Boot Camp

Ventura County supervisors on Tuesday will consider approving a financing agreement with two neighboring counties to develop a boot camp for nonviolent youth offenders. The supervisors agreed last year to join with Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties to apply for an $865,000 federal construction grant to build a 40-bed dormitory at the existing Los Prietos Boys Camp in Santa Barbara County.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to consider putting drug-dependent teen-age offenders through a boot camp-type regimen at two Probation Department detention facilities in the Lake Hughes area to help the youths kick their drug habits. Supervisors voted 4 to 0 to have county Probation Department chief Barry Nidorf review a military-style program for possible use at Camp Munz and Camp Mendenhall, two of the department's dozen camps for teen-age offenders.

Eight former boot camp workers were acquitted of manslaughter in the death of a 14-year-old boy who was videotaped being punched and kicked. The scene sparked outrage and changes in the juvenile system. Jurors deliberated for 90 minutes. Anger over the verdict was obvious outside the Panama City courtroom, where bystanders screamed "murderer" at former guard Henry Dickens as he described his relief at the verdict.

Gov. Jane Hull wants the state to look into boosting oversight of private boot camps in the wake of a 14-year-old boy's death at one of the facilities. Hull said her staff is researching how other states keep tabs on such programs and that she will appoint a task force to suggest steps the state should take. "Camps of this type . . . occupy a 'black hole' in our state's regulatory scheme--and that's wrong," Hull said.

Ventura County is hoping to join two other area counties in applying for a $1.3-million federal grant that would be used to operate a military-style boot camp for nonviolent juvenile offenders, officials said. The Board of Supervisors will vote today on a proposal to apply, along with Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, for the grant, which will be available as part of last year's omnibus crime bill, officials said.

A boot camp program for juvenile offenders will receive $300,000 in federal funds to expand job counseling for its graduates. Since October, 15 cadets have been in the military-style program at the Fred C. Nelles School, which is operated by the California Youth Authority. The participants, ages 16 to 21, take part in marching drills, flag-raisings, substance-abuse counseling and classes.

Wake-up is 4:30 a.m. and a long workout regimen follows in the mountain morning chill of extreme eastern San Diego County, where a typical day is crammed from sunup to sundown with drug counseling, vocational training, hard work, barked orders and more exercise.

Seven youthful offenders have graduated from a rigorous boot camp in Whittier after four months of strict military-style living that included marching drills, pushups, flag-raisings and substance-abuse counseling. The young men, who walked through the barbed-wire gates of the Fred C. Nelles School last week, volunteered for the program in exchange for shortened sentences, and will meet with parole officers at least once a week for the next six months.

The Orange County Probation Department is applying for a $30,000 federal grant that it would use to develop a "boot camp" program for juvenile offenders. The U.S. Department of Justice grant would help pay for consultant services to determine if the county's juvenile population would warrant such a program.

Nearly 11 months after a teenage boy died after a beating at a Panhandle boot camp that was caught on videotape and led to an overhaul of Florida's juvenile justice system, seven former guards and a nurse were charged Tuesday with manslaughter. "I'm finally getting justice for my baby," said Gina Jones, mother of Martin Lee Anderson, who was 14 when he died. Prosecutors said Martin died hours after guards choked, kicked and beat him when he collapsed Jan.