|
Congressional Hearing Addresses
Abuses at Youth `Boot Camps'
October 10, 2007
WASHINGTON - Congressional
investigators told a House committee Wednesday that they found
thousands of allegations of abuse at youth "boot camps" across the
country, including evidence of mistreatment in the death of a
15-year-old boy at a Missouri program in 2004.
Of the 10 deaths closely examined
by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, lead investigator Greg Kutz called the Missouri case "one
of the three worst."
"Ineffective program management
played a key role in most of these deaths," the GAO's Kutz
testified.
An autopsy had said that Roberto
Reyes, of Santa Rosa, Calif., died from rhabdomyolsis, or the
breakdown of muscle fibers releasing the fibers into the
bloodstream, resulting from a spider bite less than week after
coming to Thayer Learning Center.
The GAO report presented to a
congressional committee for a hearing Wednesday also said Reyes
endured abuse after complaining of illness and was denied medical
care.
Criminal charges were never filed,
even though a state investigation found evidence of staff neglect
and concluded medical treatment might have saved Reyes' life.
The GAO report's findings in the
Thayer case prompted Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the
House Education and Resources, to call for the Justice Department to
examine the fatality and why local agencies declined to file
charges.
He also asserted during a hearing
that conditions in many residential treatment programs designed to
prove "tough love" for troubled teens are "inhumane."
"This nightmare has remained an
open secret for years," Miller said. "Sporadic news accounts of
specific incidents have built a record that should never have been
ignored, but shamefully was."
The Caldwell County, Mo., coroner
said at the time of Reyes' death that his autopsy concluded that the
death was an accident and that Reyes could have been bitten before
he arrived at the camp.
The GAO report presented to the
committee Wednesday said Reyes had more than 30 cuts and bruises on
his body when he died. The staff had interpreted Reyes' symptoms
including falling down frequently, complaining of muscle soreness,
vomiting and involuntarily urinating and defecating on himself as
rebellion.
After complaining of illness, Reyes
was forced to the ground and held there on several occasions,
according to the report. On one occasion, he had a 20-pound sandbag
tied around his neck when he was too sick to exercise.
Reyes was placed in the "sick bay"
the morning of the day he died, where a staff member checked on him
mid-afternoon and found he had no pulse. The staff then called 911
and Reyes was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A state investigation found that
Reyes might have survived if he had earlier medical attention and
that records at the camp may have been falsified. No criminal
charges were ever filed, though Reyes' parents filed a wrongful
death suit that was settled out of court for about $1 million,
according to the GAO.
Thayer Learning Center did not
immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the report.
The committee heard testimony from
three parents of children whose boot camp deaths were among ten
cases examined in the report:
_Ryan Lewis, 14, of East
Longmeadow, Mass., suffered from clinical depression and committed
suicide while at the camp even after he had cut his arm with a
camp-issued pocket and pleaded with counselors to let him leave in
July 2002;
_Erica Harvey, 15, a California
resident, died from heat stroke while hiking during her the first
day of a program in Oregon in May 2002;
_Aaron Bacon, 16, of Phoenix, lost
20 percent of his body weight while at a Utah program. He collapsed
and died after being denied food and water in 113-degree heat.
"Aaron's bloody and tattered
journal would contain no poetry, but would record in his own words
an unbelievable account of torture, abuse and neglect," his father,
Bob Bacon, said at the hearing.
The GAO said it was not passing
judgment on all boot camp programs and is taking a broader look for
a report to be released early next year.
___
(c) 2007, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Visit the Post-Dispatch on the
World Wide Web at http://www.stltoday.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune
Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com,
call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or
write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303,
Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
|
