Editing Job Corps (section)

==Controversy==

While the Job Corps has remained popular with politicians in both parties<ref name="cost_2014_05_19_wapo" /> (and with private contractors who operate and service Job Corps centers<ref name="cost_2014_05_19_wapo" /><ref name="nahb_org">[https://www.nahb.org/blog/2023/07/job-corps "NAHB Opposes Move by House GOP Appropriators to Eliminate Job Corps"], July 14, 2023, [[National Association of Home Builders]], retrieved June 6, 2024</ref>), there have been many critics of the program, from liberal and conservative sources, alike, and questions raised about the program's safety and effectiveness.<ref name="failng_2018_08_26_nytimes" /><ref name="debating_2015_09_02_npq">Cohen, Rick: [https://nonprofitquarterly.org/debating-the-future-of-the-job-corps-in-the-wake-of-violence-at-campuses/ "Debating the Future of the Job Corps in the Wake of Violence at Campuses,"]  September 2, 2015, ''[[Nonprofit Quarterly|NPQ]]'' (''Non-Profit Quarterly''), citing ''[[Washington Post]]'' August 27, 2015, retrieved Jun 6, 2024</ref>

Anecdotal evidence against the program, at specific sites, multiplied in the 2010s.

In October 2014, [[CBS News]] reported on its investigation of a Job Corps training center in North Texas, quoting a student as experiencing "constant fights" (though one attacker strangled him, the attacker was allowed to continue in the program). They quoted a fired security guard, a former police sergeant, as witnessing drug use ("marijuana, cocaine, heroin") but being pressured by management to keep quiet about it, despite the official Job Corps "zero tolerance" for drug use. (CBS obtained video of a student cutting a white powder on his desk). Student expulsions reportedly hurt contractor and agency standing.<ref name="questions_2014_10_22_cbsnews" />

CBS interviewed a former [[Albuquerque, New Mexico|Albuquerque]] center teacher who alleged that welding students who failed to attend training were given welding-competence certificates, anyway, to take into the workforce. A former career counselor in Texas reported that management pressure to get "job placements" resulted in "85 percent" of reported placements being "fake." CBS noted that 3 years earlier, the Labor Department's inspector general determined that Job Corps had "overstated 42 percent" of job placements at five sites -- and that many of the reported jobs were simply in fast food work.<ref name="questions_2014_10_22_cbsnews" />

A CBS affiliate in [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin|Milwaukee]] checked records on their local Job Corps center, and found 11 police reports between 2012-2014, including a knife attack and a student shot.<ref name="issues_2014_10_23_cbs58">[https://www.cbs58.com/news/job-corps-investigation-finds-issues-at-programs-across-the-country "Job Corps investigation finds issues at programs across the country,"]  October 23, 2014, updated July 28, 2016, CBS58.com, retrieved June 6, 2024</ref>

In 2015, the ''[[Washington Post]]'' noted "violence and even murders" had occurred "at some Job Corps sites," and -- "despite [an official] zero-tolerance policy [forbidding] violence and illegal drugs" -- [various] "local job corps centers... failed to report and investigate [incidents of] serious misconduct, [such as] drug abuse and assaults," including "sexual assault." Further, the ''Post'' reported, some centers have reportedly understated these offenses, in their official record, to keep student offenders enrolled.<ref name="debating_2015_09_02_npq" />

However, progressive philanthropy advocate and watchdog Rick Cohen, writing in ''[[Nonprofit Quarterly]],'' expressed skepticism of complaints, suggesting that many of these problems were not abnormal for that demographic, whether in Job Corps or not -- and suggested that racial bias may have played a role in suspicions and reporting of perceived problems.<ref name="debating_2015_09_02_npq" />

In 2017, Labor Department deputy inspector general Larry D. Turner, testifying before a Congressional committee, reported that Job Corps officials and contractors often failed to report "potentially serious criminal misconduct" to local, state or federal law enforcement -- noting that, of the 12 centers inspectors visited (out of 129), all but one failed to report to law enforcement various "potentially
serious criminal misconduct incidents," leaving 40 percent of 348 such incidents unreported at those 11 sites. He also noted that Job Corps sites typically had "Physical security weaknesses" (such as "inadequate [or] unmonitored closed circuit television systems," inadequate security staff, and "compromised perimeters," and failed to properly screen center employees."<ref name="hit_2017_07_17_wapo">[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/07/17/job-corps-program-hit-on-student-safety-problems-despite-successes/ "Job Corps program hit on student safety problems, despite successes,"] July 17, 2017, ''[[Washington Post]],'' retrieved June 7, 2024</ref>

Job Corps defenders argued that critics were overreacting to these shortcomings, which were not atypical of conditions in innercity and rural settings that Job Corps participants were fleeing.<ref name="hit_2017_07_17_wapo" />

In 2017, with per-student costs ranging from $15,000 to $45,000, President [[Donald Trump|Trump]]'s Labor Secretary, [[Alexander Acosta]], stated that the $1.7 billion annually budgeted program "requires fundamental reform" -- not just "changes at the margins," but "large-scale changes."<ref name="failng_2018_08_26_nytimes" /><ref name="failure_2018_04_22_wsj" /><ref name="hit_2017_07_17_wapo" />