This study of 784 inmates in a boot camp in a southern state was designed to determine what elements from life-course theory distinguished between graduates, dropouts, and dismissals from the program in this facility. Multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that several social bonds—such as employment, income, marital status—and personal assets like self-efficacy differentiated graduates from dropouts and dismissals from that program. In contrast, selling drugs, illegal income, and carrying a weapon also were associated with graduation.
Lack of self-control, drug use, and peer association differentiated dropouts from graduates, whereas history of being abused, emotional problems, and suicidal attempts distinguished dismissals from graduates. The implications of these findings for further research and current decision-making are discussed.
Boot camps were introduced with great fanfare and expectations by correctional administrators, legislators, and media specialists as an answer to many of the looming exigencies resulting from prison-overcrowding and fiscal constraints (MacKenzie, 1990 and Parent, 1989). The introduction of these programs was not without controversy: from the outset, critics argued that boot camps were based on military training strategies designed to instill aggression for combat (Welch, 1997). Morash and Rucker (1990) contended that boot camp training reinforced the very attitudes that were associated with the commission of crimes. These programs also were characterized as low-dosage and ill-defined interventions (Benda & Pallone, 2005, Lutze & Brody, 1999 and McCorkle, 1995).
More recent critiques were based on empirical evidence (Benda & Pallone, 2005, Cullen & Gendreau, 2001 and MacKenzie & Armstrong, 2004). Some researchers contended that a consensus was emerging in a new era of “evidence-based corrections” that boot camps were siphoning off scarce resources from interventions with demonstrated effectiveness (Cullen & Gendreau, 2001 and Latessa et al., 2002). In the most comprehensive study to date, MacKenzie, Brame, McDowall, and Souryal (1995) found that while boot camps did not reduce recidivism, programs with more rehabilitation components (e.g., drug treatment, academic education) and programs targeting prison bound offenders did significantly reduce recidivism in comparison to traditional correctional institutions. In a more recent meta-analysis of forty-four independent boot camp/comparison sample contrasts, MacKenzie, Wilson, and Kider (2001) concluded that it was premature to definitely conclude that boot camp programs were ineffective at reducing crime. They maintained that it was possible that the integration of the boot camp model and therapeutic programming may produce a synergy capable of reducing recidivism.
Empirical questions concerning the effectiveness of boot camp programs may well have been a preoccupation of scholars that had limited if any functional relevance to practitioners, policymakers, and legislators (Cullen, Blevins, Trager, & Gendreau, 2005). Boot camps were marketed with extravagant claims based on ideological and political ideas rather than on empirically established practices (Finckenauer, 2005 and Stinchcomb, 2005). Conservatives believed boot camps provided a secure facility where inmates were forced to deal with the harsh consequences of crime, and they would learn self-control through regimented military training and hard labor. Liberals believed the same programs offered education and rehabilitation that provided opportunities for conventional living. Boot camps were sold as the ideal solution to the problem of how to incarcerate a large number of offenders for punishment as well as for rehabilitation (Benda & Pallone, 2005 and Parent, 2003
