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Teen 'Boot Camps' Again in Spotlight
Investigators To Reveal Results of an Undercover Investigation Into
Teen Camps at House Hearing
By Justin Rood
April 22, 2008
List of Residential Program Deaths
List
of Restraint Deaths in Programs
 Residential
programs for troubled teens will be getting more scrutiny from
Congress this week, where investigators will reveal the results of
an undercover investigation.
Some of the outfits, which purport
to help troubled children, have generated hundreds of allegations of
death and physical, sexual and emotional abuse, ABC News reported
last October.
"Kids being forced to eat their own
vomit, to eat dirt, to not be allowed to go to the bathroom...all in
the idea that somehow this is building character," is how Rep.
George Miller, D-Calif., described what congressional investigators
found when they probed some of the programs.
At a hearing before Miller's House
Education and Labor Committee Thursday, investigators are expected
to reveal alarming new details showing how deceptive marketing and
conflicts of interest could lead good parents to send their children
to bad programs, Hill sources say.
Miller is also expected to
introduce legislation aimed at strengthening oversight of the
programs.
At a hearing last fall,
investigators told Congress that "boot camp"-style programs tend to
be loosely regulated and are sometimes found to have untrained staff
using reckless or negligent operating practices.
"We cannot afford to take these
[programs] away from the parents as an option," Jan Moss, president
of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP),
told ABC News last fall.
She acknowledged, however, before
Congress later, "We have made mistakes in the past; we recognize
that."
Inside Tough
Love Teen Camps A federal study of "boot camps" and wilderness
programs for troubled children has found evidence of hundreds, if not
thousands,
of allegations of death and physical, sexual and emotional abuse. (ABC
News)
Inside Tough Love Teen Camps The Catherine Freer wilderness program in
Oregon
and Nevada is one of the camps cited in the GAO report. It had been
praised by
the parents of many troubled teens as a place where tough love worked. It
was
even praised in an ABC News "Primetime" report in May 2002. (ABC News) 2
of 12
Inside Tough Love Teen Camps Erica Harvey, who was suffering from
depression and
bipolar disorder and reportedly had a history of drug use, was enrolled in
the Catherine
Freer wilderness program by her parents when she was 15. Within a day,
Erica had died
from heat stroke complicated by drug-induced dehydration. Shortly after
Erica's death,
two more children died at Freer's Nevada operation, from a heart defect
and a falling
branch, according to the GAO report.
The program
continues to operate in Oregon, and in a statement to ABC News, the
Catherine Freer Wilderness Therapy Program noted that no findings of fault
in the
students' deaths were made. (ABC News)
Inside Tough
Love Teen Camps Ryan Lewis was 14 and had twice attempted
suicide when his parents placed him in an outdoor therapy program in West
Virginia, believing it had experts on staff who could help with Ryan's
depression
and suicidal urges. Six days into the program, Ryan hung himself. The
Lewis
family later learned that the program had no procedures to deal with
suicidal
behavior. Following a grand jury indictment, one of the program's owners
paid
a $5,000 fine and entered a no contest plea, according to the GAO.
According
to the family, the owners later admitted personal responsibility for
Ryan's death,
as part of a $1.2 million civil settlement with Ryan's family. The program
remains
open. (ABC News)
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Inside Tough Love
Teen Camps Aaron Bacon was 16 when his parents enrolled him in a
wilderness camp in Utah. His mother, Sally Bacon, told ABC News he
started to
complain of a stomach ache, to which his counselors responded by
calling him a "faker"
and a "slacker." When Aaron was in so much pain he could not carry
his backpack,
the counselors "called him names and decided that since he couldn't
carry his pack,
his food was in his pack so he would go without food," his mother
said. (ABC News)
Inside Tough Love
Teen Camps Aaron lost 23 pounds in his month at the camp before
he died because no one realized he had an infected, perforated ulcer, the
GAO said.
The condition "would have been treatable provided there had been
early medical attention,"
the report states. After Aaron's death, the state of Utah revoked
the program's operating license,
and the program closed three months later, according to the GAO.
(ABC News)
Aaron's Main Page
Inside Tough Love
Teen Camps Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., has pushed to improve
oversight of
these "boot camp" programs. Miller, who asked the Government
Accountability Office to study
the allegations and cases of negligent deaths and abuse in the
programs, is chairing a
congressional hearing today on the topic. The GAO's findings
appalled him, he said.
"Kids being forced
to eat their own vomit, to eat dirt, to not be allowed to go to the
bathroom...
all in the idea that somehow this is building character," he told
ABC News.
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