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Tough-Love Teen Camps A "Nightmare"
Article The Skinny: Inquiry Into
Boot Camps For Trouble Teens Finds Many Abuses, GAO Report Says
October 10, 2007
By Keach Heagy
For years, people have complained
about abuses at so-called boot camps and other wilderness programs
where frustrated parents send their troubled teens to get
straightened out.
Today, USA Today gets a sneak peak
at the findings from the first federal inquiry into the programs,
and the results reveal a lot of tough love -- minus the love.
The Government Accountability
Office cataloged 1,619 incidents of abuse in 33 states in 2005,
according to a study to be released later today. It also looked at a
sample of 10 deaths since 1990 and found untrained staff, inadequate
food or reckless operations were factors. In half of those cases,
the teens died of dehydration or heat exhaustion.
"This nightmare has remained an
open secret for years," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif, who has
designed a bill to encourage states to enact regulations. "Congress
must act, and it must act swiftly."
Investigators counted thousands of
cases of abuse, using Web sites and news reports. Five of the 10
programs where teens died are still operating. The GAO didn't
release names, but USA Today pieced together a few of the cases from
news reports.
In one particularly haunting case,
Anthony Haynes, 14, died in 2001 while at American Buffalo Soldiers
boot camp in Arizona. Children there were fed an apple for
breakfast, a carrot for lunch and a bowl of beans for dinner.
Haynes became dehydrated in
113-degree heat and vomited up dirt, according to witnesses. The
program closed, and the director, Charles Long, was sentenced in
2005 to six years in prison for manslaughter.
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