Teen Boot Camp: A Deadly Decision?

Desperate parents are turning to "boot camp"-style rehabilitation centers to turn their troubled teens around. Do these programs work, or are they putting our kids at even greater risk?

The Dangers of Boot Camp

Chuck Long, in command of a bunch of boys, glared at them and then spun on his heels, grinding his boots into the parched Arizona sand. The Colonel, as Long was called, was facing a mutiny: Several kids wanted out of his boot camp.

Days here were long and brutal, beginning at 5 a.m., when the boys were roused for a grueling hour or more of calisthenics. Then it was long-distance runs, hiking, more exercises. Discipline was tough. Drill instructors yelled at the boys, shoved them, used leg shackles or handcuffs on some who misbehaved. It was all part of Long's program to instill "honor, discipline and respect."

Tony Haynes, 14, was one who wanted out. He'd been caught shoplifting a plastic action figure from a drugstore near his home in Phoenix. It was his first offense, and his mom, Melanie Hudson, a single parent, wanted to steer him from a life of truancy. Tony's therapist suggested Long's camp. It sounded like a godsend. "The instructors would get in Tony's face, they would not cut him any slack and they'd hold him responsible for his actions," says Hudson. They were promising, she said, "the same thing I was looking for."

As punishment for wanting to quit, witnesses told authorities, Haynes was ordered to sit on the ground in 110-degree heat. After several hours, with dehydration baking his brain, Haynes started to hallucinate. He got down on his knees and shoveled dirt into his mouth. "I found water!" he cried. Then he collapsed.

Counselors tried pouring water into him, but it was too late. Haynes was pronounced dead at 11 p.m. on July 1, 2001. The cause: "Complications of near drowning and dehydration due to heat exposure."

They're called outdoor behavioral health care facilities, or "youth boot camps." Since springing up two decades ago, they've become a final refuge for frustrated parents who pay as much as $15,000 to put their child in a six-week program. State juvenile-justice systems, seeking alternatives to jail for kids with emotional or substance-abuse problems, or first-time offenders, also embrace the camps.

There are over 100 wilderness and boot-camp programs operating in the United States, with more than 10,000 kids enrolled. More than half of the camps are operated by state juvenile-justice programs, from Texas to New York, Florida to California. It isn't cheap to run them. Texas, for example, budgets more than $22 million per year, a mix of federal and state funds, for its camps that serve 2800 kids.

Another 50 or so of these camps nationwide are privately run. In many states they operate only on weekends or in four- to six-week intervals to skirt state licensing or inspection requirements that apply to full-time youth programs.

"Some parents and juvenile courts don't care about the licensing. They just want a program where they can put kids. The system is so overwhelmed," says Doris MacKenzie, a University of Maryland professor who has studied boot camps.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Washington, D.C., estimates that 2.3 million kids under 18 go through the juvenile-justice system each year. With a glut of offenders, there are fewer resources for the 10,000 or so kids flirting with vandalism, theft or truancy, says R. Dean Wright, a criminology professor at Drake University in Iowa. It's those types of kids who end up in boot camps. Youth are put into the wilderness or in a military setting, where counselors create a disciplined atmosphere to steer kids straight through hard work, physical exercise and verbal sparring. Other camps feature a rigorous military style, from early morning marching drills to strenuous obstacle courses. All use strict discipline to keep their charges in line.

For many, the camps work. Pedro Madrid, 13, attended a Chuck Long boot camp in 2000 and liked it enough that he wanted to continue with the program. Doreen Hurff was so happy with her son Justin's change of attitude after a Long camp that she enrolled her other son, Michael.

But two decades of research and results have left juvenile-justice experts divided, says Jerry Wells of the Koch Criminal Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Topeka, Kansas. Today many former backers of the programs wonder if boot camps are any way to treat a kid.

That's because since 1983, 35 children have died in boot camps. Gina Score, 14, died in 1999 at a state-run camp in South Dakota after she was forced to run in sweltering heat until she collapsed. The girl was then left unattended in the sun for hours. The parents of Aaron Bacon, 16, enrolled him in a 64-day program in Utah in 1994 because he was dabbling in marijuana. He lasted 30 days before dying of a perforated ulcer. Counselors ignored his symptoms.

Beyond the deaths, thousands of children have suffered injuries -- many at the hands of their counselors -- ranging from broken bones and torn tendons to hypothermia and heat exhaustion.

In 1996 Maryland ran several boot camps, with names like Savage Leadership Challenge. In March the state settled a class-action lawsuit brought by 900 former campers who charged physical abuse by boot-camp guards. There were documented cases of broken arms, fingers, teeth. One boy passed out after a guard stepped on his head. Another boy's face was slammed into a chalkboard. Yet another required stitches after a guard pushed him into a ditch. Maryland investigations found widespread evidence of physical abuse at the camps, and they were closed.

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