Inmates Mark Time at Prison’s ‘Boot Camp’ : Penal systems: The Rose Valley Work Camp steals an attitude from the military. Its prisoners follow a spit and polish routine and the results have been encouraging.

Every morning at 5:45, reveille sounds and 65 men hustle out of their bunks to prepare for inspection.

The pencil sharpener must be free of shavings, the window sills clean of dust. The white linoleum floors are expected to glisten like mirrors and bed blankets must be taut enough to bounce a quarter.

By 7:30 a.m., 65 pairs of boots polished to a mirror shine await the scrutiny of the sergeant, who peers intently at each man and takes note of any flaws.

It isn’t the U.S. Navy base at Port Hueneme. Nor the one at Point Mugu.

This is the Rose Valley Work Camp.

The camp is a minimum-security jail, half an hour north of Ojai in the Los Padres National Forest, that the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department runs like a military training camp.

The experimental camp--which also offers job training and substance-abuse programs--has just observed its one-year anniversary and is receiving rave reviews from officials and prisoners alike.

“I like the discipline part about it,” said Paul Conley, a 30-year-old Ventura resident serving time for being under the influence of cocaine. “Out of all the places there are to go in the county, this is the best one.”

Military-style jail facilities, known as “boot camps,” are gaining popularity with corrections departments across the country. Many are run with the idea that a prisoner’s stay will be so grueling and unpleasant that he will never want to return to jail.

But the Rose Valley facility--where prisoners enjoy eight hours of free time a day and are able to frolic on a lush lawn with their families every weekend--hardly follows that philosophy.

“We just want to give them enough discipline so they break their addictive patterns and learn to get up and go to work,” said Cmdr. Robert Brooks of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

By the time they leave Rose Valley, the men should be better equipped to hold jobs and live responsibly, Brooks said.

Rose Valley is one of a handful of boot camps nationwide to provide job training, offering a six-week auto mechanics course.

Classes are held in a garage at the camp on weekdays. And, every Saturday, inmates are bused to Ventura College to work with more equipment and to get basic training in reading, writing and arithmetic, Brooks said.

Of the first 41 inmates who graduated from the auto mechanics program, five now work as mechanics and 20 are employed in other fields. The Sheriff’s Department has not been in contact with the other 16, Assistant Sheriff Richard Bryce said.

“It’s kind of like a laboratory in the forest,” Bryce said. “We’re learning as much as the inmates are about human behavior.”

The Sheriff’s Department opened the camp last May to ease crowding in the Main Jail in Ventura. The 10-acre camp was built in 1954 by the U.S. Navy as a training base for Seabees.

The Forest Service had plans to bulldoze the compound, which had been vacated long ago, when the Sheriff’s Department offered to renovate it for about $1.3 million.

The camp can handle 125 inmates, though the department has not been able to find enough prisoners who meet the program’s guidelines, Brooks said.

Inmates accepted into the program are hand-selected and must have no history of violence or disciplinary problems and be charged on a misdemeanor count, Brooks said.

“These are the ones who are motivated to learn something,” Brooks said. “This is the cream of the inmate population.”

Participants are required to sign a contract saying they will abide by the rules and regimen of the camp.

Six times a day, the men must march in double time. They are not allowed to swear or smoke. The buttons on their shirts must line up with belt buckles. A barber chair is set up permanently to keep hair at regulation length.

Between 7:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., inmates are taking classes or serving on work detail--laying irrigation pipes, cleaning campgrounds for the Forest Service or making wooden toys that are donated to charity.

Breaking one of the camp’s many rules or showing even the hint of an attitude problem will send an inmate back to the Main Jail. He will also lose at least five days of “good time”--time reduced from a sentence for model behavior, Brooks said. On a recent day, a man was expelled for smuggling a pack of cigarettes into the camp.

But for all the hard work and discipline, guards and inmates say that life is pretty good at the camp, which is tucked between rolling hills in the scenic national forest. Pansies, marigolds and roses line planters around the complex. No doors are locked, and inmates often work outside the camp’s gates.

During their free time, they can lift weights, throw horseshoes, play volleyball or basketball, go jogging or just relax.

The biggest complaint of prisoners at the remote camp is the lack of phones. The Sheriff’s Department currently uses cellular phones, and hopes to install phones for prisoners in the next two months.

“It’s a good place to do your time because it’s a nice atmosphere,” said Steve Stebbins, 27, an inmate sentenced to six weeks for violating parole. “There’s a lot less tension and stress than there would be in County Jail.” The regimen and work detail build character, said John Ketterman, 53, who draws from his 20-year career in the U.S. Army when he barks out orders and leads the men in drills and calisthenics.

“It’s good for their morale and pride,” Ketterman said.