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Troubled US teens suffer abuse,
neglect at 'boot camps'
October 11, 2007
Bob Bacon, father of Aaron
Paul Lewis, father of Ryan Lewis,
Bacon. Aaron died while
and Cynthia Harvey, mother of
enrolled in a wilderness
Erica Harvey. Ryan and Erica died
program in Utah.
while enrolled in programs.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Troubled
American teens have been abused and neglected at the
high-discipline, "tough love" programs which are supposed to help
them, and have sometimes paid with their lives, according to a
report by the US Congress.
The report presented to a committee
of US lawmakers Wednesday spoke of "thousands of allegations of
abuse, some of which involved death, at residential treatment
programs across the country and in American-owned and operated
facilities abroad between 1990 and 2007.
"Today we will hear stories of
children denied access to bathrooms and forced to defecate on
themselves; children forced to eat dirt or their own vomit; children
paired with so-called buddies whose job was to abuse them,"
Democratic lawmaker George Miller said at the presentation of the
report on residential treatment centers, which are designed to help
troubled youths.
The report, drawn up by the
Government Accountability Office (GAO), was released as a Florida
court began hearing the case of the beating death -- caught on video
tape -- of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson at a program for young
offenders.
"During 2005 alone, 33 states
reported 1,619 staff members involved in incidents of abuse in
residential programs," it said.
Bob Bacon's son, Aaron, died in
1994 while taking part in a so-called wilderness therapy program in
Utah for troubled teens.
"Aaron's journal contained no
poetry but recorded in his own words an unbelievable account of
torture, abuse and neglect," Bacon told lawmakers and a handful of
parents of victims who attended the hearing.
Bacon said his son spent "14 of his
20 days on the trail without any food whatsoever, while being forced
to hike eight to 10 miles (13-16 kilometers) a day.
"On the days he did have food, it
consisted of undercooked lentils, lizards, scorpions and trail mix,"
Bacon said.
Sixteen-year-old Paul Lewis hanged
himself while attending a "therapeutic wilderness program" in West
Virginia.
"While he was in the program, Ryan
was 5 feet one inch (1.6 meters) and weighed 90 pounds (41
kilograms). He was forced to carry a makeshift backpack with
approximately 60 pounds (27 kilograms) of gear," his father, Paul
Lewis, told the hearing.
Cynthia Harvey's 15-year-old
daughter, Erica, died of heat stroke and dehydration at another
camp.
"We will be haunted as long as we
live by Erica's cry of, 'Please, Daddy, don't make me go,'" her
distraught mother said.
Residential treatment programs and
facilities began springing up in the United States in the early
1990s.
Not governed by federal law, the
programs often come in the shape of wilderness therapy -- where
participants are in an outdoor, survival setting, away from the
distractions of modern life and forced to focus on themselves -- or
"boot camps" with strict, military-style discipline.
"Many of the programs are intended
to provide a less restrictive alternative to incarceration or
hospitalization for youth who may require intervention to address
emotional or behavioral challenges," the GAO report said.
But youths who attended the camps
said they were "worse than jail," clinical child psychologist
Allison Pinto told the hearing.
"We did an online survey and
collected 700 responses in six months. The survey revealed a highly
disturbing phenomenon," Pinto, who coordinates the Alliance for the
Safe, Therapeutic and Appropriate use of Residential Treatment (A
START), said.
"The comments of the youths
included: 'It was a terrible place. I would hope no one would ever
have to go to a place like that. It's worse than jail.'"
"The treatment is a violation of
human rights: youths were deprived of food, sleep, shelter. There
were incidents of physical and sexual abuse," she said.
The report was commissioned by the
House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor after
allegations of abusive or unprofessional behavior at the camps,
sometimes resulting in a teenager's death, were received by legal
authorities or posted on the Internet.
It blamed many of the deaths at the
camps on inept program managers and untrained staff, and accused
some of the camps of taking "tough love" to unacceptable extremes.
One program fed teens "an apple for
breakfast, a carrot for lunch, and a bowl of beans for dinner while
requiring extensive physical activity in harsh conditions," the
report said.
Others led ill-equipped hikes in
unfamiliar territory, drawing fire from the GAO for "reckless or
negligent operating practices".
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