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CAICA REPORT:
Children Warehoused for Profit
The truth about a virtually
silent industry
© 2007
“It is up to
the buyer to beware, as in this case the stakes are very high –
their children.”
Each year
thousands of children are incarcerated and are not given due
process. They lose their basic human rights. They also lose contact
with the outside world, are abused, and are humiliated.
These are kids
from all walks of life. Some who are straight A students, others are
failing in school, some have disabilities and mental health issues,
and some are just average kids. Some come from a two-parent home
while others come from broken homes or are adopted. Some have woven
their way through the foster care system. How do they all end up in
the same place?
There is a silent
and growing industry that the average American knows nothing about.
It is the multi-billion dollar child / teen help industry. It is
really quite simple to explain.
Like-minded
individuals discovered a need – parents at their wits end with their
troubled children and teens. They found parents were willing to pay
a lot of money for someone else to “fix” their child. Today, parents
pay anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000 per year in hopes someone else
can return to them a normal, well-behaved child or teen. Does this
sound too good to be true? It is.
They developed
seminars that parents and kids are forced to attend once they sign
up for the program – seminars parents and teens say practice
brain-washing techniques.
Parents have
reported they were told their child was a manipulator and liar.
Other than censored and altered letters, communication between them
was banned for months, sometimes up to a year or more.
The reason for
altering letters?
Parents are told
the reason some letters are “blacked out” is because the child is
only manipulating and lying to them in an effort to come home. And
other times they do not allow the parent to see the letter at all.
It is a lose-lose situation for a child who is locked behind closed
doors with no way to report abuse if and/or when it occurs. For many
parents it was too late by the time their learned their child was
telling them the truth.
Children and
teens are often told their parents do not want to talk to them, do
not want to see them, and blame them for all of the problems in the
family. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Many parents have
reported the agony they go through while their child is away – the
guilt, the fear, and the shame. They have invested a lot of money
into the “program” and want to believe they will get what they paid
for – a normal, happy, well-adjusted child or teen. Sadly, they
don’t get what they bargained for. Instead, some children are
returned broken. Some have died and never come home.
Private
abductions …
Many parents are
convinced by program staff they should hire "teen
escort" services to transport their children - some as
young as seven - to their facilities located in remote rural areas.
Though some transport services are licensed and hire caring staff,
most are not licensed or regulated. Many youth are unjustifiably
hand-cuffed, restrained, or pepper-sprayed in the process. The
trauma of such abductions can last a lifetime.
Parents are duped
by glossy brochures, an endless number of convincing websites, and
smooth-talking businessmen or their agents preying on their
desperation.
Parents are
talked into refinancing their homes, drawing from their retirement,
spending their child's college money, and taking out long-term
loans.
Parents are
convinced to give strangers Power of Attorney over their teens and
pre-teens.
Some children are
as young as seven.
Where did
children end up? In the hands of people who convinced parents they
would save their child … in reality many of these children have been
abused and neglected.
Dangerous and
unfair forms of punishment:
Untrained staff
perform dangerous restraints resulting in physical harm and all too
often in the death of a child. Many programs operate on a
points-based system. The youth lose hard-earned points for small
infractions such as dropping a fork on the floor or belching. In
some facilities, children are severely punished for looking out the
window, as they are considered a runaway threat.
Over the years,
thousands of children have ended up in overseas programs where
reports and articles have shown, and victims have alleged, there are
no laws to protect the children, the facility is not licensed and
there is no oversight. Yet these are programs operated by an
organization based in the US.
Children lose
their basic human rights, many have no privacy to use the restroom
or shower, and children lose contact with the outside world.
Once phone calls
with parents are finally allowed, usually 3-6 months or more after
the child enters the program, they are censored; children lose
virtually all other verbal contact with the outside world.
Children’s letters to extended family and friends are usually not
delivered, and mail is censored. Many have spent months on their
faces in isolation.
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