A government program created during the 1960s war on poverty and designed to provide free job training to disadvantaged young people has systematically covered up the illegal and sometimes dangerous offenses of its students in order to keep them enrolled.
Local officials with Job Corps, a $1.6 billion project of the Department of Labor, failed to report “potential serious misconduct infractions” like assault and drug abuse to the program and downgraded violent infractions to lesser violations when they did, according to an inspector general report.
“This exposed other students and staff to avoidable harm and prevented more committed at-risk youth from utilizing the training slots,” the report said. “These deficiencies occurred because center management wanted to provide students who committed serious misconduct with second opportunities.”
The program’s 60,000 students typically live on one of the Job Corps’ 125 campuses around the country while they receive free vocational training.
After receiving multiple allegations that 12 Job Corps centers were refusing to investigate or punish dangerous students, the inspector general discovered substantial flaws in the program’s enforcement of its own “zero-tolerance” disciplinary policy.
Staff at the Job Corps centers under the inspector general’s review failed to report 21 percent of the serious incidents involving students. When officials did report the violations, the program failed to investigate them 26 percent of the time.
Congress raised concerns about Job Corps’ overall safety in 1995, prompting the program to adopt a zero-tolerance stance against violence and drugs. A number of inspector general reports have questioned the program’s commitment to the disciplinary policy in the years since.
But officials continue to ignore requirements that they punish or expel students that break the rules.
For example, at one center, a group of students faced no consequences for assaulting and injuring another student on campus. The victim, who sustained injuries to his jaw and hands, dropped out of the program the day after the attack.
In a separate instance, Job Corps officials softened the penalty against a student found with illegal drugs on campus. Just 74 days later, the same student assaulted and harmed a peer.
Some Job Corps centers enforced the rules more consistently than others. At one center, officials declined to look into 99 percent of serious offenses.
At another, the low enforcement rate created security problems for students and staff.
“Center staff told us the center became unsafe because students knew there would be no repercussions for bad behavior,” the inspector general said. “One residential advisor said she would not leave her dormitory during her night shift because she feared what might happen if she went outside.”
While previous audits had uncovered issues at individual Job Corps centers, the inspector general said the latest findings suggested a “systemic” problem within the program.
The watchdog estimated Job Corps had wasted roughly $400,000 in 2012 and 2013 holding onto students who should have been kicked out of the program for repeatedly breaking the rules.
A number of news reports have focused on the dangerous conditions at Job Corps centers, stoking the inspector general’s fears that individual Job Corps centers could lose local support if cast in such unflattering light.
“Negative media reports about alleged unsafe conditions could negatively affect community support, student enrollment (e.g., students leave or do not enroll due to safety concerns), and Job Corps’ overall success,” the report said. “An online search using the phrase ‘Job Corps fights’ resulted in almost 30 consecutive hits of video clips showing students fighting at centers.”
The Job Corps program was a key component of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program and its campaign to end poverty in America. Critics have long contended the program costs far more than private sector technical institutes and has virtually no impact on reducing unemployment among disadvantaged youth.
