Isn't this the sort of jail Britain needs?

It is 5.45am and 250 men and 50 women are on their backs on a rain-drenched physical training yard doing sit-ups. “Lakeview. Shock!” they chant in unison, counting out exercises during 45 minutes of press-ups, crunches, star jumps and lunges. 

Convicts endure tough training and harsh punishments Convicts endure tough training and harsh punishments

They wear regulation shorts and T-shirts while drill instructors keep order.

The workout ends with the 300 yelling on command: “Fired up, fired up, fired up SIR! Motivated, motivated, motivated, SIR!”.

This session is to be followed by a six-mile run, jogged platoon by platoon, in step. Around them, rolls of razor wire are glinting in the rising sun.

This is not the Army, this is a prison and the 300 crop-headed individuals are just some of the 1,400 inmates at this penitentiary, serving their sentence in a highly-effective form of boot camp known in America as the Shock Incarceration Programme (SIP). This is a jail of which there is no equivalent in Britain, however much many people may wish it to stem our ever-spiralling crime figures.

It specialises in shaking up criminals convicted of offences such as burglary, theft, joyriding and drug-dealing where they did not use violence but are a menace to society.

It tries to turn them away from a life of crime into responsible citizens, using a mix of military discipline, compulsory education and drug treatment.

“These offenders are committing what we often call gateway crimes that, unless stopped, will usually lead to more horrendous behaviour,” says Ronald Moscicki, superintendent of Lakeview Shock Prison in upstate New York, the state with the largest such programme in America. New York jails up to 90 per cent of its burglars, car thieves and drug dealers for at least two years, even for first offences, but some can be out in six months if they choose – and then can endure – the Shock programme.

Sitting in the mess hall, soaked after PT, wolfing a breakfast of corn beef hash and eggs before showering, are Sean Clarke and Eric Flowers, two typical convicts. While most inmates report for “hard labour” after breakfast, they will complete their sentence that day.

“I started getting into trouble when I was about 11 or 12. I was very selfish and I needed prison a long time ago,” says Clarke, 26.

His father is a Londoner but his mother is American and he was born in New York. He burgled shops, bars, laundrettes and other businesses at night, stealing the safes to fund his cocaine habit and binge drinking.

Some of his friends were housebreakers and he was arrested driving their getaway car.

Instead of serving the mandated sentence of between two-and-a-half and seven years in ordinary prison, he pleaded guilty quickly and asked to take the six-month Shock as punishment because his wife was pregnant.

“My first thought was not about changing but about getting out as soon as possible but as I went through boot camp, I learnt a lot about myself,” he says.

Plastered with tattoos but lean and healthy with a neat haircut, a steady gaze and a shirt and tie, Clarke is looking forward to freedom and a new life of integrity.

“I was a know-it-all when I got here, but after getting into a fight and spending 30 days in solitary confinement in December, including Christ­mas, in an 8ft-by-8ft cell we call The Box, I changed my tune,” he admits.

Lakeview makes prisoners get up at 5.30am during the week, 6am at weekends, with no day off for six months, PT every day, work, chores, education and Alcoholics Anonymous-style substance-abuse rehabilitation, uniform pressing, marching and constant evaluation. Inmates lead a spartan existence without television, magazines or recreation.

Clarke and Flowers have jobs lined up. As a condition of parole, an ex-Shock inmate must work, or attend job training or college. Ironically, the programme is so well-known for turning hoodlums into keen workers grateful for a second chance that many employers request them.

Clarke is a cement and concrete labourer. Flowers, 20, from the small town of Batavia in upstate New York, had just qualified as a welder when he was arrested for stealing copper wire with a “bad lot” of friends.

“I feel very ashamed of myself and what I did. I was horrible,” he says.

Coming to Lakeview Shock Prison was, indeed, a shock. “We got on the bus from the ordinary prison and, immediately, drill instructors were yelling in your face, letting you know who was in charge. I was scared.

“It’s tough here, any time you do the slightest thing wrong, they punish you. In the end, you learn to keep quiet and do as you are told.

Punishments for lying on your bunk without permission, insubordination, belligerence or laziness include dropping to do 50 press-ups, or moving a pile of rocks or logs from one side of a building to the other for hours, or spells in The Box. An inmate may be made to carry a rock around at shoulder height for several days.

As Clarke and Flowers and the other members of Third Platoon head for freedom, other inmates are on the “outside” for the day, sawing up fallen trees on the shore of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes near Niagara Falls and the US-Canadian border.

They perform “hard labour”, although this does not mean rock-breaking in quarries these days but rather painting churches, repairing community buildings, clearing undergrowth from country walks or cleaning up parks.

DURING the winter, PT takes place before sunrise, on the yard cleared of 5ft of snow, often with 60mph winds off the lake at -20C, followed by work duty. Inmates must maintain “military bearing” at all times.

“That’s hard in January when the sleet and snow is whipping your face,” says Clarke.

On this sweltering summer day, a platoon is hacking up a 35ft lakeside birch tree with only hand saws, under the watchful eye of correction officer Glenn Baron. “This is all about hard work, pride and a bit of determination and team work. It’s about them helping out the public and returning something to society, making their amends,” he says.

At the prison, slogans are painted on the walls. “Strength, honour, courage, knowledge,” reads one. “Discipline, teamwork, responsibility, motivation,” reads another.

“They get here by being anti-social. They think it’s not fair that they got caught and a constant theme here is getting them to accept responsibility for their actions,” says Ron Saeli, head of drug and alcohol treatment

at Lakeview.

“When they arrive, they bleat and whine and curse. Most of them have never had a real job or paid taxes and have no respect for authority, society or themselves, no self-control. Many had absolutely awful upbringings and just coped with the chaos by being stoned all the time and offending to pay for it. Here, we tear them down then build them back up.”

Military-style prison boot camps have been tried in the UK and all over the US but SIP experts insist that New York’s programme has been going strong for 20 years because of the combination of discipline, school and rehabilitation.

 Six months of shouted orders and press-ups do not work without re-education. Sub­stance rehab does not work without disciplining, they say.

Although the programme takes 16 to 39-year-olds, many dropped out of school before adolescence and some arrive unable to read or write. “We get just six months to turn around a lifetime of problems,” says Moscicki.

In the school, inmates are in maths and English classes, others are learning vocational skills. One group is discussing the novel Lord Of The Flies. The blackboard reads, ironically, “Savagery versus Civilisation”.

Shock Programme chief Dr Cheryl Clark asks them: “Did you ever read books before you came here?”

“Ma’am, no, Ma’am,” they reply.

Lakeview prisoners arrive with an average reading age of 10. Many leave having caught up with several years of schooling and those who take the equivalent of A-levels have a

90-plus per cent pass rate.

It typically takes inmates three or four months to stop resisting the rigours of Shock and to start using them – and developing self-control and sound decision-making.

“We knock down their illusions, their excuses,” said Saeli.

Most regard the instructors as their foes at first but many come to regard them as mentors and some stay in touch years after leaving.

Comp­leting the programme is known as graduation, as a mark of their turnaround.

Former inmates are then kept under intense parole conditions for at least five years.

One year after release, only eight per cent have reoffended, compared with almost 20 per cent of similar convicts in the general prison population.

The SIP is estimated to have saved New York taxpayers about £600million in shorter sentences since its start in 1987 and inmates have performed more than a million hours of community service.

“Conservatives like Shock because it’s tough on crime and no-nonsense, taxpapers like it because it saves money and prison overcrowding and liberals like it because it lets inmates out of jail earlier,” says Moscicki.

However, while he believes the method would work on more violent criminals serving five, 10 or more years, it is not used for them.

“The public will not stand for such people being released early and back on the streets,” he says.

Inmates who misbehave badly or drop out are back-squadded or sent to ordinary jail.

“This type of programme will work anywhere, whether it’s England or America. It helps stop the revolving door where offenders return to the system again and again. Shock would be ideal for England and crooks are crooks, you know?” says Moscicki.

Back out in the drill yard, inmates who are still a long way from “graduation” are having the message drummed into them as they march crisply along the walkways, each platoon carrying a flag.

“Hard work…” prompts the drill instructor. In unison, they yell back at ear-shattering volume: “Hard work, hard work, hard work, SIR!”

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