, and drug testing. The Division of Parole also offers a number of opportunities and programs in the community to improve the graduates chance for successful reintegration in the community. Graduates have priority access to community services such as educational and vocational training, employment opportunities, and relapse prevention counseling (Cronin 1994).Cost is the next issue people really question with regard to these boot camp programs. The cost of building the facility is more. The Colorado boot camp facility costs 71.5 million for construction, alone. Furthermore, a typical adult offender in a maximum-security facility costs about seventy-nine dollars a day. A Colorado boot camp program costs approximately ninety dollars a day (Witkin 1996). It should be noted that the costs presented in this paper include the cost of counseling and the cost of the programs the inmates are involved in. The cost is significantly higher and raises the question of opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is the willingness to give up one thing to fund another. With the rate that states need to build facilities like this, one must examine what you would have to give up. The first thing usually given up is education and road projects. Are we willing to give up on the future of children to rehabilitate criminals? Some argue that we should spend the money on children to begin the prevention process, so this problem will eventually work itself out. As noted before, boot camp programs vary around the country and so do their recidivism rates. Some states view their programs as a success. Colorados boot camps have a 35% recidivism rate and annual savings of $1.8 million. The state believes its aftercare programs, which require greater expense, reduce recidivism rates. South Dakota opened a juvenile boot camp in the fall of 1996 and early results in 1997 showed a 14% recidivism rate (Allen 1997). Some states, however, recently discontinued their progra...
