ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 4, 1994                   TAG: 9403040240
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BOOT CAMPS

THE ADVANTAGES are obvious. A nonviolent felon, 18 to 24 years of age, who has served no prior jail time as an adult, can spend 90 days in a military-style boot camp, then be freed on parole for at least one year.

If that felon is a man.

Three months in boot camp is surely no vacation, but for some, it would beat serving a year and a day in prison, followed by several years probation. That was the punishment given to Jennifer Hill West, who met all of the criteria for the boot-camp program and wanted to participate, but was excluded because she is a woman. The boot camp run at a Southampton prison is for men only. Sort of a single-sex education in hard knocks.

West has filed a class-action suit seeking to force the state to give women the same opportunity as men to get a much-reduced sentence in exchange for a short but intense period of rigorous discipline. A federal magistrate in Roanoke who is to rule on the issue has expressed doubts about the constitutionality of the prison program.

Well he should. It's reasonable to argue that older convicts wouldn't be influenced as much by boot camps, and violent ones shouldn't be let out early. But women? The judge is still considering the case and, after reviewing arguments, may find a legal interpretation permitting different standards for men and women. It would require a real stretch, though, which would be interesting to see.

The state argues there is no constitutional problem with the program because it is experimental. It's expensive to run, and the state is trying the pilot project for five years to see if it has the desired results - namely, reducing the number of criminals whose initial walk through the prison gates is destined to become the first of many. The boot camp is designed to be a last-chance detour on the road to incarceration, a place where felons who are not yet career criminals will have the opportunity to change themselves.

Women who break the law might like that chance, too. Whether it will work is unknown, but they should have the same crack at trying. They might even do better - not in numbers of push-ups, perhaps, but maybe in using the opportunity to change the direction of their lives.

The state might be prepared to offer this option to both sexes if its pilot program is successful - denying women the chance to participate until that is determined.

And if it's not successful, what then? How will corrections officials know whether it would or wouldn't have worked better among women? 


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