What are boot camps? Please describe the different types currently used throughout the United States

What will be an ideal response?


The idea of boot camp programs for offenders first began in 1983 in Georgia, whereby correctional programs borrowed the military concept of breaking existing habits and thought patterns and rebuilding offenders to be more disciplined through intensive physical training, hard labor, drill and ceremony, and rigid structure. This concept multiplied as the most common form of shock incarceration from 1983 to the late 1990s. Boot camp programs exist inside state prisons or local jails, within the community, and even as a small part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (MacKenzie & Hebert, 1996). However, the more successful correctional boot camps also provided therapeutic and educational activities, such as drug and alcohol education, individual or group counseling, vocational training, anger management, and academic education. The two main types of boot camps are:
• Prison boot camps: Offenders are chosen by correctional administrators to participate, and ultimately the offender volunteers for the program. The boot camp is usually within a prison correctional facility, but boot camp participants remain separate from the general population for the program duration. Offenders are paroled upon graduation from boot camp. Time served is significantly less than with a regular prison sentence.
• Probation/jail boot camps: Offenders are chosen to participate at the time of sentencing by judges or by jail authorities. Although the judges are directed to choose offenders who otherwise would have gone to prison, probation boot camps are criticized for widening the net—choosing offenders who otherwise would have been sentenced to probation. These boot camps are located in the community and are supervised by county sheriff departments, probation departments, or a combination of both. Offenders in probation boot camps do not go to prison but remain in a residential community facility. Following boot camp, offenders graduate to intensive supervision probation or regular probation.

Criminal Justice

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What will be an ideal response?

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What type of sentence means that convicted criminals are given a fixed number of years they must serve rather than a range?

a. split b. determinate c. indeterminate d. mandatory

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Which of the following statements about probation is true?

A) Pennsylvania officials calculated that it costs the state more than $32,000 per year for each offender on probation. B) Today, less than one million offenders are on probation. C) Pennsylvania officials calculated that it costs the state less than $3,000 per year for each offender in prison. D) The prosecutor retains authority over the probationer. E) Probation budgets in many states have been cut and caseloads increased as lawmakers struggle with shrinking resources.

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