Solved by verified expert:he assignment for this unit is a little different in that you will apply what you have learned in chapter 8 and in your outside research to questions related to the story about Mr. John on pages 195-196 of Alarid (2017) or on pages 198-199 of Alarid (2015). Write an essay in which you answer the following questions:Would getting “out of the life” have saved Mr. John? Why or why not? Is the outcome in Mr. John’s case an indictment against the use of residential community supervision programs? Why or why not? What, if anything, can be done to change the life path of individuals who are headed in the wrong direction?You are provided information on these topics in the assigned online readings and the additional resources posted for Unit 5 discussion. You should use all available sources and/or those you have located on your own in completing your Unit 5 Assignment paper. Your paper must include information from the text and three additional quality reference sources for a total of four reference sources. Effective use of each reference source is worth 10 points. Every time you submit a paper with fewer than four quality academic sources, you will lose points. Your paper should be approximately 750 – 900 words. The paper must be in APA format. Cite your sources in APA format.
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How Do You Try to Reach and Change the Lives of Young
Offenders in Boot Camp?
Despite the troubled and violent lives students at the Harris County Boot Camp have led,
the story of Derrick John still seems to catch them off guard. I drag it out and use it to get
their attention just once during the few weeks that I will be their teacher. I wait for the
precise moment when I feel it will be most effective—sometimes at the beginning of our
time together, sometimes at the end. Most of the time, however, I tell the story when I am
feeling overwhelmed by the task in front of me.
He was a nice guy with a great smile, I always start. An attractive, lean young man, 6’3” or
taller, I often told him he should go to Hollywood when he got out of Boot Camp. I actually
looked forward to seeing him in class. This is not always true of the students I teach. While
it’s easy to like the students, almost all are tough and drain on any teacher caring enough to
look into their eyes. Even the smart, easy learners have needs for attention that are so deep
they draw energy from you. They have holes in their young lives that have made them hard
and violent or else depressed and despairing.
Simple autobiographies the students write their first class take days for me to read because
of the harsh existence most have had. And that’s just the parts of their lives they are willing
to write down. Even joking, these students have affectations that show they are covering
up, trying for a resilience to bounce back from family cycles that have led them to crime.
For a while, Mr. John was one of those same draining students who spent the first half of his
tenure at Boot Camp with a chip on his shoulder. “Why do we have to do this? I don’t
understand that,” he’d say, without really ever listening or trying to understand in the first
place. When his mood was even darker, he’d just lay low and try not to call attention to
himself. Those quiet students who try hard to go unnoticed are often the most troubled, I
have found. On those quiet days, I worried the most about Mr. John, feeling like he was still
fuming, boiling deep inside his youthful outward appearance.
Then, for whatever reason, a light went on inside Mr. John when he was about halfway
through the program. I see this reaction to Boot Camp often. The program teaches
discipline and respect, and the students seem to catch on at some point. Either that
happens, or they realize they are here for the long haul and should take advantage of the
county’s services. Whichever is the case, an education immediately reduces their chances of
returning to the criminal justice system.
Mr. John started caring, and then he started learning. He finished assignments quickly and
made scores higher than I even expected of him. But halfway is often too late for some
probationers, especially those who quit school as early as Mr. John. Time and his Boot
Camp days were running out. Every day his schoolwork improved. He became an ideal
student, working hard and offering me a respect he had never shown before. I began to joke
about having him stay in the program long enough to get his G.E.D. We call it “recycling,”
and it means more time at Boot Camp for probationers. It’s the thing they dread the most.
“If I could just keep you another three months, Mr. John,” I’d say, “I could help you finish
this G.E.D.” “I think I’ll just have to talk someone into getting you recycled.” It would make
him crazy when I would say this. No one wanted to be recycled. Everyone wanted to go
home, even those whose home life had led them to Boot Camp.
Dodging Recycling
No one ever jokes about recycling, either. It’s much too serious a subject to the
probationers. I was only half joking, though. I would have loved to have kept Mr. John in
Boot Camp and still think about the difference it would have made had he stayed there for
another three months.
His beaming smile would fade for a moment at my attempt at humor. “You wouldn’t do that
to me,” he’d start. “Would you?” Something in my returned look would tell him I wasn’t
serious, and his smile would reappear before I even needed to reassure him. Of course, I
could never have him recycled at that point. He was now the picture of a perfect student. I
knew, however, he had started working too late to finish his G.E.D. in Boot Camp. I
emphasized the importance of continuing his education now that he was on the right track.
He could still get his G.E.D. in a few more months with the help of the continuing education
program at the Harris County Adult Probation Department. He just had to take more of the
responsibility on himself.
Finally, one Wednesday, as is always the case with graduations at Boot Camp, he left the
program along with the other 45 members of his barracks. He marched for the crowd of
parents and visitors and listened to the graduation speech of hope for the future—now
with cleaned slates and new, healthier habits and minds. He was so nervous, like all the
probationers are on this day, that he shook my hand quickly with little notice as to whose
hand it was. He never let his eyes meet mine, although I tried to impress him with one last
remark. “Keep at it, Mr. John. You’ve come too far to stop,” I said.
Nine days later, his last essay still in my briefcase, Mr. John was shot and killed by a police
officer after a robbery. He had fallen back in with a peer group that had waited for him back
home and outside the secure barbed wire fence of the Boot Camp. At 17 years old, Mr. John
never even had a life. With little or no parenting and an unsuccessful school experience, he
never had a chance. When he entered Boot Camp, he may have looked like a hardened
street thug, but when he left, he looked like the boy he still was.
Story’s Impact
I don’t know what part of Mr. John’s story reaches my other students first. Maybe they see
their own vulnerability to death. Maybe they were shocked by his youth. Maybe they are
just frustrated that I use him as an example of my desire to keep them out of trouble and
into education.
I can’t keep them alive just by keeping them locked up, which is what I wish I had done
with Mr. John. I know that wouldn’t be a life. I know also that if they return to their former
habits and former friends, things are going to happen to them anyway. Sooner or later.
Prison or death.
I run across Mr. John’s math workbook when I’m searching other files. Occasionally, I see
an essay he wrote tucked in with other students’ school papers. Maybe I run into the
newspaper article about his death. I keep all these remembrances intentionally. It always
surprises me for that minute; stuns me with reality.
I see his smile and picture his long legs stretching from his desk at the back of the
classroom. And his eyes; I can still see the boy that would never live long enough to be a
man. I want to be reminded of Mr. John. That’s why I keep his schoolwork. I also want my
other students to be reminded. I want them to realize that this same probationer could be
any one of them. I tell them that I can’t have it happen again. The story of Mr. John has
broken my heart, and it will never harden to such blows. With this, I’m telling them that I
care. I want them to try. I want them out of trouble and into a happy life that does not
include violence and death.
Question: What can be done, if anything, to change the life path of individuals who are going
in the wrong direction?
Source: Hensley, Denise Bray. 1995. One boy’s life. Houston Chronicle (September 17). Reprinted with author
permission.
Table 8.1 shows a daily schedule that begins at 5:30 A.M. and is full of
hard labor, drills, and confidence-building rope courses along with
educational classes and an early bedtime. For many offenders, boot
camp is difficult and does not leave much free time. Participants learn
respect, leadership, and the program has added medical and weight loss
benefits.
Table 8.1
Daily Schedule in a Typical Boot Camp
Time
Schedule
A.M.
5:30
Wake up and standing count
5:45–
6:30
Calisthenics and drill
6:30–
7:00
Run
7:00–
8:00
Mandatory breakfast and cleanup
8:15
Standing count and company formation
8:30–
11:55
Work and school schedules
Time
Schedule
P.M.
12:00–
12:30
Mandatory lunch and standing count
12:30–
3:30
Afternoon work and school schedule
3:30–
4:00
Shower
4:00–
4:45
Network community meeting
4:45–
5:45
Mandatory dinner, prepare for evening
6:00–
9:00
School, group counseling, drug counseling,
prerelease counseling, decision-making classes
8:00
Count while in programs
9:15–
9:30
Squad bay, prepare for bed
9:30
Standing count, lights out
Source: National Institute of Justice. 1994. Program focus shock incarceration in New York. Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice (August).
It seems, then, that boot camp, despite its denial of television and
cigarettes and its requirement of rigorous physical engagement, has
provided positive experiences to help offenders and so has increased its
legitimacy above that of prison (Franke et al., 2010). See Box 8.5 for
what offenders thought about joining the U.S. military as an alternative
to prison.
…
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