|
The Huffington Post
Congressional Hearing: Tough Love or
Teen Torment: Will the Industry Finally Be Regulated?
October 8, 2007
By Maia Szalavitz
Congress is finally looking into
the "troubled teen" industry and the deaths, human rights abuses and
other problems that have occurred in teen "boot camps" "wilderness
programs" and other "tough love" residential settings. In many
states, these institutions are less regulated than dog kennels and
nail salons.
On Wednesday, Rep. George Miller
(D-CA), Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, will hold
a full committee investigative hearing and present results from a
Government Accountability Office report that he commissioned. The
investigation promises to be revealing-- and may be highly
unfavorable to industry claims that it can regulate itself.
My book, Help at Any Cost: How the
Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids (Riverhead,
2006), was the first to expose systematic problems in the industry
and the complete lack of regulatory oversight on programs that are
essentially private jails for kids. The book helped spur Miller's
push for legislation.
As it stands now, there is more
federal regulation protecting mule deer than there is preserving the
rights of children in these institutions. Anyone can open one--
there are no qualifications required, nor criminal background
checks. Some owners have even made deals with prosecutors and
regulators to stay away from their facilities, due to accusations of
sexual and other kinds of child abuse. But they were not made to
leave the industry!
And no legal authority is required
to inspect these facilities or see to it that kids are well-treated
in them.
Teens placed in these settings do
not have any right to appeal their confinement: they may be held
without contact with the outside world until they turn 18.
Moreover, in the programs, they are
often subject to "therapies" that many consider torturous: food
deprivation, sleep deprivation, total isolation, punitive restraint
and constant emotional and even sexual humiliation. When such
tactics are used on suspected terrorists, there is a human rights
outcry-- but these programs have done everything short of
water-boarding kids with impunity for decades.
For example, one girl was made to
dress as a prostitute, wearing a nametag that said "Shameful Slut."
"Slut, 25 cents" was written on her skin in lipstick. Boys had to
yell "slut" and "ho" and "bitch" at her. Others were made to wear
diapers and boys were dressed in drag and called "faggot." In
another program, a girl was gagged with Kotex; another was made to
clean toilets with her bare hands. Some children had to use their
toothbrushes first to scrub the floors, then their teeth.
That's not to mention the dozens of
gruesome deaths that have occurred because "tough love" ideology
does not accept the idea that teens ever have legitimate medical
complaints. One boy lost control of his urine and bowels as he began
to die-- and was humiliated for it by program staff, saying he was
doing it deliberately. Another, also accused of faking, had two and
a half quarts of pus in his chest when he was autopsied.
Right now, of course, seven boot
camp guards and a nurse in Florida are on trial for manslaughter in
another death-- that of a 14-year-old boy who couldn't complete
required exercises and was beaten and forced to inhale ammonia to
prove he wasn't faking. He died proving it.
I hope that these hearings will
bring national attention to this issue. Hundreds of thousands of
teens have been sent over the last 30 years-- and the industry
continues to grow. There is no proof that its "product" helps
anyone-- and a great deal of research suggesting that the programs
may be causing significant harm.
We don't allow amateurs to diagnose
and treat physical illnesses-- so why are we letting untrained
people have total control, with no checks and balances, over
vulnerable teens who have no way of contesting their confinement? I
will have more after the hearings.
|
