juveniles and adults at that time i was awarded a grant from the national institute of justice and i've continued to study them since that time most recently the university of maryland was awarded to grant and i study the correctional boot camp for adults in maryland i have then had the opportunity to visit a large number of these camps to observe activities to consult with staff administrators and juveniles review valuations collect data i have visited programs for males and females for juveniles in adults and in federal state and local jurisdictions in do beginning my research on the bootcamps i began by asking people what they expected to be accomplished by the bootcamps they had many goals but the that have examined they outcome of recidivism of boot camps they compared people that went to the boot camps juveniles and adults to people that had some other sentence or spent time in a facility or on in the community this was a lot number of juveniles than adults were included in the study the we only use studies that were considered to be adequate scientifically so the research design was strong if the major goal of boot camps is to reduce recidivism there is little reason to continue these programs they do not reduce r sm this is been the continual result that i found from my earliest studies to this examination of all the studies that i could find in a med analysis there is no evidence that they successfully reduce recidivism people do have other goals of the programs though and so i've also tried to examine the other goals one of them was to reduce prison crowding people expected the programs to reduce prison crowding partly because they would reduce recidivism which of course they don't but also by releasing the offenders and delinquents early if they took part in this rigorous boot camp program the trouble is that many of the judges decide to send juveniles and adults to the boot camp instead of giving them an alternative community treatment so instead of sending them on to probation they end up giving them putting them into a prison incarcerating them in the boot camps or net widening the other area that we studied in the boot camps was to look at the environment of the boot camps we did find some positive results from the boot camps if we looked at the environments the juveniles and stay at a value weighted the program as more positive the boot camp programs the trouble is we were comparing them to the traditional societies of juveniles where there are large facilities not small not small programs as they had for the boot camps you also must remember when we study and  labs in the boot camps we were allowed in those that are probably less apt to provide to be abusive and have better trained staff i have just recently done a review of what works in corrections looking at a large number of correctional programs including the bootcamps identify two hundred eighty four studies that have adequate research designs and that's very important because much research in corrections is very poorly done i can conclude that programs that are based on control punishment strict rules confrontations similar to boot camps or scared straight programs are not effective however we do have programs that are effective these are the programs that we refer to as rehabilitation education drug court drug treatment cognitive skills programs we do have programs that reduce recidivism but boot camps are not something that reduces risk of has them for years i have said we should consider boot camps because we could put therapy within the camps but looking at the recent number of deaths than in your injuries in this camp i have changed my mind and i no longer support i think it is too dangerous to continue with the boot camp we don't have a justification thank you very much for us mackenzie representative gi thank you mr chair and members of the committee and certainly i want to thank my congresswoman for inviting me today i want to cover a couple of points that i kinda took out of my  testimony first and foremost i want to make sure that it is known that i don't believe in coddling criminals i do believe in personal responsibility but i believe that it has to be taught and i don't think that bootcamps in any way shape or form teaches that to our young people i also think that the best opportunity we have to reduce our increase in our corrections systems throughout the united states is by rehabilitating juvenile i think that we all know that the african american population is over represented over represented in our correction system for adults as well as you are now and so therein lies i think the comment that there is a great concern for african american children while there is concern for all children i don't think that there is enough mental health programming within the kind confines of a boot camp and largely most of these children that go into boot camp are port children their health has not been monitored over the years and so they go into a program that primarily focuses on rigors of physical activity the other issue has to do with it being run by sheriff's offices or or as it was stated earlier it's a state run type of program which doesn't in my mind mean that we shouldn't have national outcry but we certainly should have standards or should have had because i certainly don't believe  or support the continuation of boot camps but there has to be are there should have been an i'm sorry a standard of training within the facilities so that we did not have the death that we have had and that not includes the medical component which has been insufficient but also the personnel who are used to handling adults and not children and certainly that's what what those young people are they are developing children i think it is far better we're far better served if we do have programs like multi systemic therapy which we utilize and and florida and i think they also utilize it in mississippi if i'm not mistaken functional family therapy because taking a juvenile into a setting that doesn't include making sure that the family is treated if you will it  doesn't complete the cycle and so in order to recognize reduce recidivism rates then we need to certainly include the family and as was mentioned earlier make sure that there's an educational component there's employment training component because we're trying to prepare the person who this young person who has gotten into trouble not to go into the correctional system we're trying to prepare that person to come back and be productive in the community and boot camp certainly do not do that in terms of the dollars being spent being state dollars if you will i wrote a note that certainly there are federal dollars that fund juvenile justice programs and those dollars that our state dollars may be used as a match to draw down those those dollars from the fed and i in looking at whether or not  someone wants to continue to camp or not recognize the national importance of this issue certainly we shouldn't be using state dollars as match dollars to draw down federal dollars of any other state dollars are going to be used for bootcamp s as we continue on with states as i said before as my time runs out i think we are far better served and we have far more statistics that show prevention programs work therapy programs work wilderness programs even like outward bound where a young person can find out where their strengths and talents lie and then draw on those to take them through through life we have a high murder rate going on right now and jacksonville and i think it certainly involves a lot of our young people i think adults as well as as children could certainly benefit from the inclusion of conflict resolution in any program like the sister programs military schools are not conducive to assisting teens to make and keep long term change is that accurate and if so could you expand on that that's accurate for continue in criminal activity in terms of safety you study the safety of the boot camps we've studied the perceived safety of the camps from the perspective of juveniles in the  we compare the at to traditional facilities and safety the juveniles in the boot camp felt they were safer in most areas i think that reflects the fact that their strict rules keep them from boot camp says are difference in the death rate at boot camps as opposed to other facilities that's really where we need some research we do not have that research the other thing is we don't really have a very good handle on how many boot camps are still there because there are state camps but there are also many that are run by local jurisdictions so we need to know where they are and then compare the injury and death rates in the camp to the other facilities where these young people would be and you mention local local government run what about privately run and there are also privately run and really contracted with and we don't know whether or not there's a difference in private or local run facility in terms of safety as far as their reported safety we did not find it a difference between the juvenile programs that were run by public or private not for profit and if there's no difference in recidivism the bootcamps cheaper than the alternative the boot camps are only cheaper if the people are released after serving a shorter period of time and the concern here is net widening many of the judges make the decision to send someone into the boot camp instead of an alternative like probation that it makes it much more expensive so some state systems for adults have used it to reduce their prison population a new york state in particular because of the rockefeller drug laws have you has used their boot camp for adults to release people earlier and they report some statement that they have an enormous number of people that they put through the duke campus a year five thousand sentenced to a boot camp there either house arrest because boot camp and florida were for nonviolent offenders and so they're either house arrest or probation community probation or detention centers have as anyone as retained whether or not there's been more or less crime as a result of the stop the closing of the state run boot camps what can be done to make these boot camp if we're not having boot camp so it can be made to deal with the safety of the children dr professor mckenzie was still having some boot camps is there anything that can be done to enhance the safety to have strict requirements about the need for training this day f would be one of the first things i think that not from my experience many of the state we're not well trained to iden i mean it's a very short period of time they are often given they participate in some kind of training activity it's and they just won't give them what they need thank you  staffs it is difficult when you take somebody out for two days and it's not completely job related to what they're doing but i did but there is evidence out there and i will have a chance to get some of that additional evidence before the  comes out when somebody makes a statement that is so bold you went beyond that you said there is no evidence they reduce recidivism so i'm since i'm familiar with some places where they have reduce recidivism let me just ask know offhand i can't tell you exactly which states but i can tell you yes there were some and in the testimony i reported that some did have a lower risk from and it seems and you camps that were less apt to be abusive did you make attempts to be in camps you knew were more abusive we attempted to go into every camp that was in existence when we started representative gibson and thank you for coming i know it's a hardship for him by that comes up here especially when you sit around for us like this but i was concerned it appears that florida legislature has taken steps and you've made indications of things that concerned you that uses obviously should require some action but i just want to ask you is the florida legislature incapable of addressing the problems unless the federal government tells you what to do but thank you for your question i believe that what florida did was change from a boot camp model to something called star academies however we had no takers with the change in the structure even though the dollar amount was there and of course it's it's a share  their program between usually a sheriff's department and the state and the reason we had no takers is because of the training there's a different kind of training required to to be a sheer as it is to be over juveniles there's a different take down methods todd and other kinds of training that individuals need to have when they work with juvenile so we had no takers for the program ok thank you but you feel like florida could handle in legislate requirements for its own but you know so it's really hard you need the federal government to tell you how to do that let me go back to what  i believe i said i'm an issue a comment and if i didn't i certainly meant to that i believe that the issue of juvenile justice is a national issue children are children from state to state and there needs to be standards put in place nationally so we don't have these kinds of issues and i believe federal net federal is national and i believe there needs to be involvement and we wouldn't be where we are today i don't think if we had national standards to deal with that human and if we don't pass national standards florida's you're saying would not be able to adequately take care of the camp as you would in its own state  thank the distinguished chairman you know this is the kind of hearing and i'm just grateful that there's only have moved to a new hundred ten the congress that we work with our colleagues friends on the other side of the aisle that we've been able to initiate questions like this and i want to put firmly on the record my appreciation to chairman scott for giving us a very broad roadmap i chair the congressional children's caucus and it is holistic in its approach mentoring programs health issues such as obesity gun violence over the years that it's been in place children exploitation and so we look at things in a  manner and certainly we recognize that children have to be disciplined they have to be rehabilitated and when the book camp first started maybe a decade ago and people were excited and c n n was covering it and it looked like in that me bite my tongue fun good way to discipline children we didn't know that it was going to become a death trap for those who had good intentions didn't know that in places around the country it would result in being a death trap for children now i've just come off the floor discussing the propensity in the epidemic of youth violence  on one one of the most conspicuous examples of course was the four youngsters who broke into the home of sean taylor which resulted in his death i say that to recognize that we have a dual problem of violence perpetrated by youngsters and then of course how do you save their lives how do you intervene and how do you work with respect to intervention but i would like to ask representative gibson and i thank you for your leadership coming from florida not sure if you're from the area forgive me for missing your testimony was on the floor i only know the story of the youngster who was flat on his back and big hurley early people stepping on him poses a severe problem more so than it solves problems of youth crime which i assume this young man was in because of some incident criminal incident and i assume maybe you're from this area that if you give me i  came in and i'm looking at some notes but help us understand i understand florida has eliminated the boot camp yes but say it actually has it all gone or they're in the process of being eliminated now following this martin lee anderson  actually the boot camps were closed and the children were moved and what you are is a two thousand and four four that's ok why don't i just let you answer the question and then dr would you follow up professor would you follow up and tell us if we wanted to overhaul this concept of the camps and we wanted to find a fix and we look at a number of legislative initiatives more intervention what eliminated totally or is there another model that could be used rather than give since just tell us about the situation in florida well and thank you i think the video speaks for itself and speak very loudly  to the fact that folks obviously didn't know how to handle this young man and there was a lack of training there was a lack of consideration for his physical ability for him to do whatever it was they wanted him to do and his size compared to their size absolutely and the fact that they stuffed ammonia tablets up his no i just is very egregious to me and i don't i don't see how anyone looking in at that and knowing the what happened that they could even think that the boot camp model works the other part of that and i think i put in my testimony is that as far as i know boot camps were military in nature designed to prepare people to go to war we're not preparing our children to go to war we're preparing them to come out and be productive citizens and i don't think that the boot can't do that nor are they inclusive as i said before i think you arrive of deep therapy mental or the mental health issues abound with our young folks today we're finding that not only in florida but i believe across the united states that there are myriad of mental health issues that certainly aren't address in a short term boot camp and the re citizen right that i think we're after with our taxpayer dollars is not recognized and the after care programs that some of the camps have had the the programs are very fragmented and so there's no help actually for the child or the fam quickly professor do you have an alternative model very quickly learn it would and use the programs that we know are effective the treatment programs that include education focus on drug use and drug education and drug problems  like drug courts with multi systemic therapy is another one that looks very promising we have programs that cognitive skills would be another one we have programs that are effective we might i want to try given that the environments of the camps the staff and juveniles did say positive things about them we might want to try structured small structured program small doubt the military basic laps as part of the disciplinary prior process is part of the teaching of respect of authority that sometimes many young men and women are  missing and which can contribute to them being thrust into the juvenile justice system for a rebellious young person who has had no disciplinary guidance who may not have achieved on a physical level may never have done a push up  basically lacks respect for authority couldn't boot camp if properly administered and it's if supplement it with with various psychological training methods and that kind of thing couldn't it be something that could be positive or or is it and i met this question for both of you all or is it just the whole boot camp model needs to just done testimony so i didn't hear and i'm kind of asking this question out of some skepticism of tidbits of what i've heard just sitting here so far and also probably  f a lack of knowledge about how to positively impact juveniles who have gone astray so i'll listen to your responses spare the rod spoil the child you know those kind of things that we've heard you know talk to me let me start by saying this i'm the mother of two sons that are raised by myself both of them have graduated from college and i didn't spare the rod nor the nor the mouse in terms of physical activity as a way of  disciplining young people i don't think that it should be used that way well and i may not be just to discipline him maybe to give them some discipline and also give them a means of of achieving something and becoming more physical helping with with the psychosomatic issues in other words i can achieve physically i'm strong you know i can commit myself to more positive pursuits as opposed to what got me in trouble in the first place i made i can become michael jordan or somebody because i can achieve physic i made references earlier before you came to successes of wilderness type programs and outward bound programs and there's a another program in florida called about face that's run by our national guard and these programs do have a physical component rope climbing and things of that nature but they also focus on team building and trust in addition to the physical component which is not present in a boot camp if you get up at zero dark thirty i call it and are immediately subjected to run in the track in the heat or just pushing that to me does not  instill discipline and doesn't allow it a child to totally tap into some talents they may find in in the rope climbing or in the canoeing or or being out in the wilderness communing with nature nothing positive about it at all getting up early in the morning being with quiet to do some laps while they're there as i said before there does appear to be some positive attitudes in the boot camp towards the staff and the state have towards the juveniles so there is something positive my worry is with these injuries and deaths in the camp that the military putting that basic training model in is an effective my research would say that it doesn't have an influence on later criminal activities it's not criminal g learning to change physically isn't really going to change you to keep you away from a life of crime you may need conflict winces for your actions and that may be beneficial but we can't do many of these things in a different model of a juvenile facility not using the basic training military model  thank you very much i mean just follow the one one quick question the ranking member just mentioned some of the aspects of programs that seem to work that is when you have boot camp with just the physical activities it doesn't seem to work but when you add in education some of the psychological services mental health perhaps when you have that particularly the education that it makes a positive difference that is also what i've been led to believe is that what research shows  the research in that area is very limited we don't have enough information and the programs don't appear to be very extensive in the camps so the research i would not make a strong statement some youth who have a problem being that they've never had any self discipline they've never been taught any discipline in talking to parents and teachers of those  camps and when i say camp apparently there's a little miscommunication because i consider boot camp not just to have the physical component but to have these other components where education is a part and the day  would with which i'm familiar had the officers of the bootcamp available any time of the day on call that show up and take the child out of the classroom who's been disruptive and talk to him and had teachers tell me they could not believe the difference in a child who began to learn and start to reach their god given potential i've had parents there was one mother said she never could get her her child to go to bed and one not she got fed up and she called a sergeant major that ran the boot camp said my son won't go to bed put him on the line put him on the line he says son go to bed and the kid went to bed said how do you do that is a well i don't know we need to work on this a little bit what we found that many times the parents needed some training is an additional component because we're talking about youth and representative gibson i think you'll looted to another issue when you're dealing with youth training becomes all the more critical because in dr mackenzie that you're dealing with a different these are not hardened adults these are still moldable children but  gibson you mention the star program and i don't know if it's the same thing but that's what we were the boot camps that i looked at in texas back when i was on the juvenile board they call themselves star programs and they had the additional components but it just seemed like as mr johnson to get sometimes the discipline is needed in order to get their attention and one problem we ran into i mean i've heard from others they would have kids get so motivated to turn their studies around and then after graduating high school want to join the military and they would say well you've had these problems in your background so we really don't want you and i hate to see that happen when somebody has turned their lives around but anyway i just wanted to to mention that for the record i've heard some some great stories of people turned around but certainly the detriment of losing a pr child requires extra training requires extra accountability and and monitoring and appreciate the opportunity to mention these other aspects thank you much  thank you i don't like to thank you witnesses for their testimony today members may have additional questions to to ask you they will be submitted to you in writing and we would ask you to for dancers as promptly as possible so they can be made part of the record and without objection the hearing record will remain open for one week for the submission of additional materials and i assume the gentleman from texas may have additional statements at this time i'd like to introduce for the record a statement from the their learning center