. To the argument that the end justifies the means comes the response that the end is by no means certain, and that what limited evaluation of boot camps there has been has not shown that they are of definite benefit. Education Some authors have suggested that there has been a change of focus of many boot camps recently, in that they have moved away from a strictly military, discipline-oriented model to one that is more treatment16 oriented. However, this change has not been uniform and a major 15 16

1988, unpublished, quoted by Clark and Aziz, ante. Gransky et al. 1993. Quoted by Hayeslip David W in The Future of Boot Camps. NIJ Report. 1996.

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97

difference among the many boot camp programmes is the amount of time devoted daily to therapeutic and educational activities compared with drill, physical training, ceremony and work. Whilst some might consider that it is the shock of being in a boot camp with strict military discipline that is effective, others would argue that although military regimes may help with behaviour modification they can do so only as a component of a more comprehensive programme. It may seem axiomatic to some that to educate those who have received little or no education can be only a good thing, while others argue for a tough regime devoted to marching, drill, ceremony and work, which, as Erwin17 has stated, is the philosophy of Georgia's boot camps. Verbal confrontation is an integral part of the programme; inmates must refer to themselves in the third person. Verbal dressdowns are routine and are not necessarily the result of a violation by the inmate. The staff, says Erwin, have turned the 'in your face' style of communication into an art form. Although swearing is forbidden the inmates are frequently referred to in 'highly derogatory' terms. The boot camp is a crash programme in discipline. By contrast, the New York programme is more diverse and highly structured. For every 500 hours of physical training there are 650 hours of hard labour, 546 hours of drug rehabilitation and 260 hours of education. Although the education component is relatively small, a mere 13 per cent of the total, the academic achievement is considerable with nearly 90 per cent of inmates improving at least one grade in maths scores and two thirds showing a one-grade improvement in reading during their six-month stay. Small but considerable numbers improve by two and even four grades. Given that nearly two thirds of the inmates' time is devoted to drill and hard physical work it is tempting to wonder how much better the improvements would be if more time were devoted to education. The amount of classroom time as opposed to military-type activities at Colorado is described in Chapters 8 and 9 and as has been stated the emphasis is on education. The time spent on General Educational Development classes is very small: just 40 hours in the second six weeks of a three months' stay. Yet the results are remarkable with reading often improving by three grades and maths up to five grades. More time is spent on cognitive thinking and substance abuse rehabilitation classes. Responding to the considerable number of Hispanic inmates at CCAP, a 40-hour course in English as a Second Language is available for all offenders with a 0-8.9 reading level in English. This course is taught by a

17

Ibid.

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The Pain and the Pride

teacher employed by the Colorado Mountain College and is funded by the Colorado Department of Education. It is tempting to believe intuitively that the education will prove beneficial, if not definitive, to the inmates' subsequent progress. All those other than people belonging to the 'tough on crime' lobby will consider that the education component is the most important part of the programme. This may well be the case, or it may be the case up to a point. Some inmates may forget about correct ways of thinking, but it is unlikely that they will forget everything they learned, and some will forget nothing. Some may sooner or later go back to using drugs or to becoming alcoholics again; and some will not. But none of them will forget how to read and very few will forget the simple maths they have learned. Moreover, it is likely that very few of the released inmates will easily forget what it was like for three or four months to be among and talk with reasonable people who accepted them for who they were, who tried to teach them in a non-confrontational way, talked to them quietly and calmly and who were manifestly trying to help them. This must surely be better than spending three months being bawled at from a distance of three inches, learning how to march, doing endless press-ups and hard manual labour. Rules and regulations Few would disagree that any organization needs rules and regulations, not least a penal establishment. However, whereas it is readily conceded that the military aspects are to a greater or lesser extent acceptable, as without them there would be no boot camp as is understood by the term, some of the rules seem silly, humiliating and unacceptable. Some people will find that the intimidation, verbal confrontation and summary punishments described in Chapters 4 and 5 have little moral justification although they may appeal to those sections of the public that are 'out for blood'. Justification is said to have been diminished since the military itself abandoned these practices some time ago as being demeaning and abusive. However, it should be remembered that unlike correctional boot camps military regimes are not penal in design. When men were enlisted into National Service most did not want to be there; those very techniques that have been abandoned were used to demonstrate to those reluctant soldiers that orders had to be obeyed and that regulations, no matter how stupid they seemed, had to be complied with. Now that the military is populated entirely by volunteers who see soldiering as a job, the military for its part is an employer: as such, it cannot insult, demean and humiliate its employees since unlike the enlisted men and boot camp inmates they can leave.

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99

Although the boot camps have a variety of aims which are all really subsumed into one aim, namely to deter the inmates from re-offending, incarceration is also a punishment. Thus some of the regulations have a punitive basis whereas others are in place to make a point. The extreme conditions encountered by the new recruits on Zero Day at Buena Vista have been carefully scripted. They are intimidating and demeaning. They are intended to intimidate and demean: there is little argument about their intention, only about their value. The question is, are such methods justified and could the same results be achieved by less forceful means? One immediate impact of Zero Day-indeed of the first hour of Zero Day-is the weeding out of those recruits who will not be able to cope with the regime either through illness, gross unfitness or overweight (those who should never have been selected by DRDC in the first place) and those who decide to quit more or less on the spot. The reasoning behind the rest of the activities on Zero Day has been discussed in the section headed Norms crisis in Chapter 4. It is possible to attack each component the regulations in isolation. The shaven heads undoubtedly remove much of a recruit's personality, but perhaps that is what is needed. These young people have mostly thought of themselves as 'tough guys' and although their convictions are relatively sparse their criminal lives have been most active; they have not often been caught. On one hand a shaven head is humiliating; on the other it emphasises that they are all in the same boat and are facing three tough months. Similarly, the 'square meals' eating procedure can be attacked as humiliating, the naming of things differently as being silly and the 'Sir, yes, sir' mode of address unnecessarily demeaning. The complete absence of anything frivolous from fizzy drinks to tobacco, from visitors to television, may seem especially harsh; yet it means that the diet is healthy, there is no leisure time at all, and the facility is one of the few totally alcohol, tobacco and drug-free zones in the prison system since no-one can smuggle these items in. The rules and regulations must be regarded as a package and at Buena Vista it is a package that seems to work. Whether it would work as well if some of the rules were abolished one can only speculate but if observation is anything to go by, once the recruits have got used to them they become part of their daily routine and have brought order, albeit of a somewhat artificial kind, to their lives. Whether this sense of order will continue after they have left the boot camp will depend on many factors, not least the type of environment to which they will return.

ot

100

The Pain and the Pride

Recidivism The standard by which boot camps are usually judged is the 'reduction in recidivism'. Recidivism is generally taken to mean reconviction, yet reconviction in itself is not the prime indicator: it is reoffending that matters. Unfortunately it is impossible to measure reoffending; we only know that somebody has offended when he or she is convicted. Somebody may leave boot camp and never be convicted again but it does not mean that they are leading a crime-free life, merely that they have not been caught. Possibly all that cognitive education has paid off: by planning crimes more cleverly the offender avoids detection. But boot camps are not really even measured by the reconviction rate. The yardstick is the reconviction rate of boot camp graduates compared with that of ex-prisoners. 'What is the reconviction rate of a boot camp, say, compared with that of a prison?' is the question asked. This is understandable but illogical. Understandable because if most boot camp inmates were not in a boot camp they would be in a prison; illogical because-so what? The efficacy of a boot camp in terms of reconviction rates need not only be compared with that of a prison. It could also be measured against the efficacy of an adventure holiday or a month's trek in the wilderness or three months working down a coal mine, any of which would be cheaper and all of which would save prison bed-space. It has often been pointed out in Britain that it is cheaper to send someone to Eton for three months than to a young offender institution; perhaps the reconviction rate would be better too. However, because none of these options, nor any other imaginative possibilities, have been tried recidivism relative to prison is the standard by which most researchers judge boot camps. Results by this yardstick are not on the whole encouraging. Whilst proponents of boot camps claim that programmes are effective, research has not supported this conclusion; studies on programmes emphasising the military model have not found that they reduce recidivism. 18 Much research suggests that participation in a boot camp programme has no effect on subsequent criminality; moreover, research on a boot camp in North Carolina involving 331 inmates showed that their subsequent criminal behaviour was worse. 19 A similar result came from Oklahoma where it was found that boot camp graduates were more likely to reoffend than probationers or ex-prisoners. Three-quarters said that their boot camp experience had helped them yet it had had no effect on their 20 recidivism. In 1993 the USA General Accounting Office reported that Cullen F et aI, Control in the Community: The Limits of Reform, quoted by MacKenzie et al in Prison & Jail Administration, Chap. 38, p.276. 19 Jones M & Ross D L, 1997, American Journal of Criminal Justice, 21, 147. 20 Wright D T & Mays G L, 1998 Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 28, 71. 18

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two years after release, boot camp graduates had the same rate of recidivism as offenders on parole from prison. 21 A United States Justice Department study found that 62.5 per cent of all released state prisoners were re-arrested within three years and almost half returned to prison. Hayeslip, summarising the results of a number of researchers, concludes that 'the long-term goals of boot camps are not being met'. Boot camps have not contributed to reducing long-term recidivism to any significant degree. A study in 1991 in Louisiana found no difference in recidivism rates of ex-prisoners, boot camp graduates or those sentenced to probation who had never been in prison. 22 A more extensive study involving boot camps in Eight States23 confirmed these findings but blamed inadequate aftercare for the poor results. The inmates were 'broken down' but there was inadequate time to build them up again. An interesting finding comes from Florida24 albeit from a juvenile boot camp where the average age on admission was 16. As a group the inmates in four months improved eight months in reading ability, three months in maths and six months in language, yet 69 per cent were rearrested within one year of graduation, over one half of the arrests occurring within three months of their leaving boot camp. On the other hand it has been reported that there has been little negative impact from boot camp programmes; on leaving the boot camp the graduates are healthy and drug-free and are proud of having completed the 25 programme. It is statistics like the above that cause so many Americans to press for ever longer prison sentences. In a nationwide poll in 1994, 61 per cent said that the purpose of prison is to keep criminals out of society and three-quarters of respondents told ABC News that they approved of more prison building and longer sentences. 26 To most British eyes sentences seem excessively long already. Colorado is one of the less harsh states yet sentences there would make even the most dedicated British advocate of prison blanch.

21

Robinson Paul H, 1995, 'Moral Credibility and Crime', The Atlantic Monthly 275, No 2.

Hayeslip David W, 1996, The Future of Boot Camps, NIJ Report. MacKenzie D L, Brame R, McDowall D & Souryal C, 1995, 'Boot Camp Prisons and Recidivism in Eight States', Criminology, 33, No 3, p.327. 24 'Marin County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp', 1997, NC], No 171490. 25 MacKenzie D L & Souryal C, 1995, Roundtable, 2, No 2, p.441 University of Chicago. 26 US Dept of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ, 154591, 1995:178. 22

23

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The Pain and the Pride

The average sentence lengths in years in Colorado are as follows: • 2nd degree kidnapping

74.3

• 2nd degree murder

35.3

• sex assault on child

14.3

• aggravated robbery

15.7

• 2nd degree burglary

9.7

• theft, Class 2

8.9

• drugs, Class 2

6.1

• aggravated vehicle theft

5.3

It would not be unreasonable to suggest that in Britain the same figures in months would seem more appropriate. There has always been a vacillation in the USA between punishment and rehabilitation for prison inmates and the swing now seems to be moving firmly towards punishment. A 1995 Time/CNN poll found that two thirds of Americans believed prison to be too lenient and favoured chain gangs. In 1996 the Illinois State senate approved the setting up of a chain gang programme. One of the Senators, Adeline Geo-Karis, said that she was 'sick and tired' of prisoners just being allowed to be in jail and added, 'Let them out on the rock pile to pay their penalty'.27 Although 'the joy of busting rocks,28 is widely advocated, this hard-line view is not unanimous. McKean Medium-Security Prison in Bradford, Pennsylvania has been labelled a 'country club' due to its liberal philosophy of respect for inmates and availability of education classes. But McKean is an exception among prisons. 29 Research findings have shown that the lack of decline in recidivism rates has partly been laid at the door of inadequate aftercare provision. Boot camps in New York, Illinois and Louisiana, which reported lower recidivism rates than their prison counterparts, each maintained a sixmonth intensive supervision phase in the community. It was considered by researchers that the community supervision not the incarceration

27

28

29

Parsons, Christi, 'Lawmakers Want to Make Prisons Even Harder Time', The Chicago Tribune, 7 April 1996. A view of Governor Weld of Massachusetts, quoted in The Atlantic Monthly, 276, November 1995, p.38 by Worth R in 'Crime: A Model Prison'. Maginnis R L, 1996, Faith-Based Prison Programs Cut Costs and Recidivism, Family Research Council, Washington DC.

Pros and Cons

103 30

phase of the programme was responsible for the lower recidivism rates. Of 52 boot camps surveyed only 13 had developed aftercare programmes specifically targeted to the boot camp population. Compared with some of the recidivism rates quoted above the boot camp at Buena Vista is relatively successful. The reconviction rate after three years is 35 per cent; after five years it is 40 per cent and the rate for an indefinite period is 42 per cent. This means that more than half of boot camp graduates are not convicted (at least in the State of Colorado) of further offences. This is particularly impressive given that the selection procedure at Doe could probably be improved in order to reduce the 23 per cent fall-out rate, and that the post-graduation wait to some extent erodes the value of the previous three months. Furthermore, as has been previously mentioned, aftercare can be something of a lottery and there is a lack of job skills training at the boot camp. So ... does it work? Whether the boot camp at Buena Vista is the 'best' boot camp in the USA is impossible to determine, but in the context of published research it certainly seems outstanding. Undoubtedly, the system whereby the DOC, rather than the court, determines who should be entitled to go there seems to payoff. The purpose-built facilities, the carefully selected well-qualified staff and the fact that the boot camp has had the same man in charge since its inception must also have paid dividends. Research and evaluation of the efficacy of boot camps is difficult. If prisoners are not rehabilitated after several years, why should boot camp inmates be expected to be rehabilitated in a matter of months? It is not advocated that the duration of a boot camp programme should be extended to years, but with the co-operation of boot camps from various States it should be possible to determine whether a three, four or six months programme produces optimal results. It would also appear, from observation and results, that Buena Vista has got the balance about right between the military and the educational components of the programme. But observation is not enough; by varying the balance among boot camps in controlled studies from almost wholly military to almost wholly educational programmes it might be possible to unravel the conundrum as to which parts of the programme are effective and which parts could be discarded. Finally, the flawed parameter of recidivism must not be the only one by which a boot camp should be judged. The variation of behaviour among people leaving boot camps (and prisons) is virtually infinite. 30

Bourque B, Han M & Hill S M, 1996, A National Survey of Aftercare: Provisions for Boot Camp Graduates, National Institute of Justice, Research in Brief.

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The Pain and the Pride

Between the extremes of those who return to a life of crime and those who become exemplary citizens for the rest of their lives are those, for example, who commit petty offences rather than more serious crimes yet are recorded as recidivists, and those who commit no crimes but are anti-social, are unable to form relationships and who live miserable lives. When the inmates leave the Buena Vista boot camp for the world outside they have felt the pain and experienced the pride; in the last analysis the rest is up to them.

CHAPTER 12

Them and Us Whilst I was in Colorado the report of the Thorn Cross Young Offender Institution (YOI) by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons was published and shortly after my return there was a television programme about one aspect of this establishment, the High Intensity Training Project. The report was very favourable and congratulatory: 'The governor and all his staff, and the Prison Service, are to be congratulated on their achievements'; the TV programme did not show the project in anything like so favourable a light. The High Intensity Training project, which has the unfortunate acronym HIT, is the nearest thing to a boot camp we have in Britain. HM Chief Inspector went to some lengths in the preface to his report to emphasise that the HIT project at Thorn Cross was not a boot camp. In fact, it does not resemble a boot camp at all, yet most of the staff at Thorn Cross and all the young men on the programme referred to their unit as a boot camp. However, since it was the nearest we had to one I thought it would be useful to visit it as a comparison with the boot camp at Colorado. I have explained in Chapter 1 the ease with which I, as an unknown foreigner, was able to visit the Colorado facility, for as long as I liked, to roam as I pleased and talk to whomever I wished. Alas, this refreshing openness was not repeated in my home country. After two letters to the then governor explaining my interest and requesting merely a day-long visit I finally received a reply to the effect that visits were not allowed, but that I could join one of their weekly afternoon tours for magistrates. An appeal to the new Director General of Prisons, again explaining my interest, at least received a prompt reply, but it was the same reply. Reluctantly I accepted the offer and spent an afternoon at Thorn Cross; the difference between the openness, helpfulness and welcome of the Americans and the defensive near-secrecy with which our own prisons department operates is stark. 'Open gov.' is merely part of an e-mail address. Thorn Cross YOI The decision to introduce a boot camp type of institution into Britain followed a visit to the USA by the then home secretary and then Director General of HM Prison Service, followed by a team of prison service

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Pain and the Pride

officials in 1994. They recommended that the idea of boot camps be 1 abandoned. The team said, 'Nothing we saw ... or in the research we have read, leads us to believe that boot camps appear to be any more effective than traditional prison in preventing future crimes.,2 They pointed out that, as the National Institute of Justice had declared, the 3 impact on recidivism was negligible. Their advice was ignored. Thorn Cross YOI is in the village of Appleton Thorn in a pleasant part of Cheshire not far from Warrington. I spent two hours there being shown round by staff who were friendly and helpful; part of the two hours was spent in the HIT Unit. The cost per place of Thorn Cross is over £5,000 more than the cost of other YOIs but was shown to have a more sharply focused and better integrated set of activities. The Home Office believed it represented value for money. It is not strictly fair to compare two institutions when I spent ten days in one and about half an hour in the other but some similarities and differences are still apparent.

Similarities Both the boot camp and the HIT project represent attempts to reduce reoffending in young people by education and discipline. Both operate in special units: the boot camp is entirely self-contained and purpose-built although it is on the same campus as the local prison, whereas the HIT Unit, though somewhat self-contained, is within the premises of the rest of the YOI which houses a further four units, the HIT Unit being Unit 5. Both take in young offenders but with some differences. At Colorado the age range is 18 to 30 and there are provisions for up to eight women; at Thorn Cross the age range is 18 to 21 and it is an all-male establishment. The population sizes are roughly similar. In Colorado there is an intake every month of about 40 reducing by attrition to about 30: the 'undergraduate' population is around 90. At Thorn Cross there is an intake every fifth week of about 12: the population of the HIT Unit is about 60. At Colorado all offenders, which includes drug offenders, who have not been convicted of offences of violence are theoretically eligible and their consent is required before being considered; at Thorn Cross all offenders, including violent offenders, who have not committed sexual offences or Class A drug offences are eligible, their consent is also required and they must have at least six to eight months of a longer sentence (of at least 15 months) still to run. They must give a short presentation to the visiting prison officers explaining why they want to go Independent on Sunday, 19 March 1995. Nathan, S, 1995, Boot Camps: Return of the Short, Sharp, Shock, Prison Reform Trust, para 16. 3 Ibid, para 26. 1

2

Them and Us

107

on to the HIT project and their acceptance is based on their previous convictions, their past behaviour and some psychological testing. There is no medical examination. HIT project inmates at Thorn Cross have experienced only time served in the relatively relaxed regime of a YOI; inmates of the boot camp have served time in prison, often under harsh conditions. Inmates of both establishments are subjected to a tightly run 16-hours-a-day programme of discipline and education. It should also be remembered that whereas the boot camp at Colorado has been running for ten years and has a track record, the HIT project has (at the time of writing) been running for only two years and it is so far too early properly to evaluate its effect. Obligatory differences Obligatory differences are those over which the staff and even HM Prison Service (or the DOC in the case of Colorado) have no control: they are determined for them. One of the main differences is that the Buena Vista boot camp is closed, fenced and razor-wired. It is virtually impossible to escape from it and at the time of writing no inmate ever had done or attempted to do so. The YOI at Thorn Cross is an open prison. There are no fences and there is nothing to stop inmates from absconding; in fact, one or two abscond each week, even some from the HIT project. The boot camp is run on fairly military lines and this is written into the legislation that set it up. The HIT project is non-military and so there is very little drill, inspections and so on. The age ranges of the inmates at the two establishments are also each laid down by statute and this too has an effect. The (older) inmates of the boot camp often have more than one conviction, are criminally minded and streetwise. Many have been sentenced to relatively long periods of custody, usually more than four years and served in adult prisons. The inmates of the HIT project are, of course, younger, often little more than children, sometimes persistent offenders. Their sentences are shorter and served in YOIs. The method of selection of inmates is quite different. In Colorado the method has been described in Chapter 3: the DRDC does the selection and the boot camp takes what is sent to them. At Thorn Cross it is the HIT project staff themselves who visit other YOIs over a large area looking for suitable candidates for the HIT project. Potential candidates first have to be offered by the YOI visited; they are then examined by the staff using various parameters of suitability. The process lacks the formality and comprehensiveness (and speed: three to six weeks) of the Colorado procedure. However, this is not to say that the Thorn Cross method is worse as the DRDC sometimes makes inappropriate selections.

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Contingent differences Contingent differences are such as occur not because of physical or legal restraints but by the choice of those setting up the schemes or those running them. Despite the similarities there are a number of differences in style and content that make the two establishments quite different in substance.

Organization The course at the Colorado boot camp lasts three months and is divided into three phases. Each phase is basically similar in content (with certain differences in Phase Three) involving drill, cognitive education, basic education and rehabilitation classes as described in previous chapters. The course culminates in graduation followed by a long wait during which the graduates' immediate futures are uncertain. The course at the HIT Unit is longer, 25 weeks divided into five phases each of which has a different emphasis. Phase One is basically given over to induction and assessment. The recruits to the project, in comparison with Zero Day, are virtually welcomed, their property removed and stored and the prison uniform handed out. There is nothing remotely corresponding to Zero Day. There is no requirement to have their hair cut; they can wear it as long as they please-shoulder length if preferred. During the ensuing five weeks targets, objectives and action plans are devised. The phase ends with a skills course away from the prison, usually a week camping in Snowdonia or the Lake District. Phase Two is concerned with developing skills identified during assessment and working towards nationally recognised qualifications. Other courses are begun relative to addressing offending behaviour. Phase Three consolidates the previous phases and concentrates on practical vocational training. This is quite extensive in scope and includes, welding, plastering, catering, industrial cleaning, horticulture, motor mechanics, building, painting and decorating, woodwork etc. Individual case conferences are held during this phase to which external supervising probation officers are invited. In Phase Four there is preparation for release. Courses are completed, weaknesses are identified and strengthened. Work placements are sought and found. Phase Five is spent outside the prison from Monday to Friday. The inmates work at placements found for them; they mayor may not be paid for this work: there is no obligation on the employer to pay but many do. During this phase the inmates are supported by personal prison officers and a mentor. The prisoners return to the HIT Unit at weekends where they are able to discuss any problems that may have arisen during the week. After five weeks, on completion of Phase Five, the prisoners are

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released under supervIsIon orders to the Probation Service or Social Services. A substantial number are offered permanent employment by their work placement employers. In regard to what happens to prisoners after release the HIT project scores heavily over the boot camp. It is almost certain that the boot camp programme would be enhanced if it were extended beyond three months, particularly if the extra time were devoted to teaching vocational skills and fitting the inmates for employment. Most graduates spend at least a further month, often much longer, at the boot camp and this time could be better spent structured towards vocational training. The senior boot camp staff are well aware of the advantages of such an innovation but it has considerable financial implications. The extra cost, however, would prove well worthwhile. A further organizational advantage of the HIT project is that it takes in prisoners at the end of their term; as soon as the project is complete they are released, with a transitional release during their final phase. One of the most glaring disadvantages of the boot camp is that after completing the programme there is still a fair chance that inmates will return to prison, albeit perhaps for a shorter term, and there much of the good work of the boot camp may be undone. This is perhaps a reflection of the differing philosophies of the boot camp and the HIT project and of their respective participants. The boot camp provides an ordeal by fire, a rite of passage, the successful completion of which offers the possibility of a more lenient sentence. It is by the route of education and discipline that the boot camp hopes to turn the inmate away from crime; the lure is sentence reduction. The HIT project, on the other hand, offers no reduction in sentence. The emphasis is on vocational training and subsequent employment as a route away from criminal activity, supplemented by an educational programme.

Accommodation The accommodation in the boot camp is spartan. An entire phase-30 to 40 inmates-sleep in a single dormitory. Along each side of the dormitory are ranged a row of narrow two-tier bunks, or 'racks' as they must be called in marine parlance. Each inmate has sheets, a blanket but no pillow until the Third Phase. He also has a locker in which must be arranged in precise order his few allowed possessions. There is an inspection every morning and there may be others at other times of the day. At inspection sheets and blankets must be folded with precision and the lockers must be immaculate. Any deviation from perfect results in press-ups for the entire platoon.

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In the HIT Unit each inmate has his own room, a more appropriate name than cell. Furthermore, each inmate has his own key, and prison officers are not allowed into the rooms except with the approval of the inmate or at inspection times. Before we could be shown a room the officer had to call over an inmate, ask whether he minded showing us his room and then ask him to fetch his key and open it for us. The rooms are furnished with a comfortable bed, a reasonable complement of bedclothes and other modest furnishings. Personal possessions may be kept in the room and pictures and posters may be fixed to the walls: these were mostly of semi-nude women which would be unthinkable in the boot camp. In the course of the programme privilege points may be gained that can be exchanged for various luxuries, the most sought-after of which is a small but personal TV set. There is an inspection each morning and although the rooms must be clean and tidy and blankets neatly boxed, the unrelenting quest for perfection so apparent in the boot camp is lacking in the HIT Unit.

Rules and regulations In the boot camp rules, regulations, do's and don'ts are prolific and these are described in detail in Chapter 5. Everything is governed by rituals and rules which are designed to confuse inmates so that the inmates break them and are punished for breaking them, but also to force the inmates to think about what they are doing at all times. Punishments are graded, from a dressing down and press-ups through to being removed from the programme and being sent back to prison. The atmosphere in the boot camp is taut; the inmates are always doing something or moving on to the next activity. There is no relaxation and no free time. The only time when there is any loosening of tension is in the classrooms. The feeling in the HIT Unit is one of relative ease. There are of course regulations but not the complex matrix of rules deliberately designed to enmesh the inmates. Punishments are mild. A minor infringement will result in a telling-off; a more serious breach may result in a loss of remission of an appropriate number of days, the maximum being 42. Even a recaptured absconder will only lose remission and being thrown off the HIT project is rare. Moreover, if an inmate who has lost remission can later demonstrate his subsequent good behaviour he can claim back his lost remission. At the boot camp the military aspect of the programme is manifest; at the HIT Unit it is entirely absent. In Colorado the inmates march from place to place in their platoons; at Thorn Cross they walk everywhere as individuals. The boot camp programme begins with ten days devoted to drill and physical work and subsequently approximately half of each day is devoted to drill, ceremonials, physical education and hard physical

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work. For the first 20 weeks of the HIT project there are 40 minutes of drill each morning and an hour and a quarter of physical education in the afternoon. Physical education at the boot camp is very tough and takes place in an unequipped gymnasium that doubles as a refectory, or outside when weather allows; at the HIT Unit it takes place in a singlepurpose, well-equipped gymnasium and embraces soccer, rugby, volleyball, basketball and other popular games. During the last five weeks of the programme the inmates have outside work during the week and there are no activities within the YOI. Finally, the inmates at the boot camp have neither leisure activities nor free association and certainly have no means of entertainment. They rise at 5.00 a.m. and have a fixed programme until 8.00 p.m. when they are allowed to write letters for 30 minutes. Then they shower and lights out is at 9.00 p.m. They are formally counted at least five times during the day. On the HIT Unit the inmates rise at 6.00 a.m. and go to bed at 10.00 p.m. From 8.30 p.m. until lights out they have free leisure time; they may associate, play games, watch television, take out books from the wellstocked library or do nothing. In Thorn Cross at weekends, Saturday mornings are devoted to cleaning duties and there is some physical education. There is no free association until 3.30 p.m. but the rest of the time until bed-time at 9.00 p.m. Sunday is completely free. Weekends at the CCAP are not too different from weekdays. Wake-up time and bed-times are the same. There are no education classes but there are still physical fitness and drill sessions. The rest of the time is filled with work details and cleaning duties. Sundays differ only in that there are voluntary church services for Protestants and Catholics. Those choosing not to attend services may be allowed to take care of personal needs such as letter writing, or may be assigned to cleaning duties.

Meals and money Meals and mealtimes at the Colorado facility have been described in Chapter 5. There is no choice of food, although special arrangements may be made for medicinal or religious reasons and special ethnic meals are available. The food is of good quality and the diet carefully balanced. Other than that which they are given there is no opportunity for any inmates to supplement their diet with anything other than water. No food may be removed from the refectory. They have no money and there is nothing to buy. Those participating in the HIT project have a wide choice of meals. They choose their meals a week in advance from a printed menu and for each main meal have a choice of six main courses and four desserts. The choices available are not the same for each day so that an inmate could

112 The

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not, for example, choose burgers and chips every day; on the other hand, nor can there be any control on the balance of their diet. Their diet, moreover, can be and is supplemented by a well-provisioned tuck shop. Inmates earn money for the assigned work they do-eleaning and so forth: in Phase One they earn up to £4.50 per week; in Phase Two, £5.50; in Phase Three, £6.50 and in Phase Four, £7.50. In Phase Five they receive only £3 as they live at the facility only at weekends, but this is generally supplemented by the money they earn from their outside work. There are no limits on the amount of mail inmates may receive, including packages. They may receive, and are sent, money, and the only restriction on spending at the shop is a limit of £18 per week. The inmates at the boot camp are given a generous but limited and balanced diet. They have no choice and are told in the course of the programme that freedom of choice is one of the freedoms that they lose by virtue of being incarcerated. The inmates of the HIT project are given a restaurant-like choice which almost certainly exceeds anything they experience at home and they are further able to supplement this with confectionery and drinks they can buy in the shop.

Drugs and tobacco In Colorado the ban on drugs and tobacco is absolute and is absolutely enforced. The entire facility, and also since early 1999 the adjacent prison, is a no smoking zone. There is no way that either drugs or tobacco can get into the boot camp. There are no visits and the limited mail allowed in is inspected. Even visitors to the graduation ceremony are allowed to bring in only their car keys! It is theoretically possible that a worker crossing the grounds throws away a cigarette stub and that an inmate picks it up. He is then faced with the difficult problem of lighting it and if caught smoking he would be immediately thrown off the course. At Thorn Cross conditions are much more lax, only partly because it is an open facility. Drugs are banned but they do get in. One way is via the mail for which there is no blanket monitoring. Another way is due to the YOI being open, and as some inmates are working outside drugs may be passed to them. At Thorn Cross inmates may have two, sometimes three visits a month with opportunities for visitors to bring in drugs. Unsurprisingly, as in the boot camp, not all of the inmates are drug-free when they come in. They undergo three mandatory drug tests while they are at the HIT Unit but the first test is not made until eight weeks after arrival in order for the inmates to become 'clean'. If they fail a drug test they lose privileges but they may continue with the course. The staff admit that drugs do get into the facility but claim that this is unavoidable; given the system in operation it probably is. The fact that some of the

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inmates are committing drug-related offences even whilst on the HIT project does not seem to be taken as seriously as it might merit. Smoking is banned for those inmates of the YOI who are under 16, which does not affect those on the HIT project. Cigarettes are sold in the prison shop to the over 16s. There is a theoretical limit per week but of course this is unenforceable. There is also a rule that inmates may only smoke in their own rooms but, we were told, they smoke anywhere. More serious is the brisk barter trade that goes on with the under 16s buying cigarettes from the older boys. It is well-known to the staff that this goes on-it is quite blatant-but little or nothing is done to stop it. Furthermore, in supplying cigarettes to juveniles the older boys are engaging in an activity that outside would be a criminal offence. The statement on the Thorn Cross brochure 'Juveniles are not allowed to smoke' is untrue. Not only is it allowed, it is all but condoned.

Recidivism As was discussed earlier recidivism is not a reliable parameter nor the only one by which a penal sentence should be judged. But nor can it be ignored altogether. If two sentences result in similar recidivism rates why not use the cheaper option? If the recidivism rate resulting from a particular sentence is unusually high the use of that sentence must be put into question. The boot camp at Colorado has been going for almost ten years and reconviction rates have been available for some time and are steady. Thirty-five per cent of boot camp graduates are re-convicted within three years; 40 per cent within five years and 42 per cent over an indefinite period. This is considerably better than the rate for ex-prisoners which, as stated in Chapter 11, exceeds 60 per cent over the whole of the USA. To be fair, a number of these reconvictions during the first three years are due to breaches of aftercare which include such quasi-criminal acts as having an unclean urinalysis or 'associating with known felons'. The HIT project has been going for just two years and it is too early for a meaningful evaluation. Certainly the ambitious claim by one of the officers running the course that the recidivism rate for the HIT project is 'the best in the world' is unlikely to be borne out, since the only data currently available is that 30 per cent of ex-HIT project inmates were reconvicted after one year. Conclusions Both establishments have a similar aim: to stop young people from reoffending. Each has a different approach. The 'statement of purpose' of the HIT project is 'to offer a challenging structured and positive regime that is unique both within the private and public sectors'. The 'primary

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mission' of the boot camp is 'to maintain a secure, safe, and humane correctional environment for individuals placed in the care and custody of the Doe' by operating 'correctional programs that seek a balanced application of the concepts of punishment, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. Opportunities for positive change are provided and designed to motivate an offender towards self-improvement'. The boot camp has a very strict regime designed to wipe out a criminal mind-set and replace it with a more socially acceptable and non-criminal outlook. The HIT project is not so strict, more relaxed and aims to deter young people from crime by training them to be responsible for themselves and introducing them into a work-oriented lifestyle. The best points of the boot camp are the excellent running of the facility; the fact that every inmate knows exactly what is expected of him or her and that a good report may mean a reduction of sentence; and the very high quality of instruction at all levels. The weakness is inherent in the system and is not the fault of the boot camp. Unlike at the HIT project, recruits are not near the end of their sentence and may be sent back to prison even though they may have an excellent report: it depends on the decision of the judge and the length of the original sentence. The other downside is that there is no real vocational training and although when in aftercare they usually find a job of sorts they are still largely untrained and most are fit only for menial work. The exact opposite is true for the HIT project. The strength there is not the strictness of the discipline or a particularly high level of educational instruction but there is a great emphasis on vocational training. The course is two months longer than that of the boot camp and all inmates have five weeks' work experience that in many cases leads to the offer of a permanent job. The weakness is that the regime is sufficiently relaxed regarding food, drugs, tobacco, cash, packages and visits, plus the fact that it is an open establishment, as to have hardly any of the trappings associated with a custodial sentence. It is a curious and interesting fact that where the boot camp is strong, i.e. the tight way it is run, the HIT project is weak; where the HIT project is strong, i.e. the vocational training and work experience, the boot camp is weak. Perhaps changes to each to incorporate the strengths of the other would improve both establishments.

APPENDIX I: Inm.ate Discipline and Treatlllent Regimented Program This appendix sets out the pertinent provisions of the Colorado statute that caused the boot camp to be set up; the general aims and philosophy of the boot camp; how recruits should be selected for the programme; and the precise advantage to the recruit of sentence variation on completing the course. 17-27.7-102

Regimented operation

inmate

treatment

programs-authorisation-standards

for

(1) The department may develop and implement a regimented inmate training program. Any regimented inmate training program shall include, but shall not be limited to, the following aspects: (a) a military styled intensive physical training and discipline program; (b) an educational and vocational assessment and training program emphasising job seeking skills;

(c) a health education program; and (d) a drug and alcohol education and treatment program which shall be structured as an integral part of the entire regimented inmate training program. (2) The department may establish and enforce standards for the regimented inmate training program and each of the aspects thereof described in subsection (1) of this section. (3) The regimented inmate training program shall be structured in such a manner that any offender who is assigned to the program by the executive director shall remain in the program for a period of 90 days, unless removed from the program and reassigned by the executive director for unsatisfactory performance. The executive director may authorise an extension of the program for any offender not to exceed 30 days when such extension will allow the offender to be considered for probation under rule 35b of the Colorado rules of criminal procedure. 17-27.7-103

Regimented inmate training program-eligibility of offenders (1) The executive director may assign an inmate to a regimented inmate training program pursuant to section 17-40-102 (2). The executive director shall assign to a regimented inmate training program only those inmates who are non-violent offenders between the ages of 18 and 25 years of age who are not serving a sentence, and have not served a previous sentence, in a correctional

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facility for a violent offence as described in section 16-11-309, CRS\ or who are not presently serving a sentence for a non-violent offence which was reduced from a violent offence as a result of a plea agreement. Any offender assigned to the program shall be free of any physical or mental defect which could jeopardise his ability to complete the program. The department may eliminate any offender from the program upon a determination by the department that a physical or mental defect will prevent full participation in the program by such offender. The department is absolved of liability for participation in the program. (2) The executive director shall assign no more that 100 offenders to a regimented inmate training program at anyone time. No more than a maximum of 400 offenders shall be assigned to the program in anyone year. However, the executive director may assign offenders to the program to replace those offenders who fail to complete the program. 17-27.7-104

Acceptance and completion of the program by an offender-reconsideration of sentence. The department, upon acceptance of an offender into the program, shall immediately notify the court of such acceptance. If an offender successfully completes a regimented inmate training program, such offender, within 60 days of termination or completion of the program, shall automatically be referred to the court which sentenced such offender so that he may make a motion for reduction of sentence pursuant to rule 35b of the Colorado rules of criminal procedure. The department shall submit a report to the court concerning such offender's performance in the program and which may recommend that such offender be placed in a specialised probation or community corrections program. The court may not summarily deny the offender's motion without a complete consideration of all pertinent information provided by the offender, his attorney, and the district attorney. The court may issue an order modifying the offender's sentence and placing the offender on probation or in a community corrections program.

1

Colorado Revised Statutes

Appendices 117

APPENDIX 11: Punishment For Habitual Crilllinals These regulations are included to demonstrate the severe sentencing framework compared with British sentencing. Three relatively minor offences committed in the course of ten years can result in a custodial sentence that would be possible in Britain only for the most serious crimes. Crimes committed on or after 1 July 1993 Every person convicted in this State of any Class 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 felony, who within ten years of the date of commission of said offence, has been twice convicted of a felony, shall be adjudged an habitual criminal and shall be punished for a term of three times the maximum of the presumptive range for the class of felony such person is convicted.

[This means that the third offence in ten years attracts a mandatory punishment of three times the maximum for that offence.] Every person convicted in this state of a felony, who has been three times previously convicted of a felony, shall be adjudged an habitual criminal and shall be punished for a term of four times the maximum of the presumptive range for the class of felony of whichh such person is convicted.

[This means that the fourth offence, irrespective of timescale, will attract a penalty offour times the statutory maximum for the offence.] Any person convicted and sentenced under the above, who is thereafter convicted of a felony which is a crime of violence pursuant to 16-11-309 CRS, 2 shall be adjudged an habitual criminal and shall be punished for a term of Life and shall be eligible for parole after serving at least 40 calendar years.

[This means that a fifth offence, if it is one of violence, automatically attracts a prison sentence of 40 years to life.]

2

Colorado Revised Statutes

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APPENDIX Ill: Personalised Addiction Process Chart Sneaks drinks or drugs Preoccupied with alcohol or drugs Gulps drinks or hordes drugs Avoids reference to alcohol or drug use Increased drug or alcohol tolerance Memory blackouts Drinks or uses before and after social occasions Begins relief drinking or drugging Is uncomfortable in situations without drink or drugs Experiences loss of control Dishonest about alcohol or drug use Increased relief using Hides and protects supply Urgent need for first drink or drug use Periods of forced abstinence Others disapprove of drinking or drugging Rationalises drinking or drugging Experiences flashes of aggression Guilt about drinking or drugging Neglects eating Builds unreasonable resentments Devalues personal relationships Considers geographic escapes Decreased sexual drive Quits or loses job Unreasonable jealousy Drinking or drugging secretly Tries to control drinking or drugging Tremors and/or shakes Persistent remorse Lengthy drinking or drugging binges Thinking impaired Drinking or drugging with inferiors Indefinable fears Unable to work

Continued overleaf

Appendices Physical health deteriorates Moral standards deteriorate Admission to hospital Loses family and friends Exhausts all alibis Death or insanity

Place a Y before each symptom you HAVE experienced. Add up all the Ys and subtract from the bottom line to determine YOUR stage.

119

Bibliography AlIen, M, 1997, 'Boot Camps Fail to Pass Muster', Governing, 11, issue 2, p.40. Austin J, Jones, M and Bolyard, M, 1993, The Growing Use of Jail Boot Camps: The Current State of the Art, NIJ, Research in Brief. Brame, R and MacKenzie, D L, 1996, Shock Incarceration and Positive Adjustment During Community Supervision: A Multisite Evaluation, NIJ Report. Erwin, B 5, 1996, Discipline in Georgia's Correctional Boot Camps, NIJ Report. Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, Bureau of Data, 1996, Leon

Sheriff s Department Boot Camp: A Follow-up Study of the First Five Platoons, Tallahassee, Fl. Gover, A R, Styve, G J F and MacKenzie, D L, 1997, 'Evaluating Correctional Boot Camp Programs' in The Dilemmas of Corrections, Haas, KC and Alpert, G P (Eds.). Johns, C, Boot Camps Are Difficult to Evaluate, www.cjjohns.com/claw /boot-respons.html Johns, C, You Don't Have to Visit a Boot Camp to Know They're Not Being Evaluated, ibid. Jones, M and Ross, D L, 1997, 'Electronic House Arrest and Boot Camp in Carolina: Comparing Recidivism', Crim. J. Policy Rev., 8, issue 4, p.383. Koch Crime Commission, 1995, Boot Camps.' Mixed Reviews. Koch Crime Institute, 1999, Juvenile Boot Camps: Cost and Effectiveness vs.

Residential Facilities. MacKenzie, D L, 1993, 'Boot Camp Prisons in 1993', NIJ Journal, November 1993. MacKenzie, D Land Souryal, C, 1996, 'Multisite Study of Boot Camp' in

A Tough Intermediate Sanction, Chap. 18, NI]: Md.

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MacKenzie, D Land Rosay, A B, 1997, 'Correctional Boot Camps for Juveniles' in Juvenile and Adult Boot Camps, ACA. MacKenzie, D L, Styve, G J and Gover, A R, 1998, 'Performance-Based Standards for Juvenile Corrections', Corrections Management Quarterly, 2 (2) 28. NIJ, August 1995, Shock Incarceration in New York. NIJ, May 1996, Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders. NIJ, Bureau of Prisons, 1998, US Justice Department Says Boot Camps Do

More Harm Than Good. Peterson, E, 1996, Juvenile Boot Camps: Lessons Learned, Office of Juvenile Justice. Texas Youth Commission, Office of Prevention, Austin, Tx., 'Ten Tips on Building the Best Camp', ( excerpt from) Corrections Today, June 1995. Wright, D T and Mays G L, 1998, 'Correctional Boot Camps. Attitudes and Recidivism: The Oklahoma Experience', J. Offender Rehab., 28 p.71. Zachariah, J K, 1996, 'An Overview of Boot Camp Goals: Components and Results' in A Tough Intermediate Sanction, loco cit.

Zhang, S X, 1998, 'In Search of Hopeful Glimpses: A Critique of Research Strategies in Current Boot Camp Evaluations', Crime and Delinquency, 44 issue 2, p.314.

Index academic skills 17 addiction recovery 17 20 25 56 Addiction Recovery Program 19 43 56 87 drug addiction programme 62 Personalised Addiction Process Chart 58 118 Admissions and Orientation 18 26 35 aftercare 24 25 AIDS 18 63 alcohol 8 10 16 17 56 et seq. Alcoholics Anonymous 19 61 ambitions 74 anger 72 anxiety 31 35 aptitude 77 Aptitude Review Board 42 behaviour, changing behaviour 13 67 96 boot camp regime (selected items: more specialist items appear in their own right in the index) accommodation 33 109 age range 9 106 clothing issue 33 conditions generally 39 discipline 16 37 42 48 49 drinks 39 effectiveness/ evaluation/ does it work? 19 46 52 65 74 82 88 90 et seq. 103 eligibility for 18 115 first ever boot camp 13 haircuts 32 35 99 inspections 50 length of time spent there by inmates 15 mail 28 39 meals 36 39 40 47

no smoking 39 48 radios/no radio, TV, newspapers etc. 40 personnel 17 (and see staff) right angles, doing everything at right angles 41 47 sleeping arrangements time/no clocks/watches 40 46 Borstal training compared 52 Britain compared 105 et seq. British Prison Service visit to Maryland, 1994 95 105 Buena Vista Correctional Facility, generally 16 Buena Vista, generally 7 11 case managers role 19 20 26 42 clothing 33 cognitiveeducation/thllUcing etc. 8 16 17 20 67 et seq. 74 Colchester, UK 95 Colorado, generally 7 11 Colorado Corrections Alternative Program 711 13 Department of Corrections 9 17 18 92 93 103 Colorado Mountain College 98 community corrections 19 24 25 corporal punishment not allowed 37 costs 91 criminal skills for surviving in prison etc. 76 dehumanising 34 48 Denver aftercare facility 24 Denver Regional Diagnostics Centre/Facility 18 21 35 78 job scheme 24

Life Inside the Colorado Boot Camp 123 Department of Corrections 9 17 18 78 detention centres compared 52 discipline 16 37 42 48 49 And see Aptitude Review Board, Motivation Bay/Motobay etc. dolls 81 dormitories 38 dressing-down 37 drilling/ drill staff 27 et seq. 49 et seq. 87 drugs 8 10 16 17 39 40 48 56 et seq. 112 drug addiction programme 62 (and see addiction recovery)

HIT 105 106 HIV 64 humiliation 34 99

fellowship 17 females 16 32 33 40 fitness 49 et seq. 54 79 Florida 101

Illinois, boot camp/ prison costs/Senate 92 102 inmates, generally 16 ambitions 74 anger 72 aptitude 77 assessment 78 average length of sentence 18 average reading age 17 certificates 79 83 evaluation of 19 27 examples of inmates' underlying sentences 23 General Educational Development 77 et seq. 97 literacy, numeracy etc. 78 maths 80 reading and writing 79 reports on 16 social backgrounds of 3435 44 56 Inmate Discipline and Treatment Regimented Program 115 Intensive Supervision Program 24

Georgia 13 94 97 94 97 General Educational Development 77 et seq. 97 goals 17 graduation 50 84 et seq. visitors at 84 85 gym/ gymnasium 40 49 et seq. 51

Janitorial Training Program 87 jobs job-seeking skills/ training 17 103 job scheme (Denver) 24 judge's role 19 21 22 27 93 112

'habitual criminals' 16 117 haircuts 32 35 99 'Hell week' 28 High Intensity Training project, HMYOI Thorn Cross, UK 105

language, learning the language of the boot camp 38 47 lockstep, walking in 32 Louisiana 101 102

education/ classes etc. 8 16 17 27 49 67 et seq. General Educational Development 77 et seq. 97 effectiveness/ evaluation/ doe sitwork? 19 46 52 65 74 82 88 90 et seq. 103

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Pain and the Pride

mail 28 maths 80 meals 36 39 mental health evaluation 18 military aspects 8 13 16 37 47 49 53 90 93 Motion for Consideration of Sentence Reduction 19 Motivation Bay/ Motobay/ motivation pit/ motopit 42 44-46 48 naval terms 37 New York 13 97 102 non-violent offenders 16 18 24 106 norms crisis' 31 32 North Carolina 100

I

Oklahoma 13 92 100 overcrowding in USA prisons 13 91 92 pain and pride 33 86 parenting/ parenting skills 16 17 80 83 Pennsylvania 102 Personalised Addiction Process Chart 58 118 Phases 1 to 3 15 26 33 51 61 77 physical education/ training 49 et seq. 90 platoons 16 punishment for breaching rules 37 press-ups (push-ups) 32 34 37 41 50 52 prison overcrowding 13 91 92 problems, thinking about 67 et seq. pros and cons of the Buena Vista boot camp 90 et seq. protection of the public 17 public opinion in the USA 101

race 17 reading and writing 79 recidivism 100 103 113 reduction/ reconsideration of sentence 18 21 27 re-education 8 regime 39 (and see under boot camp regime) Regimented Inmate Discipline and Treatment Program 13 regression 37 42 44 relationships 81 83 removal back to prison 37 reports 16 reprimands 42 routine, introduction to 51 rules and regulations 37 47 98 110 self-discipline 96 semiotics 73 sentence/ sentencing harsh 16 re-assessment 22 reduction/ reconsideration 18 21 27 sex 17 'shock incarceration' 17 34 92 95 96 sit ups 50 sleeping arrangements 33 smoking/ no smoking 39 40 staff at Buena Vista Boot Camp iv 15 suicide, no incidents at Buena Vista 19 teachers/ peer teachers 67 78 et seq. 87 98 TB 18 termination 42 44 Thorn Cross, UK 95 105 et seq. accommodation 109 cost per place 106 differences from Buena Vista/US boot camps 107

Life Inside the Colorado Boot Camp discipline 110 drugs and tobacco 111 eligibility 112 meals 111 recidivism 112 release and supervision 109 regime/phases 108 report of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons 105 rules and regulations 110 work 108 114 tobacco 39 40 112 toughness/ getting tough 96 Transitional Discipline 24 Transitional Education Program 17 treatment orientation 97 trouble-makers/ difficult inmates 32 34 US Justice Department Study of Recidivism 101 variety of US boot camps 90 victims 67 69 82 violent offenders 16 volunteers, inmates are all volunteers serving existing sentences 18 27 visitors/ no visitors 39 48 walking in lockstep 32 work/work related aspects 17 24 49 55 72 103 young offender institutions (YOIs) in England and Wales 105 et seq. age range 106 Youth Offender System (USA) 16 21 Zero-day 26 et seq. 46 94 99

125

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