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Pinellas closes its boot camp

Converting the juvenile detention facility to satisfy a legislative mandate cost too much, Sheriff Jim Coats says.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN and JACOB H. FRIES
Published June 30, 2006

LARGO - The Pinellas County Boot Camp, which opened in the early 1990s as a tough-love approach to juvenile justice, suddenly shuttered its doors Thursday and sent its last group of teenage criminals to other facilities.

Sheriff Jim Coats said it simply would cost too much to comply with a new state law replacing boot camps with less confrontational academies called Sheriff's Training and Respect, or STAR.

Coats said he had been confident he could make the required changes until the state Department of Juvenile Justice presented him last month with a contract that would have required $1.2-million to $1.4-million in local tax dollars.

That's twice as much as last year.

"I was very supportive of the new concept," Coats said during a news conference announcing the closing. "But unfortunately, the funding is just not there."

Last month, Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law the Martin Lee Anderson Act, named for the 14-year-old who died Jan. 6, a day after he was roughed up by guards at the Bay County camp. The law calls for converting boot camps to the STAR program and bars the use of ammonia and the physical contact guards used with Anderson.

Sheriffs in Martin and Manatee counties recently closed their boot camps, citing similar reasons. Only the Polk County facility remains.

"Our agency fully supports the new legislation and the corresponding appropriation that creates STAR academies and we are disappointed by Sheriff Coats' decision," Juvenile Justice Secretary Anthony Schembri said in a statement. "In spite of today's announcement, we are dedicated to implementing STAR academies as the Legislature's tribute to Martin Lee Anderson."

The Legislature this year allocated a record-breaking $709-million to the department, Schembri said - $60.5-million more than the previous year's budget.

State Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, said Coats' decision was unfortunate after the Legislature came up with additional money for the program to replace boot camps. "The money we allocated to the STAR program is historic," he said.

But Coats said that money would not offset the increased costs.

Barreiro, who called attention to the Panama City beating after seeing a surveillance videotape, suggested sheriffs are shuttering their programs because they can no longer use physical and mental intimidation. "If they don't want to be in the business the way the state thinks they should be, then they should find something else to do," he said.

Trenia Byrd-Cox, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP, said she had mixed emotions about the boot camp's closing. She said she was confident in Coats' leadership, but disappointed that he couldn't get the money he needed.

"The kind of transitions we were hoping to see really calls for additional funds and those funds were not forthcoming," Byrd-Cox said. "The idea is that we're not just trying to warehouse youth. We're really trying to provide them with skills and support."

The Pinellas boot camp, near the county jail on 49th Street, had put youths in platoons of 10 to 15 who attended classes that stressed discipline. The program also included a transition phase that prepared them to return to the community, and a conditional release program through which they went home to families under the supervision of boot camp staffers.

Coats also had questioned the success of the program. A study he commissioned this spring found that 666 of the 740 youths who attended the camp from November 1993 to November 2005 were arrested after completing the program. Of those, 607 were convicted or given some form of juvenile judgment.

But before Thursday's announcement, Coats said he wanted to set up a residential facility to temporarily house boot camp graduates, rather than return them to communities where they first committed crimes.

"I want to stay in the business of helping young people," Coats said Thursday. "That's part of my administration, helping youth wherever we can."

County Commission Chairman Ken Welch said Coats did not formally ask the commission for extra funding. He praised the programs at the camp, but said he was disappointed with its high recidivism rate.

Would he have supported giving the camp an extra $1.4-million?

"Not as it is with the 90 percent reoffending rate," Welch said. "It has to be an effective program."

Now, all that remains of Florida's boot camp experiment is the one in Polk County. Sheriff Grady Judd said he expected to sign a contract with the state today to turn it into the state's only STAR center.

"My heart wants to stay in but my head keeps telling me to get out," Judd said. "There's just so much bureaucratic overlap now. ... Making this program work is a tremendous burden."

[Last modified June 30, 2006, 02:09:42]