Boot Camp Research Paper

Boot camp is the starting point of any Enlisted persons career when they join the military. It makes most people nervous, and it should because you are heading in to the unknown. The experience can either make or break the recruit, and will give them the tools they need going forward in there career. Your first night in boot camp will be a roller coaster of emotions, and reactions to everything going on around you.

Community corrections is continually changing and has been for the past one hundred years. From the early to mid-twentieth century onward it has used three major models, the medical model, community model, and the crime control model. The major turning point for the American community corrections system that led to corrections as we know it today was in 1974 when What Works? - Questions and Answers About Prison Reform by Martinson was published. The system changed practically overnight across the nation. The notion of rehabilitating offenders was dismissed and a more punitive “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality took over. Presently the corrections system is still working in the crime control model, but professionals are trying to restructure how we deal with criminal offenders during and after incarceration. The difficulty in the restructuring is finding the balance between punishing criminal offenders proportionate to their crime, but also rehabilitating them to be productive members of society once they are released so that they do not recidivate.

Incarceration of offenders has been the typical and most commonly used form of sentencing in corrections. Punishment is often the first choice when an offender breaks the law, which is understandable, because criminals should be held accountable for their crimes. Corrections is a system of checks and balances that holds individuals responsible for their actions. We must ask

“The Prison and Probation Service has two main goals: To contribute to the reduction of criminality, and to work to increase safety in society. To achieve these goals we work with sentenced persons in order to improve their possibilities of living a life without committing new crimes.” (Linstrom and Leijonram)

Juvenile delinquency is a relatively new phenomenon. For this reason, society’s reactions and solutions to the problem of delinquency are also modern developments. The United States developed the first youth court in 1899 and is now home to many new and formerly untested methods of juvenile rehabilitation and correction. One of many unique programs within the Juvenile Justice system, boot camps are institutions designed to keep delinquent juveniles out of traditional incarceration facilities and still provide a structured method of punishment and rehabilitation. Boot camps developed in the early 1990s and quickly proliferated throughout the nation. Specifically, they are “…short-term residential programs modeled after

Due to the increase of correctional populations that continue to exceed its’ capacity, correctional alternatives were created. Correctional alternatives were to alleviate both prison crowding and the threat to public safety posed by serious offenders (Flores, Holsinger, Latessa, Lowenkamp, & Makarios, 2010). Rehabilitation in the 1970s was a variable correctional goal however by the 1980s intermediate sanctions developed . Intermediate sanctions consist of house arrest, electronic monitoring, boot camps, day reporting centers, intensive supervision probation or parole, community service, fines, and curfews (Tonry, 1990). These sanctions offer community based punishments that focus on deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution (Tonry, 1990).

Established in the 1970’s, Scared Straight programs began to get introduced throughout the United States as a method of deterrence for young teens in an attempted to keep them out of jail. A normal program usually consists of an at-risk teen visiting an adult prison to find out what it was really like to be placed somewhere they are unable to leave. The teen learns of the harsh conditions that real prison inmates have to endure while behind bars. Facility managers set up an itinerary for the teens to follow as they tour the jail and live as though they were prisoners for a full day. This would put the at-risk youths up against an aggressive ‘in your face’ confrontation with the inmates. They would get to listen to the inmate's stories and have a one on one counseling session to really hit home on how the next few years are going to be determined after they leave. However, no matter how well the intentions may be to attempt and rehabilitate the teens, research has shown that many of approaches proved ineffective.

Both jail and prison offer some type of early released programs, in this case probation and parole will briefly be discussed. Probation is a prison sentence that is suspended on the condition that the offender follow certain prescribed rules and commit no further crime (Seiter, 2008). Parole is similar to probation except that it is after a period of incarceration, which involved determinate and indeterminate sentencing (Seiter, 2008). The other types of prison sentencing include mandatory minimums, three-strike laws, and truth-in-sentencing (Wilson, 2001). The only difference is that a parole board allows convicts to serve the remainder of their term in society under supervision and strict limitations (Wilson, 2001). In summary both jails and prisons should strive to provide as much educational, health, and counseling opportunities as possible to reduce the likelihood of recidivism. Second, funding for the jail and prison systems will be briefly discussed.

In the book NewJack: Guarding Sing Sing, the book discussed the life of a guard. Most people feel that the guards are bad guys in the criminal justice system and with the politics of the criminal justice systems there are many assumptions of the way in which the stereotype of prison guard’s life should be. The author Ted Conover explains first hand on the experiences behind the scenes that many guards experiences throughout their careers that is an untold story of the truth in the prison system. Conover was curious about the subculture of the prison guards’ duties and wanted to know the truth about if the assumptions that most have about the prison guards is truthful. Conover entered the Academy with many other young men and a few women who wanted good jobs with security. The training was modeled after boot camp for the military. Those who had been in the military fared better than those who had not been so initiated. Once Conover crossed the training hurdle, he was tossed over to Sing Sing for his first assignment.

Shock probation is an intermediate probation where the offenders are initially assigned to secure confinement, but are later removed from detention and sentenced to serve the remainder of

Impact of Rehabilitation Programs and Incarceration for Juvenile Offenders Discussing the Importance of Rehabilitation Program

Boot camps popularity has drastically changed due to scandals. “According to numerous media and eyewitness reports, staff members at some camps have subjected young inmates to physical and psychological abuse. In the most extreme cases, some camp recruits have actually died from alleged maltreatment. As a result of those scandals, some states have either reformed their boot camp systems or abandoned them altogether”

“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime

The purpose then is to keep soldiers acting as soldiers so the correctional philosophy in the military has evolved in such a way to do just that. In discussing the UCMJ and corrections, the following topics are significant.

The discussions surrounding boot camps has always been extremely controversial. Many question the abilities of the inmates to learn with the strict military style regimen ( O’Neill, MaKenzie, and Bierie 2007). Although there are many basic similarities among the boot camps other aspects differ greatly. Each program is constructed differently with