85© 2010 American Society of CriminologyCriminology & Public Policy • Volume 9 • Issue 1

Editorial Introduction

L E G I t I M A c y P E R c E P t I O n S I n c O R R E c t I O n S

Boot camps redux What can they tell us about correctional legitimacy?

Susan turner, Senior EditorU n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a , I r v i n e

When we hear the words “boot camps,” many of us recall the great fanfare with which this model burst on the correctional landscape and was lauded by politicians, who recalled their own transformations in military boot camps. The boot-camp model,

with its emphasis on strict discipline and physical training, blossomed across the country only to lose its luster when evaluations began to show that, despite positive changes in offender attitudes, no evidence showed that boot camps were not effective in reducing recidivism for juveniles or adults (MacKenzie 2006; Wilson, MacKenzie, and Mitchell, 2003).

Despite disappointing recidivism outcomes, boot camps could allow us to learn about different aspects of the incarceration experience. In Franke, Bierie, and MacKenzie’s (2010, this issue) article, a boot camp was used as a laboratory to understand the role legitimacy plays in the correctional system (as opposed to policing and courts). They asked the following two main questions: Do inmate attitudes toward the justice system change during the course of confinement, and if so, what causes it? Perceptions of legitimacy in prisons are different from those in courts and of the police because, as Franke et al. stated, contact is longer in prison, and interactions are diverse and wider ranging.

At first blush, one might think that the boot-camp structure could be delegitimizing with a focus on corporal punishment within an authoritarian environment. At the same time, however, boot camps also have shown improvement in prosocial attitudes, which suggests the opposite might be true. To answer their questions, Franke et al. (2010) took advantage of a rare random-ized experiment in which inmates served identical length sentences in either a boot camp or a traditional prison; attitudes were measured the week before inmates entered their programs and again 6 months later. Legitimacy measures were selected from a larger survey along themes of trust, allegiance, and confidence in the system.

Direct correspondence to susan Turner, Department of Criminology, law and society, university of Calilfornia, Irvine, 336 social ecology, Irvine, Ca 92697 (e-mail: sfturner@uci.edu).

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Results showed that inmates who left the boot camp had higher measures of perceived legitimacy than those who left the regular prison, although the boot-camp perceptions had not increased from pre- to post-prison experience. Boot-camp participants perceived more posi-tive than negative experiences. Negative experiences worsened perceptions of legitimacy, and positive attitudes improved attitudes toward the justice system. Importantly, when facility type and experiences were tested simultaneously in the same regression model, the effect for facility disappeared—providing support for the hypothesis that it is the types of experiences and not the facility per se that engender feelings of legitimacy.

Unfortunately, the available quantitative data did not allow Franke et al. (2010) to test explicitly concepts of procedural and distributive justice—concepts that have been linked to legitimacy. However, Franke et al. provided qualitative insights into the differences between the two environments that suggest these concepts are at play.

In one policy essay, Tyler (2010, this issue) focused on procedural justice in incarceration. He was concerned with why legitimacy did not increase in either of the institutions studied. He noted that research with police has shown that legitimacy can be increased—can this also be the case with incarceration? The findings of Franke et al. (2010) suggest that it can happen, but because procedural justice was not measured directly, their findings might reflect other dif-ferences, such as program offerings, staff conduct to create safe prison environments, and so on, which also can contribute to feelings of legitimacy. Taking a larger policy view, Tyler suggested that the policy of widespread prison use is, itself, questionable. However, he recognized that to the degree that prisons are needed, procedures should be in place that are fair and treat people with dignity, courtesy, and respect.

Kurlychek’s (2010, this issue) policy essay “Transforming attitudinal change into behav-ioral change” asked what the characteristics of boot camps are that lead to positive attitude changes, and why it is that positive changes often do not translate into behavioral change once offenders return to the community? The positive experiences in boot camps might not result from anything to do with the military model but rather from the provision of services, a more attractive environment, lower risk offenders, and little idle time to share criminogenic attitudes and behavior. Although Franke et al. (2010) did not address the recidivism issue in their article, Kurlycheck predicted that the boot-camp sample would not show any differences from the prison sample (actually, MacKenzie, Bierie, and Mitchell, 2007, found marginal differences in recidivism, which favored the boot camp) because the skills learned in boot camp do not translate into success on the street, and offenders face structural barriers after release, such as poor employment opportunities and a lack of housing, access to health care, and so on, which hinder successful integration. Her point was that the inability to change offenders is not what causes rehabilitation programs to fail; they fail because we still do not do a good job in prisoner reentry. Successful reentry requires a better understanding of matching offenders to services as well as reforming social policies that block successful reentry.

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Both policy essays placed boot camps in a larger policy context. For Tyler (2010), it is our overreliance on incarceration; for Kurlycheck (2010), it is impediments to successful offender reintegration. Each essay recommended major policy changes that would affect individual of-fenders as well as the larger community where offenders return after incarceration. Although I recognize that a focus on fairness and resulting legitimacy is necessary for all components of the legal system—from police, to courts, to corrections—I also must realize that reintegrating prisoners into society brings a myriad of challenges in addition to perceptual improvements.

ReferencesFranke, Derrick, David Biere, and Doris L. MacKenzie. 2010. Legitimacy in corrections: A

randomized experiment comparing a boot camp with a prison. Criminology & Public Policy. This issue.

Kurlycheck, Megan C. 2010. Transforming attitudinal change into behavioral change. Criminology & Public Policy. This issue.

MacKenzie, Doris L. 2006. What Works in Corrections: Reducing the Criminal Activities of Offenders and Delinquents. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

MacKenzie, Doris L., David Bierie, and Ojmarrh Mitchell. 2007. An experimental study of a therapeutic boot camp: Impact on impulses, attitudes, and recidivism. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 3: 221–246.

Tyler, Tom R. 2010. Legitimacy in corrections: Policy implications. Criminology & Public Policy. This issue.

Wilson, David B., Doris L. MacKenzie, and Fawn Ngo Mitchell. 2003. Effects of Correctional Boot Camps on Offending. Oslo, Norway: The Campbell Collaboration.

Susan turner is a professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society and the Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Turner led a variety of research projects while she was a Senior Behavioral Scientist at RAND, which included studies on racial disparity, field experiments of private-sector

alternatives for serious juvenile offenders, work release, day fines, and a 14-site evaluation of intensive supervision probation. Her areas of expertise include the design and implementation of randomized field experiments as well as research collaborations with state and local justice agencies. At UCI, Turner currently is assisting the California Department of Corrections in the development and testing of a risk assessment tool as well as an evaluation of a parole viola-tion decision-making instrument designed to provide an orderly decision-making process for responses to violations of parole.

Turner