Wilderness Camp Analysis

Present day wilderness programs for young offenders evolved from two sources: forestry camps for youthful offenders and the Outward Bound model which was created in Wales during the Second World War (Roberts, 1988). The wilderness model strips away the trappings of modern society and focuses on the essential needs of food and shelter, with the goal of fostering the development of self-confidence and socially acceptable coping mechanisms for the participants (Church Council on Justice and Corrections, 1996). There are many wilderness camps for youth across the United States. While there is a lot of variation in the structure of modern wilderness camps, there are some commonalities shared by most programs. Some of those are providing a well-organized program focusing on the mastery of difficult physical challenges, individually or working

cooperatively with other to complete a given task, as well as creating an opportunity for heightened self-respect among youth who have a history of repeated failures in school, difficulty in social relationships and problems with family members. Most wilderness programs include several components or phases through which the youth must pass. The orientation phase involves the youth being introduced to expectations and requirements which must be met for successful completion of the program (Roberts, 1988; Castellano & Soderstrom, 1992). Following orientation is a series of increasingly difficult physical challenges such as rock climbing, canoeing and backpacking. Unlike boot camp, there is also an educational component which each participant is invited to do a "solo", where they survive alone in the wilderness using the skills acquired during the program (Castellano & Soderstrom, 1992). I have myself done 3 solo trips in a canoe for 3-7 days each in the Canadian north woods of Ontario. This experience allowed me to really block out the noise of life and ground myself in reality so I could focus on my future and making the most out of my life. These trips really allow me to appreciate what I already have and may deter shoplifters from stealing in the future.

Like various boot camps, there can be quite a number of differences among various wilderness programs. Some may differ in: the eligibility requirements for youth to participate, who administers the program (private non-profit, private for-profit or government), point of entry into the program (sent by judge, as a condition of release or voluntary after being sent to a detention facility), duration of the program, involvement of family members and type and frequency of counselling and aftercare (Roberts, 1988). Some of the wilderness camp programs such as VisionQuest and Outward Bound are quite well known, so in order to provide a clear view of how a wilderness program operates, these programs will be outlined in more detail. VisionQuest is a for-profit organization which operates several types of programs: group homes, wilderness camps, HomeQuest and Wagon Train (Roberts, 1988) in various locations across the United States. The duration of the wilderness camp program is 12 to 18 months; youth make a commitment before entering the program to abstain from alcohol, drugs and sex, to complete at least two "high impact" programs during their stay and to remain in the program until they are released. Youth also take part in a "blind walk" in which they are blindfolded as well as a "solo" which requires each participant to spend 3 days alone with only minimal food and water. The Outward Bound programs operate on the philosophy that individual self-esteem grows with the successful completion of seemingly difficult tasks (Scott, 1985). Youth first undergo orientation in which they are introduced to the program and the method of treatment (based on reality therapy) they will receive during the 30-35 days of the program. The Outward Bound Course is the heart of many other branch programs and it involves a 350-mile canoe trip planned so that youth can gradually increase their skills, fitness and independence. Staff give increasingly more responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the trip to the youth as they develop more skills. Some camps such as the Hope Centre Wilderness Camp (HCWC) in Texas create small living groups composed of 12 members each (Clagett, 1989, p. 80). In this camp the boys, 13 to 17, live in tents which they construct themselves, attend school on weekdays and religious service on Sunday which is also planned and conducted by the campers. What makes this camp worth mentioning is the organized therapeutic programs they have in place. Some include "homedays" in which each youth goes home for four days during which time he must accomplish three pre-set goals, weekend cookouts (campers plan, cook and serve their own meals in their separate campsites rather than eating in the central facility) and techniques such as aftertalk, huddle-up and pow wow (opportunities for informal discussions, dispute resolutions and planning and evaluating events). I think the homedays are especially important and is a good example why these programs have lower recidivism rates than say a boot camp where you get out and are released right back in your old life. The stated goals of most wilderness camp programs are quite similar to each other. One goal is to meet the youths' need for adventure, excitement and challenge in a socially acceptable manner (Roberts, 1988). A second goal is to give youth an opportunity to develop self-esteem and self-reliance by successfully coping with the challenges of a therapeutic wilderness program (Roberts, 1988). Wilderness activities are designed to push the youth beyond their assumed capabilities, to help them solve their adolescent identity crisis and to develop in them a sense of their strengths and potential, but mostly to help some of the adolescent attendants learn of life-long leisure pursuits in hopes of filling their free time in productive ways. (Callahan, 1985, p. 32) [Wilderness therapy is ultimately more effective in changing the lifestyles of juvenile criminals through self- discovery and promotion of established self-interests than its equivalent, juvenile boot camps. These wilderness programs allow their participants a chance to reflect on past mistakes and alter their criminal lifestyle choices, making recidivism rates considerably lower. The atmosphere offered by nature invites juveniles to connect with the world around them in a constructive and non-violent way, contrary to juvenile boot camps, which provide a breeding ground for violence through physical punishments and violence oriented training.]
Effectiveness of juvenile correction programs is a largely discussed subject in regards to government spending and tax allocation. Proponents for juvenile boot camps deem military training and discipline as essential for one’s transformation to manhood. These supporters are very influential in government policies and have allocated much of the national budget to the construction and maintaining of boot camp facilities. While the ultimate goal is to keep youth from state and federal prisons, the underlying problem is the recidivism rates for these boot camps and the inability to plead as a juvenile once boot camp has been completed. Each juvenile is given one chance at completing these programs and reintegrating successfully; while juvenile boot camps have a slightly lower recidivism rate than prison, wilderness programs offer a far superior alternative with a better atmosphere for rehabilitation and 28% lower recidivism rate (Palmer & Wedge, 1989). Those against boot camps worry that military training may merely give juvenile offenders the tools to become better offenders by making them “more physically fit, more disciplined, and more mentally sharp criminals than their prison counterparts.” (UC Davis Law) While the physical punishment may force attendants to abide by the rules of boot camp momentarily, there are many psych studies that show how behaviors change for the worse or don’t change at all in reaction to positive punishment (Punishment involving adding something like chores/push-ups/physical harm). (Lilienfeld et al, 2010) “The program (boot camp) effect, whether assuming a fixed or random effects model, was nearly identical and negative in direction, regardless of the meta-analytic strategy.” (Lilinefeld, 2005) The “Scared Straight” mentality not only doesn’t work, but also may be doing counterproductive damage to the problem of juvenile crime.
Various Studies:
While there are many studies which have been done to evaluate wilderness camp programs, these evaluations have so many methodological flaws that the data is largely inconclusive (Castellano & Soderstrom, 1992). There have been numerous evaluations done of wilderness programs using recidivism rates as a measure of success. However, because each evaluation defines recidivism in a different way (e.g., new arrest, new conviction, or new sentence involving incarceration), it is difficult to compare the results of evaluations of different programs (Roberts, 1988). Differences in program structure and content also make comparisons among evaluations unreliable. Furthermore, studies utilizing recidivism rates as a measure used different dates to test for recidivism; studies which used shorter time spans were more likely to report lower recidivism rates for youth completing the program. Finally, some studies did not have a control group of offenders who were not in the program in order to compare the recidivism rates for those who participated and those who did not. One of the programs described previously, HCWC, claims that 85% of youth who completed the program did not recidivate during the initial 6 months after completion (Clagett, 1989). However, this evaluation is flawed because the way in which recidivism was measured was not defined and it did not include a control group for comparison. California's wilderness camps defined recidivism as any penal code violation. This study measured recidivism at both 12 and 24 months, for those who completed the program and those who did not complete the program (Palmer & Wedge, 1989). The results were that 54% of all youth who entered the program recidivated within 24 months; at 24 months, 60% of youth who completed the program recidivated, compared to an 88% recidivism rate for those who did not complete the program. This evaluation did not include a control group of youth who did not participate in the program. Another study conducted by Palmer and Wedge (1989) found that certain types of camps had better rates of recidivism for certain types of offenders. Camps with smaller living unit capacity, lower percentage of capacity used, rooms rather than dorms, individual program assignment, more counselling and higher frequency of outside contacts and recreation had better recidivism rates for high-risk youth than did camps with single living units, uniform program assignment, relatively higher frequency of work activities and academic training and youth present at case reviews.
Several authors have conducted reviews of previous evaluation studies of wilderness camp programs. Some evaluations have found recidivism rates to be lower for youth who participated in wilderness camps than for youth who did not participate; others, however, found the rates to be similar to each other (Castellano & Soderstrom, 1992). Despite the number of evaluations that have been undertaken to measure the success of wilderness camp programs, there is no conclusive evidence that these programs are effective in reducing recidivism or changing lifestyles (Castellano & Soderstrom, 1992). What is clear, however, is the importance of follow-up supervision after the young person has completed a wilderness program. According to the National Crime Prevention Council, the "research indicates that intensive follow-up supervision enabling youth to pursue education, training, treatment and counselling back home are the key factors to whether or not a camp experience will be seen to be having a lasting positive impact" (as cited in Church Council on Justice and Corrections, 1996). One concern about wilderness programs that has been noted in the literature relates to the use of confrontational tactics to deal with misbehavior. The VisionQuest program uses "intense verbal confrontations" between staff and youth as a treatment method (Lower recidivism rate..., 1988, p. 6). A confrontation may last up to 30 minutes and "generally begins with three or more staff surrounding a youth, one of them assuming a nose-to-nose/eye-to-eye stance squarely in front of the youth" (Lower recidivism rate..., 1988, p. 6). The verbal style is challenging and loud and if the youth tries to turn or back away, he is held in position to maintain eye contact. Supporters of VisionQuest have downplayed the confrontational aspects of the program, saying that these aspects do not tell the whole story. Yes, some of these facts about the wilderness camps may seem a little extreme, but when compared to juvenile boot camps these non-violent ways of penalizing juveniles are quite less severe than the physical punishments issued in boot camps.
Counter-Argument:
A limitation of wilderness camp program evaluations concerns the failure to specify a conceptual or theoretical basis for the program (Winterdyk & Griffiths, 1984).

They noted that the guiding theoretical framework, that is necessary to understand how wilderness camps can address the factors assumed to cause delinquency, does not seem to be based on any hard evidence. Many studies of wilderness programs which use psychological evaluation measures assume that youth who are delinquent have poor self-concepts, destructive attitudes and lack interpersonal skills. However, Winterdyk and Griffiths point out that it is questionable whether psychological measures can predict either delinquency or the role of wilderness camps in solving said problem. A problem with many evaluations of wilderness programs is that virtually none of them have attempted to define how the actual program components work to attain their intended results (Winterdyk & Griffiths, 1984, p. 41). Most evaluations are descriptive rather than explanatory and do not indicate how backpacking and canoeing actually help youth solve their "adolescent identity

crisis."