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Sunday, March 19, 2006

Aftermath of the youth boot camp lynch-murder

The St. Petersburg Times editorializes about the lessons from the brutal beating to death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson who had been sent to a penal "boot camp" for the crime of swiping his grandmother's car one Sunday morning while she was in church and going for a "joy ride": Never Again 03/19/06. They write:

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.

The "boot camp" idea appeals to authoritarian-minded white folks who imagine that they inmates will mostly be black (like the murdered kid), Latino or "white trash".

The editorial explains:

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.

If the treatment that resulted in the death of the Anderson kid is any sign of how these "boot camps" actually work, the whole idea is questionable in the extreme:

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.

The editorial praises Brother Jeb for appointing a special prosecutor.

Let's hope the killers in this case aren't given the kind of slap-on-the-wrist sentences that those who have committed similar acts in Dubya's torture gulag have received.

posted at 2:44:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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