Death Trip
Wilderness therapy programs claim
they'll straighten out your troubled teen with tough love and survival
training. Some kids never come back.
by Paige Bierma
CONSUMER HEALTH
INTERACTIVE
August 8, 2001 | The headline in
the morning paper made me recoil. Another young boy had died in a
wilderness boot camp -- a victim, like many before him, of abuse at the
hands of those in charge of helping him.
Tony Haynes, 14, drowned after employees
at an unlicensed boot camp in Arizona, run by a group called America's
Buffalo Soldiers, stuck him in a bathtub half-conscious and turned on
the shower. They left Haynes unattended in the tub, even though the boy
had been vomiting and delirious after being forced to stand in
115-degree desert heat as punishment for asking to go home. The Phoenix
boy's tragic death last month -- and charges that other children were
also abused by camp drill instructors -- are currently under
investigation. (The camp's operator denies any wrongdoing.)
To me, the story is all too familiar.
(click here)
Six years ago, I wrote an expose for Vibe magazine
about a new trend in managing America's rebellious teens -- "wilderness
therapy" programs that promise to straighten out problem children with
tough love, fresh air, and strenuous hikes through the desert. The camps
were touted as an effective middle-ground solution for worried parents
-- something in between institutionalizing problem kids and doing
nothing. Hundreds of teens were sent off to camps like these during the
1990s, most because they were experimenting with drugs, doing poorly in
school, defying their parents, or even just refusing to do their chores.
Some parents paid extra for camp employees to "escort" their children to
the camps -- that is, arrive at the family home in the middle of the
night, wake the teenager, and drag him off to a helicopter standing by
for the trip.
The philosophy behind the wilderness stays was to
remove the teens from whatever bad influences they were exposed to in
their hometowns, and rely on camp counselors and the harsh elements of
the desert to teach kids discipline and responsibility. Other goals were
to build self-esteem though physical prowess and survival skills, and to
make the teenagers long to get back home to air conditioning, ample
food, and the other comforts of home.
Unfortunately, some kids never made it home. At the
time of my investigation, three teens had already died in three separate
camps in Utah. Kristen Chase, 16, perished of heatstroke in 1990.
Michelle Sutton, 15 (pictured above), died from dehydration in another
camp the same year. And in 1994, 16-year-old Aaron Bacon endured a slow
and agonizing death from a perforated ulcer, which counselors failed to
treat because they believed the boy was faking his illness.
Bacon's parents shared a diary with me that their
son had been keeping up to the time of his death. His mother wept while
describing Aaron as a wonderful child and an "old soul," a sensitive and
politically aware teen who wrote poetry. She and her husband Bob turned
to the wilderness program only because Aaron had begun experimenting
with marijuana, and become despondent during his sophomore year in high
school. "I was seeking a place where Aaron could go and get in touch
with God and himself," Sally Bacon said. "Where he could get clearheaded
and think about choices, about where his life was going. I was trying to
help my child, and what they did to him is so horrible that I can't even
talk about it."
In one of Aaron's last entries, in handwriting that
had begun to deteriorate, the teenager speculated that his parents would
never have sent him to the camp if they'd known what it would really be
like.
"It's my 21st day here, and I'm in terrible
condition," he wrote. "I feel like I'm losing control of my body.... I'm
so scared of everything here -- staff, slick rocks, nights, the cold,
everything. I couldn't tell at all that I would be doing this sort of
thing from the catalog. I describe it as legal child abuse."
Following Bacon's death, Utah state officials shut
down several camps and adopted strict standards for regulating the
private, for-profit camps in the mid-1990s. Things seemed to improve
briefly, but it wasn't long before wilderness therapy programs and "boot
camps" began to sprout up in other states (and even foreign countries)
where regulations were lax or nonexistent.
Talk Shows and Juvenile Courts
Today, TV talk shows often promote boot camps as an
effective fix for parents with rebellious teens. They invite camp drill
instructors to the show who yell into the faces of the "out-of-control"
kids and make them cry on camera. Many judges have also jumped on the
boot camp bandwagon, often sentencing juvenile offenders to attend
either state-run or privately run boot camps.
Such was the case of 14-year-old Gina Score, who
was ordered to attend South Dakota's state-run boot camp for girls in
1999 after she'd been caught shoplifting, her parents say.
Score, who weighed 226 lbs at 5 feet 4 inches tall,
died of heat exhaustion two days into the program, when she collapsed
near the end of 2.7-mile forced run. Staff members left the girl on the
ground for three hours because they thought she was pretending to be
ill. She died of heat exhaustion in a hospital later that day.
The girl's death led South Dakota officials to
re-examine state juvenile justice policies, and now fewer children in
that state are being sent to boot camp. The national Youth Law Center
filed a class-action lawsuit against the state on behalf of Score and
other teens in boot camps and juvenile detention centers. As a result,
South Dakota agreed to discontinue two practices the suit had
criticized: placing both girls and boys in four-point restraints
(spread-eagle), and locking juveniles in isolation cells for 23 hours a
day for up to weeks at a time.
Of course, not all boot camps and wilderness
therapy camps are bad. Some juveniles have been shown to benefit from
such programs, especially if the camps have highly-trained staff and
comprehensive aftercare programs that offer follow-up counseling once
the youth returns home.
The nonprofit Anasazi Foundation in Arizona has
been providing wilderness therapy for youth with substance abuse or
behavioral problems for 13 years. Its founders, who say they repudiate
the use of force against kids and base their teachings on Native
American philosophy, have been outspoken against the "military
mentality" of many boot camps. "We believe the wilderness can be a very
safe place to work with young people," says Mike Merchant, the camp's
chief executive officer. "It's not a place to break children down. The
wilderness is an environment free from clutter and conflict, a place
where they can sort through their problems."
In general, though, the controversial nature and
military mentality of these camps -- combined with many documented cases
of abuse and even death -- should make parents wary of shipping their
kids off to wilderness programs. Deborah Vargas, policy analyst for the
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, advises parents to explore all
other avenues -- including available community services and counseling
-- before resorting to boot camps. If they are still determined to send
their teen to such a camp, they should investigate it thoroughly in
advance.
There are dozens of state-run boot camps in the
country, and dozens more privately run programs. According to the
Michelle Sutton Foundation, a parents' group that tracks wilderness and
boot camp abuses, more than 30 children have died in such camps since
1980. Media reports confirm at least 11 deaths since 1990.
One of those deaths was that of 15-year old William
"Eddie" Lee, who was killed in September 2000 at the privately run
Obsidian Trails Outdoor School, based in Bend, Oregon. Lee died of an
injury to an artery in his neck caused when camp counselors pinned him
to the ground for refusing to stick with the group. No criminal charges
were filed. Lee's mother, who sent her son to Obsidian hoping it would
improve his behavior and help him make a better transition into high
school, has filed a $1.5 million wrongful death suit.
Tony Haynes, who died on July 1, 2001, is another
boot camp casualty. The 14-year-old had been going to a wilderness camp
on the weekends, and his parents hoped the five-week program would help
their son even more. Haynes, who reportedly had a bad temper, had been
picked up for shoplifting and had recently slashed the tires on his
mom's car in an attempt to escape being sent back to the camp. "He was
going to take his punishment like a man," the boy's grieving father,
Gettis Haynes, Jr., of Missouri, told reporters. "I didn't think dying
was included in that."
At the very least, Vargas advises parents not to be
naive about the camps' claims. "These programs promise parents who are
at their wit's end a quick fix, but there is no quick fix," she says.
"If you think that a four-month program in the desert is the solution,
you're fooling yourself."
-- Paige Bierma is a freelance health and medical
reporter in San Francisco. Her expose on abuses in wilderness therapy
camps published in Vibe magazine, won first place for magazine writing
in the Investigative Reporters and Editors' 1995 national awards
competition.
http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/bootcamp
Further Resources
Youth Law Center
Children's Legal Protection Center
417 Montgomery Street, Suite 900
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: 415/543-3379
Fax: 415/956-9022
Email: info@youthlawcenter.com
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ)
Main Administrative Office
1622 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: 415/621-5661
Fax: 415/621-5466
Email: info@cjcj.org
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP)
810 Seventh Street, NW
Washington, DC 20531
Phone: 202/307-5911
Fax: 202/307-2093
Email: Askjj@ncjrs.org
Michelle Sutton Foundation
(run by Cathy Sutton, mother of one of first wilderness camp victims)
Phone: 209/599-4692
First published August 8, 2001
Last updated May 18, 2005
Copyright © 2001 Consumer Health Interactive
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