MI Boot Camp Under Scrutiny
The scared-straight reputation of Michigan’s prison boot camp, a program for which Kwame Kilpatrick has qualified to dramatically shorten his stay behind bars, is undeserved, according to critics. Reported in The Detroit News.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on Wednesday filed objections to a Michigan Department of Corrections notice that the former mayor of Detroit can enter the program that could shorten his 1 1/2 – to 5-year sentence for criminal probation violations to as little as 90 days.
“Years ago, it was a viable program,” Worthy said. “Now, it has morphed into a halfway house where they sit around and talk about each others’ feelings. There is no true boot camp anymore.”
Budget pressures, prison overcrowding and complaints about the military-style boot camp’s effectiveness have resulted in changes that some say watered down the original hardcore physical and psychological challenge. More time now is spent in classrooms to prepare prisoners for their early release — and to prevent them from winding up back in prison.
“It, quite frankly, has become a program to empty out the prisons of low-level offenders,” Worthy said.
Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner received notice Wednesday that Kilpatrick qualified for the program, just two weeks after sentencing him to prison for hiding more than $500,000 in assets that could have been applied to $1 million restitution he promised the city in a 2008 plea-deal to avoid trial in the text message scandal.
Kilpatrick’s lawyer, Arnold Reed, said prison officials didn’t necessarily recommend his client for the program, which includes a 30-day community placement, but asked the judge for his input. Both Kilpatrick and the judge are required to approve participation in the Special Alternative Incarceration program at the state’s Cassidy Lake Facility near Chelsea. The judge isn’t required to hold a pubic hearing on the matter.
According to Department of Corrections literature, guards act like drill sergeants, yelling at inmates, requiring strict discipline, rigid military-style behavior, vigorous physical exercise and menial labor. The program aims at changing participants’ “anti-social attitudes, criminal lifestyles, and prepare themselves for re-entry into the community as productive, law-abiding citizens.”
Mel Grieschaber, executive director of the union that represents corrections officers, said the boot camp’s trainers still have pride in their work, but admits, “the imagery of 20 years ago when it started, the physical part isn’t as tough. It still has the flavor of a military boot camp, breaking down people to build them up, and a far more strict routine and discipline than regular prison, but there also is much more emphasis on programmatic and therapeutic aspects now.”
Federal funds dried up for boot camps in the late 1990s, after a U.S. Department of Justice study concluded similar camps throughout the country “fail to reduce repeat offending after release compared to having similar offenders serve time on probation or parole, both for adults and for juveniles.”
A 2007 Michigan Auditor General’s report found the state’s boot camp graduates became repeat offenders at a higher rate than prisoners who qualified for the program but didn’t participate.
“When studies were done, it shows boot camps don’t work,” said Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Almost every state has done away with them because they don’t work. Ninety days isn’t enough time to change people’s behaviors. They found out the military-style stuff … wasn’t working.”
Cropsey said state funding for the $11 million program was set to expire this year, but corrections authorities want it to continue because it saves about $2.5 million a year and reduces the inmate population by 1,500 to 2,000 annually.
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