Boot Camps
Boot Camps Boot camps are military-style, semi-penal institutions that use discipline, military exercises, and rigorous physical training to break a defiant adolescent. There is more than one type of boot camp. ... Some are privately run "get tough" camps where the guards enforce strict rules. Five years ago the state of Maryland started one of the nations largest boot camp programs for teenage criminals. ... Boot camps have their roots in the 1970s, with large well-organized and violent street gangs. ... Townsend, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration, said she considered boot camps a cost-effective, intermediate punishment and included them among her priorities.