In l992 the program was expanded to include both male and female prisoners and probationers. The first 90 days of the program involves a highly disciplined regimen, rather like a military boot camp, coupled with hard work and other rehabilitative programming, including secondary education programming and substance-abuse treatment. This phase is followed by intensive supervision in a community. The goal is to keep selected, lower-risk probationers from going to prison and to take qualified prisoners out of the traditional prison setting and place them in a more economical setting.
Military discipline is an important part of the boot camp experience.
It breaks down streetwise ways and allows the offender to accept change. If each of the 1,434 offenders who completed the boot camp portion of the program during 1999 had been confined in a Level I prison camp throughout the year, it would have been necessary to construct five 300-bed camps to confine them. In addition to the cost savings associated with the program, it has proven to be effective in deterring its graduates from subsequent criminal behavior. Of the 2,678 prisoners who completed the program between 1995 and 1999, only 12 percent had returned to prison with new felony convictions. The military discipline portion of the program is designed to break down streetwise attitudes so staff can teach positive values and attitudes.