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Which is one reason that for most states the greatest challenge is the morass of juvenile justice. Close to a fifth of all violent crime is committed by kids younger than 18. While nearly all states are moving to try more juvenile offenders as adults, 30 states and the Federal Government are also experimenting with boot camps in which juvenile offenders are subjected to a military-style "shock incarceration" program of three to six months. Offered to first-term nonviolent offenders as an alternative to jail, the programs feature military drills and hard labor. Some also include substance-abuse treatment and training that ranges from how to take a shower to how to persuade a prospective employer to hire you despite your prison record.
THOUGH THEY TEND TO COST LESS than long prison terms, boot camps haven't had much impact on recidivism. "We're not finding any significant difference from similar offenders who are put on probation or who serve their time," says Doris MacKenzie, a University of Maryland researcher who has studied eight programs. As many as 60% of the graduates are arrested within a year of returning to their old haunts.
Another tool for which lawmakers are reaching to control crime before it happens is teen curfews. Two dozen cities have adopted them, many in the past year. This month Florida's attorney general will push the legislature for a statewide curfew aimed at everyone younger than 18. The city of Tampa got a jump on that last week when it opted for an 11 p.m. curfew for youths 16 or younger, with an extension to midnight on weekends. It is the parents who get punished -- with a warning, the first time their kids are caught. For subsequent offenses, the penalties can consist of a $1,000 fine, six months in jail or 50 hours of community service.
Some of the people calling most loudly for the curfews are African Americans, who are more likely to know what it means to live on a block made unlivable by crime. "For those who are worried about the constitutionality of the curfew, I'll gladly hire some buses and transfer the kids who are on our streets after 11 p.m. to their neighborhoods," says T. Willard Fair, president of Miami's Urban League.
But curfews do elicit complaints from libertarians that they go too far in punishing the innocent majority to get at the troublesome few. Curfews in Phoenix and Miami's Dade County are under challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union. "People will gladly trade freedom for law and order," says Charles Colson, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, who has been devoted to prison reform since he did time for his involvement in Watergate. "My worry is that the failure of current policies will increase public frustration to the point that people will go for the strong-arm answer."
That fear also pervades the African-American community, which despite its concern about crime is resistant to the crime bill. In the view of the influential Congressional Black Caucus, the Senate version of the legislation stresses prison and mandatory minimum sentences too much over social programs -- an imbalance that affects blacks disproportionately. "I went to Jesse Jackson's conference about black-on-black violence, and everybody there was against the crime bill," says an Administration source. "Their vehemence surprised me."