摘要：The objective of this Campbell systematic review was to synthesize the extant empirical evidence on the effects of boot‐camps and boot camp like programs on the criminal behavior (e.g., postrelease arrest, conviction, or reinstitutionalization) of convicted adult and juvenile offenders. Thirty‐two unique research studies met our inclusion criteria. These studies reported the results from 43 independent boot‐camp/comparison samples. The random effects mean odds‐ratio for any form of recidivism was 1.02, indicating that the likelihood that boot camp participants recidivating was roughly equal to the likelihood of comparison participants recidivating. This overall finding was robust to the selection of the outcome measure and length of follow‐up. Methodological features were only weakly related to outcome among these studies and did not explain the null findings. The overall effect for juvenile boot camps was slightly lower than for adult boot camps. Moderator analysis showed that studies evaluating boot‐camp programs with a strong treatment focus had a larger mean odds‐ratio than studies evaluating boot camps with a weak treatment focus. Although the overall effect appears to be that of “no difference,” some studies found that boot camp participants did better than the comparison, while others found that comparison samples did better. However, all of these studies had the common element of a militaristic boot camp program for offenders. The current evidence suggests that this common and defining feature of a boot‐camp is not effective in reducing post boot‐camp offending.
