Boot Camps, Work Camps, and Community Needs: A Restorative Justice Perspective on Correctional Objectives

Source: (1996) In, Juvenile and Adult Boot Camps. Lanham, MD: American Correctional Association. Pp. 219-232.

This paper considers how the restorative justice model can be implemented in boot camps and work camps and examines what the community expects from such programs. The “lens” of restorative justice provides an important perspective on community needs that can help boot and work camp planners and administrators develop objectives. While these camps address the public desire for discipline and punishment, they often do nothing to address the need for accountability to victims and the community. In the restorative justice arena, victim advocates are demanding and are receiving rights and attention. Restorative justice is central to a relatively new approach, the balanced and restorative justice project model. Program priorities in this model include restitution, restorative community service, work experience and other forms of competency development, victim-offender mediation, and preventive capacity building. Boot and work camps in Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Florida that have moved in the direction of the restorative justice model are described. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.