Penal boot camps, shock incarceration programs, or more recently, strict discipline programs have received considerable popular and government support as an alternative to solving the perceived problem of youth crime. Through a multiplicity of objectives, these programs are intended to reduce prison crowding, correctional costs, and recidivism rates; however, it can be shown that the development and implementation of boot camps are nothing more than a politically acceptable alternative to do something about the perceived youth crime problem. To effectively meet the often conflicting demands of the public's right to be protected from those who commit serious offenses and the need to provide the most suitable form of correctional intervention to meet the needs of the young person entrenched in the youth justice system, it is necessary to have a clearer picture regarding what we know in the correctional intervention literature about what works with young offenders.
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