An Exercise in Failure

• Author: Aaron Roussell,Luis Daniel Gascón
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/2153368716678289
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

An Exercise in Failure:

Punishing ‘‘At-Risk’’ Youth

and Families in a South Los

Angeles Boot Camp Program

Luis Daniel Gasco

´n

1

and Aaron Roussell

2

Abstract

Juvenile correctional boot camps seek to transform youth labeled ‘‘at-risk’’ into pro-

ductive members of society. While these military-style programs have been in decline

since the early 2000s, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), one of the largest

agencies in the country, continues to embrace them as a key disciplinary practice and

vestige of the ‘‘get tough’’ era in U.S. juvenile justice reform. Contemporary transfor-

mative programs have been linked to Progressive Era juvenile social control, and

scholars are beginning to show that, historically, racial exclusion has been a central

function. The goals of this research are to interrogate the treatment of boot camp

participants by police and demonstrate how racial exclusion remains central to juvenile

social control. Drawing on collaborative ethnographic fieldwork, this study shows how

police stigmatize Black and Latino parents, adopt the role of disciplinary authority in the

family, and infuse formal control processes into domestic life. Youth face stigmatizing

encounters through degradation and punitive physical training as part of the camp’s

disciplinary regime. This research suggests that youth intervention programs built on

liberal ideals are the most recent in a long line of racialized social control systems in the

United States that seek to stigmatize and confine youth of color.

Keywords

child saving, race and juvenile justice, boot camps, color-blind ideology, critical race

theory, criminological theories, ethnography

1

Department of Sociology, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

2

Department of Sociology, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

Corresponding Author:

Luis Daniel Gasco

´n, Department of Sociology, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco,

CA 94117, USA.

Email: lgascon2@usfca.edu

Race and Justice

2018, Vol. 8(3) 270-297

ªThe Author(s) 2016

Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/2153368716678289

journals.sagepub.com/home/raj

On a Saturday in late December, police overseeing the boot camp for at-risk youth

begin to discuss graduation. Officers continually reinforce that even if youth show up

on time, do the exercises, and refrain from back talk, there is no guarantee they will

graduate. The youth gather in lines for the last time. Without explanation, officers call

names—‘‘Hernandez!Jackson!Torres!Make a new line!’’—and this is how graduates

and nongraduates are separated. One officer trots the nongraduates over to a corner of

the grass where they all ‘‘take a knee’’ and listen. Another makes the graduates chant

back to him 3 times in a call and response—‘‘What class is this?!’’ ‘‘2010!’’—before

dismissing them to their parents, who are just now trickling out of the school doors. As

the youth disperse, more than one nongraduate is clearly upset and Ruiz, a lanky

14-year-old Latino boy, appears to be crying. He tries several times to run away but is

restrained by first one, then two, and then finally a third officer who throw him to the

ground. Continuing to struggle, Ruiz protests his innocence as one of the officers tries

to explain why he failed:

‘‘Idid everything you asked, and this is what I get for coming dirty on one [drug] test? I’d

be cool if they didn’t, but they’re graduating!’’

‘‘Focus on what you did wrong.’’ says Officer Gomez.

‘‘Every week they come late, every week they don’t do their homework!’’

‘‘This is not about anybody else—you fucked up!’’

Ruiz continues: ‘‘I did every single push-up, I went to school every day, even when my

dad didn’t want to drive me. When mom left, when she came back, I listened to her, every

word!When I go out, everywhere I go, she knows where I’m at!I’ve changed!Huerta

[another student], he’s the same as when he got here!’’

Pause. ‘‘I fucking hate you, man.’’

Gomez: ‘‘I don’t care. You’re not ready.’’

‘‘Tell me, right now, what’s wrong with me!?’’

‘‘Theissue is, you need more help.To hell with everybodyelse, this is about you!It’snot like

it’s just mydecision. The entire staff agreedthat you weren’t ready.’’ (Roussell,fieldnotes)

The pile of officerson Ruiz and revelation of his failure were performances of a stigma-

tizingceremony that lowered his socialstanding (Garfinkel,1956). Officer Gomez paints

the boy’s outburst as further justification for his failure, while other youth and their

families stand andwitness his degradation firsthand. In the officer’s eyes,Ruiz will not

graduate becausehe has not demonstrated responsibility for his misbehaviorand so has

not undergone the personal transformation required. Unmoved by Ruiz’s assertion that

his parents havenot facilitated his efforts in camp, Officer Gomez sees theboy’s incon-

sistent attendance record, troublegetting to camp, and his protestnot only as childish but

also as evidence of his criminal trajectory. These become cause for further punishment

(see Bishop & Frazier, 1996). Rather than appreciate any potential difficulties, Gomez

recasts Ruiz’ overall performances as a series of individual choices to fail.

Gasco

´n and Roussell 271