Boot camps for young offenders 'were a failure'
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Military-style boot camps designed to deter young criminals from reoffending by instilling military discipline and teaching them to perform drill, have been condemned as a failure in an official report.
A Home Office study found that young men who attended an Army-run detention camp in Essex committed more serious crimes on their release than those who had attended a normal institution.
A similar regime at a Prison Service-run unit in Cheshire reduced reoffending, but only because offenders were found work placements and other help. Drill did nothing to reduce their criminality and they became more badly behaved, the study found.
The boot camp idea was introduced by the former Tory home secretary Michael Howard in response to growing public unease over prolific young offenders. Influenced by Army-style jail units used for young criminals in the United States, Mr Howard ordered in 1997 that offenders – aged 18-21 and regarded as tough enough to cope with the regime – be sent to the Military Corrective Training Centre in Colchester, known to soldiers as the Glasshouse.
An evaluation report published by the Home Office said yesterday that ministers hoped "young offenders would experience, as closely as possible, the military regime and ethos" of the Glasshouse.
The offenders were given drilling, marching and physical training and had "rigorous" room and kit inspections. They were denied access to television and telephones and escorted wherever they went.
But the study, which followed offenders for two years after release, found that those at Colchester were more likely to go on and commit violent offences and that their reoffending cost society an average of £839 more than for other young offenders.
The use of Colchester for teenage offenders was stopped by the Government in 1998 because it was deemed "too expensive".
Home Office researchers reported: "Colchester young offenders were not more deterred from offending, did not have more anti-offending attitudes, did not have greater control of aggression, were not better behaved and did not have greater self-control."
A similar scheme set up by the Prison Service in 1996 at Thorn Cross young offenders' institution at Warrington, Cheshire, was more successful and reduced offending rates.
Every £1 spent on the High Intensity Training scheme was reckoned to have saved society £5 in preventing further crime. But the research team found the success of Thorn Cross had less to do with the physical regime than programmes that challenged offending behaviour and found inmates work placements prior to release.
Despite their lack of re- offending, the youths at the Prison Service centre had "increased pro-offending attitudes" and were more badly behaved.
The report concluded: "These regimes [Colchester and Thorn Cross] certainly did not deter offending by tough "boot camp" treatment."
It said many inmates enjoyed the tough regime and that those at Colchester "liked receiving paternalistic advice from masculine role models".
But the tough treatment did not influence future criminality, the report said. "The main message that might be drawn from this evaluation is that more resources should be devoted to offending behaviour and after-care programmes."