November 30, 2006

Boot Camp Guards Charged With Teen’s Killing

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Eleven months ago, seven guards at a Florida teen-offender “boot camp” were caught on tape kicking and stomping a 14-year-old inmate – who died the next day. The incident led Governor Jeb Bush to dismantle the state’s military-style camps for young offenders, cost a top law enforcement officer his job, and have now culminated in manslaughter charges against the guards.

All of which marks the latest and perhaps most serious blow to the once-popular idea of reforming troubled teens in such places. It’s an issue Mother Jones highligted several years ago in a piece about the death of another teen in a different boot camp.

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We've never been very good at being conservative.

And usually, that serves us well in doing the ambitious, hard-hitting journalism that you turn to Mother Jones for. But it also means we can't afford to come up short when it comes to scratching together the funds it takes to keep our team firing on all cylinders, and the truth is, we finished our budgeting cycle on June 30 about $100,000 short of our online goal.

This is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell, as our namesake would tell us to do, for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability has a chance at the polls and in the press. If you value our reporting and you can right now, please help us dig out of the $100,000 hole we're starting our new budgeting cycle in with an always-needed and always-appreciated donation today.

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