Boot Camp Program

For this week’s assignment, the class was asked to review an article written by Kempinen and Kurlychek. The article that they wrote surrounded itself with the attempt to determine if rehabilitative programs within a particular setting, such as a boot camp, reduced recidivism. The author’s performed their study regarding this very subject around the state of Pennsylvania’s Motivational Boot Camp Program. The boot camp program had two primary focuses which was to reduce prison overcrowding and recidivism. In order to be eligible to be considered for this boot camp program, an offender must meet the following guidelines: “sentenced to prison not exceeding 2 years, under age 35, and no conviction of certain violent crimes or drug trafficking” (Kempinen &Kurlychek, 2003, p.586). Since this particular boot camp program implemented multiple facets for change of an offender’s mental psyche, education and socialization, the question posed by the authors’ was to determine if offenders who graduate from a rehabilitative program have lower recidivism rates than those who are released from prison. Their prediction was that there would be significant difference in recidivism rates between the comparison …show more content…
According to Hagan (2010, p.74), the quasi-experimental design does not use random assignment of groups but instead employs matching or other means of obtaining equivalence of the groups. The sample utilized for this study was offenders who graduated from the program during the years of 1996 and 1997. The comparison group was offenders who were released during the same time period. The sample included a total of 1,040 offenders. As a means of better equivalence amongst the groups, the comparison group consisted of offenders who met the eligibility requirements to be selected into the group. The offenders either chose not to attend or they were not recommended for the