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Never again

If the remaining boot camps in Florida are to stay open, they need adequate funding, training, oversight and followup.

Now Floridians know that Martin Lee Anderson, the 14-year-old beaten in a North Florida boot camp, didn't die of natural causes. That reversal of the initial autopsy's conclusion raises troubling questions about the original medical examiner's competence and what really happened to Anderson at the hands of camp employees. Answers should be coming soon, when details of the second autopsy and a criminal investigation are made public.

It's not too early to draw one conclusion, however. Boot camps for juvenile offenders are a potentially brutalizing form of punishment that falls far short of meaningful rehabilitation. Remember, the juveniles sentenced to boot camp are not hard-core offenders, but young people deemed to have potential to turn their lives around. Legislators who are seriously considering whether the state's remaining boot camps should be closed are justified in their inquiry by this tragedy, and by additional reports of physical and emotional trauma and high recidivism rates.

As for Bay County officials who have sparked accusations of a coverup of criminal behavior in the case, they have only themselves to blame. Sheriff Frank McKeithen ran the boot camp and was too defensive in reaction to reasonable criticism, making a bad situation worse. Medical Examiner Charles F. Siebert Jr. invited further skepticism by sticking to a hasty ruling that the teen died of sickle-cell trait, a finding that experts on the genetic blood disorder discount.

Gov. Jeb Bush was right to name an outside prosecutor, Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober, to conduct a thorough investigation of the circumstances that led to Anderson's death. A second autopsy ordered by Ober was emotionally wrenching for the family but indicated that Siebert had indeed erred. While full details have not yet been released, Hillsborough Medical Examiner Vernard Adams confirmed that Anderson did not die of natural causes, which rules out sickle-cell trait and casts suspicion on the teen's treatment at the hands of camp drill instructors.

The video of Anderson's ordeal is difficult to watch. After refusing to exercise, he is restrained by as many as five burly instructors who force him to the ground with powerful knee strikes to the thigh, drag him to his feet when it appears he cannot support his own weight and repeatedly punch him on the arm. Such treatment continues for long minutes while a nurse watches from a distance. By the time she decides to check Anderson's heart rate with a stethoscope, it is too late, and instructors are seen racing for a stretcher.

Responsible critics of those actions should wait for Ober to finish his work before drawing conclusions. But the pressure is on Ober and Bush to assure Floridians that a thorough investigation is conducted and that any violations of the law will be aggressively prosecuted. Those who watch the video can't help but feel in their gut that something went horribly wrong at the Bay County boot camp that day.

Boot camps grew out of a popular sentiment to get tough on juvenile crime. Theoretically, the military-like setting teaches young offenders self-discipline needed to stay out of trouble while offering training and education, and for a few it works. A very few, according to statistics compiled by Pinellas County Sheriff Jim Coats, who operates a boot camp near the county jail. Coats had his staff research every boot camp "graduate" from the past dozen years. The result: 9 out of 10 were rearrested, more than half within a year of release.

"That's pretty alarming," said Coats, who still sees value in boot camps, though without the physical punishment at the Bay County camp. He attributes the poor showing to a lack of supervision once juveniles return to their often dysfunctional family lives and crime-ridden neighborhoods. At a yearly cost of $2-million to operate his boot camp, Coats correctly wonders if taxpayers are getting their money's worth. Not many endeavors would survive with a 90 percent failure rate.

Martin County's boot camp is considered the only real success story in Florida, mainly because of its emphasis on education and an effective postrelease program. In other words, true rehabilitation seems to have little to do with the militaristic elements of boot camp, which makes sense. What positive lesson is a troubled teenager going to learn from being roughed up?

The Department of Juvenile Justice is now reconsidering the practices it will allow boot camp instructors to use, though both Bush and department head Anthony Schembri say they still support the camps. To make any juvenile rehabilitation program work, however, it will take adequate funding, training, oversight and followup. We now know the consequences of failing to do so.

It shouldn't have taken the death of a frail 14-year-old to bring attention to these issues. It was a life unnecessarily lost, but at the very least Martin Lee Anderson's death should spark enough outrage in Floridians to assure that it never happens again.

[Last modified March 18, 2006, 16:38:03]