DOI: 10.3886/icpsr06922
title: Evaluation of Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders in Cleveland, Denver, and Mobile, 1992-1993
title: Archival Version

description: Boot camps, a popular alternative to standard correctional facilities, are characterized by a strong emphasis on military structure, drill, and discipline and by an abbreviated period of incarceration. In 1990, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) launched a demonstration program to develop boot camp models for juveniles and to test the feasibility and appropriateness of their implementation. In September 1991, three groups received awards to develop and implement boot camps as intermediate sanctions: the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas in Cleveland, Ohio, the Colorado Division of Youth Services in Denver, Colorado, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Mobile, Alabama. Simultaneously, the National Institute of Justice sponsored an evaluation of the implementation of the demonstration programs, focusing on the experiences of youths who entered the program during the first year of operation, from 1992 to 1993. This collection contains data from the program evaluation conducted on these three boot camps during the first year. The core of the assessment was a management information system that captured administrative data as the offenders progressed through the demonstration program. At intake, researchers collected demographic, criminal, and family and social information. Demographic information collected at intake includes age, race, education, and employment. Criminal data covers criminal history, current offense, and case information, while family and social history variables include whether the youths' parents had a criminal record, whether their family received public assistance, and whether they had delinquent friends, delinquent siblings, discipline problems at home or school, or a history of psychological problems. At the beginning and end of the boot camp term, staff rated the youths' performance on educational and behavioral measures. The youths were also surveyed about the rules of boot camp, their opinions of instructors, and their self-esteem, drug and alcohol use, and criminal behavior. At the end of the first 90 days (the residential period), data were collected on the date of graduation, infractions during boot camp, honors or awards, and special services received. Five months after graduation, youths were evaluated on their aftercare experiences. Some sites supplemented the basic management information with data collected on educational performance, employment history and expectations, physical fitness, and youth attitudes.
description: Boot camps, a popular alternative to incarceration, are characterized by a strong emphasis on military structure, drill, and discipline and by an abbreviated period of incarceration. In 1990, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) launched a demonstration program to develop boot camp models for the juvenile system and to test the feasibility and appropriateness of their implementation. In September 1991, three groups received awards to develop and implement boot camps as intermediate sanctions: (1) the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas in Cleveland, Ohio, (2) the Colorado Division of Youth Services in Denver, Colorado, and (3) the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Mobile, Alabama. Simultaneously, the National Institute of Justice sponsored an evaluation of the implementation of the demonstration programs, focusing on the experiences of youths who entered the program during the first year of operation, from 1992 to 1993. The evaluation sought to address the following research questions: (1) To what extent do juveniles in boot camps receive the services prescribed for them? (2) What is the recidivism rate of the juveniles in the boot camp group as compared with that of the control group? (3) What short-term benefits, such as educational or vocational training, employment, or restitution, result from participation in the program? (4) Are the boot camps cost effective?
description: This study was designed to be a process evaluation and not an impact evaluation. The core of the assessment was a management information system that captured administrative data as the offenders progressed through the demonstration program. At intake, researchers collected demographic, criminal, and family and social history information. At the beginning and end of the boot camp term, staff rated the youths' performance on educational and behavioral measures. At the end of the first 90 days (the residential period), data were collected on the date of graduation, infractions during boot camp, honors or awards, and special services received. Five months after graduation, youths were evaluated on their aftercare experiences. Some sites were able to supplement the basic management information with data collected on educational performance, employment history and expectations, physical fitness, and youth attitudes.
description: At intake, information was gathered on the degree of the most serious current offense, the weapon involved, status in the system at the time of arrest, score on drug screening questionnaire, and primary court disposition imposed. Demographic information collected at intake includes age, race, education, and employment. Family and social history variables include whether the youths' parents had a criminal record, whether their family received public assistance, and whether they had delinquent friends, delinquent siblings, discipline problems at home or school, or a history of psychological problems. Criminal history data were collected on prior sentence, filing complaint date, sentence date, and offense status. Upon exiting the camp, data on infraction type, reason for exiting camp, aftercare placement, and any new sentence were recorded. For the aftercare program, data were collected on the date released from boot camp to aftercare, type of educational program and counseling received during aftercare, types of serious disciplinary infractions, and length of new sentence. At program completion, data were gathered on program completion status, reasons for dropping out, charges, outcome, and placement. In Cleveland and Mobile education data were recorded on reading, spelling, and math scores at the beginning and end of the program. Cleveland also collected baseline data on education completed, youth employment, type of work the youths expected to do as adults, behavior with close friends, behavior of close friends, and drug use. Physical fitness data, including number of push-ups, sit-ups, and running time at the beginning and end of the program, were also gathered in Cleveland. In all three sites, staff were asked to rate the youths with regard to respecting authority, maintaining self-control, acting responsibly, working well with others, and maintaining their physical appearance. All three sites also surveyed the juveniles about the rules of the boot camp, their opinions of instructors, and their self-esteem, drug and alcohol use, and criminal behavior.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Standardized missing values.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Presence of Common Scales: The Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) and several Likert-type scales were used.
description: Response Rates: Not applicable.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Cleveland Intake Data 
 DS2: Cleveland Criminal History Data 
 DS3: Cleveland Exit Data 
 DS4: Cleveland Aftercare Data 
 DS5: Cleveland Program Completion Coding Data 
 DS6: Cleveland Education Data 
 DS7: Cleveland Baseline Data 
 DS8: Cleveland Physical Fitness Data 
 DS9: Denver Intake Data 
 DS10: Denver Criminal History Data 
 DS11: Denver Exit Data 
 DS12: Denver Aftercare Data 
 DS13: Denver Program Completion Coding Data 
 DS14: Mobile Intake Data 
 DS15: Mobile Criminal History Data 
 DS16: Mobile Exit Data 
 DS17: Mobile Aftercare Data 
 DS18: Mobile Program Completion Coding Data 
 DS19: Mobile Education Data 
 DS20: Cleveland, Denver, and Mobile Staff Rating Data 
 DS21: Cleveland, Denver, and Mobile Youth Rating Data
description: (1) The principal investigators conducted another boot camp evaluation under the same grant from the National Institute of Justice. The scope and methods of the other evaluation differed significantly from this study, and therefore it is archived under a different study number. Users should consult EVALUATION OF THE FIRST INCARCERATION SHOCK TREATMENT (FIST) PROGRAM FOR YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS IN KENTUCKY, 1993-1994 (ICPSR 2698) for further information about this evaluation. (2) The user guide, codebooks, and data collection instruments are provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided through the ICPSR Website on the Internet.
description: Young male delinquents in Cleveland, Denver, and Mobile.
description: Random assignment of eligible participants.