Wilderness camps or challenge programs generally are residential placements that provide participants with a series of physically challenging outdoor activities, such as backpacking or rock climbing. These programs vary widely in terms of settings, types of activities, and therapeutic goals. But their treatment components are grounded in experiential learning that advocates "learning by doing" and facilitates opportunities for personal growth. Such programs have their origins in two distinct sources: forestry camps for youthful offenders and the Outward Bound model, originated in Wales during the Second World War (Roberts, 2004).

While military-style boot camps have consistently failed to demonstrate any positive impact on juvenile offenders' recidivism rates, the data on wilderness camps is much more encouraging. Lipsey's meta-analysis (2000) of 29 different studies of wilderness programs, involving more than 3,000 juvenile offenders, indicates that program participants experience recidivism rates that are about 8 percentage points lower than comparison subjects (29 percent versus 37 percent). However, these moderately positive results do not reflect the marked inconsistencies in individual program results.

Lipsey (2000) found that programs involving a combination of "relatively intense physical activity and therapeutic enhancement such as individual counseling, family therapy, and therapeutic group sessions" were especially effective, while those that involved less physically challenging activities and little or no therapeutic content had a less significant impact.

One of the best-known and most studied wilderness programs in the United States is VisionQuest. Founded in 1973, this national program provides alternatives to incarceration for serious juvenile offenders. VisionQuest youths typically spend 12 to 15 months in various challenging outdoor impact and therapeutic treatment programs. A normal treatment course often includes a 3-month stay at a wilderness orientation program (where the youth live in tepees or comparable primitive conditions); a 5-month adventure program (during which juvenile offenders can embark on wagon train odysseys, cross country biking trips, or ocean voyages); and a 5-month community residential/therapeutic program. The program also features an aftercare program called HomeQuest that offers support to youth and families upon reentry.

Controlled studies of VisionQuest have consistently demonstrated its efficacy in lowering participants' recidivism rates. One evaluation, performed by the RAND Corporation in the 1980s (Greenwood and Turner, 1987), found that VisionQuest graduates consistently outperformed a control group from a conventional correctional facility, despite the fact that the VisionQuest group contained more serious offenders. When differences in group characteristics were statistically controlled, VisionQuest youth were about half as likely as subjects in the control group to be rearrested after 1 year (Howell, 1998).

Despite such promising results, numerous questions about the efficacy of wilderness programs remain unanswered. Lipsey's meta-analysis (2000) found that the length of wilderness programs seemed to have an inverse effect on treatment results (i.e., the longer the program, the less chance of its achieving statistically significant results on treatment outcomes). Such a finding seems counterintuitive and puzzling in light of the success of some long-term programs, such as VisionQuest.

Lipsey (2000) and others have also noted that, thus far, the majority of participants in wilderness programs have been white male juvenile offenders. Little is known about the program's effectiveness with African-Americans, Hispanics, and females. Additional research is still required to conclusively demonstrate the efficacy of such programs across different treatment types and diverse target populations (Fuentes, 2002).

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