When "Tough Love" Kills.

• Author: Parenti, Christian
• Position: Murder at Boot camp for teenage ofenders

Gina Score was never much of an athlete. At five feet four inches tall and 226 pounds, the eighth-grader was in no condition for strenuous exercise. But that didn't matter to the staff at South Dakota's Plankinton boot camp for girls, where military-style discipline ("Quitting is not an option") prevailed. On her first day at the camp, Score sentenced for stealing a Beanie Baby--was excoriated and ordered about in an official induction process that, according to Nancy Deppe, a former staff member, "isn't successful unless someone pukes or pisses their pants."

The second day, July 21, 1999, began with a sweltering 2.7-mile morning run. Immediately, Score fell behind the rest of the pack and was showing signs of heat stroke. By the end, she was lying in a pool of her own urine, frothing at the mouth, gasping for breath, twitching, and begging for "mommy," according to eyewitnesses.

Staff allegedly denied the girl water but did administer a full course of ridicule: calling her a faker, laughing at her, dragging her, dropping her limp hand onto her face, and finally threatening to videotape her to prove "what a pathetic and uncooperative child she was," the eyewitnesses said. When other girls attempted to shade Score from the pounding sun, they were ordered to step away. After more than three hours of this, the staff finally called an ambulance, but Gina Score died en route to the hospital.

This Lord of the Flies scenario, outlined in a lawsuit filed by Score's parents, is unfortunately an all too common feature of life in the social laboratory of "tough love." Nationwide, there are now more than seventy-nine such camps in thirty states. Most are county-run facilities for nonviolent and first-time offenders. And many were started with federal grants from an $8 billion prison and boot-camp-building fund that was created by the $30 billion crime bill of 1994.

Since 1985, when Louisiana set up the country's first juvenile boot camp, these "shock incarceration" or "shock probation" programs have been fashionable among politicians.

Governor Bill Janklow, Republican of South Dakota, who recently called juvenile inmates "scum," defends boot camps by telling the story of how he was a "wild youth" until joining the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s. Therein lies the power of boot camps: They pander to America's square nostalgia by invoking an imaginary 1950s, when "dad was in charge."

Nicholaus Contreraz was another "faker." At age sixteen, Contreraz was busted while joyriding in a stolen car around Sacramento, California. He was sent out of state to the privately run Arizona Boys Ranch.

According to extensive investigations by Arizona Child Protective Services and the Pinal County Sheriff's Department, Contreraz's trouble started out typically enough: He was complaining of nausea and diarrhea. But Boys Ranch staff thought it was all a ploy to avoid physical exercise, and they called him "a baby" and told him it was all "in his head."

As Contreraz's condition spiraled downward, the staff allegedly escalated the abuse, at times waking him earlier than the rest, making him eat alone, and punishing him with push-ups and manhandling. Over the next two months, he lost fourteen pounds. During that time, he suffered bouts of 103-degree fever, muscle spasms, severe chest pains, and impaired breathing. All the while, the staff forced him to continue with the discipline, calisthenics, running, and constant "Yes, Sir! No, Sir!" When he faltered during exercise, the staff punched him and shoved him onward, according to Arizona Child Protective Services.

Soon, the investigations revealed, Contreraz was defecating in his bed and clothing, vomiting frequently, and complaining that his body was "hurting all over." When staff could tell an eruption was imminent they would mockingly count down "three, two, one...." On top of that, they allegedly forced him to tote a bucket filled with his own vomit...