Tough Love

Drill sergeants barked orders and their charges snapped to attention.

Dressed in desert-camouflage fatigues and black boots, they saluted the colors and their superiors and marched lock-step in precise formations.

These are not Marines at Camp Lejuene, but girls at Camp Joseph Scott, the state’s first juvenile boot camp for female criminals. A few months ago, they were flouting authority. But Wednesday, they were in step with it.

Demonstrating their newfound discipline, they were key players for officials with the Los Angeles County Probation Department during an open house for their facility and for the adjoining Camp Kenyon Scudder, the boys’ boot camp.

The open house was for about 135 county government, court and probation officials, representatives of youth organizations and the news media.

Both camps have been operating for more than a year, but the Probation Department held the open house Wednesday to show what their $2.5-million annual budgets pay for.

These camps put inmates through rigorous physical training and marching drills in the style of military boot camps, plus daily classes designed to prepare them for life after incarceration. Most earn either high school or general equivalency diplomas at the camps.

After the youths’ terms are up, probation officers help them find jobs and make adjustments to life on the outside, a key element in the department’s plan to reduce the number of repeat offenders.

Each camp holds about 110 prisoners, age 13 to 18, for terms ranging from four months to a year. Many are chronic or violent lawbreakers convicted of assault, robbery, burglary or illicit drug use. Without the boot camps, the youths would be inmates at California Youth Authority institutions.

Although some critics question the cost and effectiveness of such camps, probation officials say they have been successful in guiding youths out of a life of crime.

Barry Nidorf, chief county probation officer, said the recidivism rate at the state’s four boot camps is nearly half the rate for the entire 18-camp juvenile system. Systemwide, about 40% of the inmates commit crimes after release, compared to 25% of those released from boot camps, Nidorf said.

But the numbers aren’t the main concern, said Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Richard Montes.

“When it comes to helping you, we don’t care about statistics,” he told the inmates.

“You are the ones who make this program work. Whether it continues depends on what you do in the next several years.”