Welcome back to the show.
Few things are more important than raising teens
to be safe, healthy, and responsible adults,
unless your teens are the terrifying kids
from "The White Lotus."
Just leave those two alone and pray they don't say something
devastating about your elbows.
But over the last few decades, one alarming industry
has become a powerhouse.
In states across the US programs like wilderness
therapy and therapeutic boarding schools
are part of what is known as the troubled teen industry.
The vast and highly profitable network.
There are hundreds of these in the United States,
ranging from wilderness programs, behavior modification
programs, boot camps, therapeutic boarding schools,
religious programs, rehabs.
They take kids with problems ranging
from serious psychiatric disorders, drug abuse, trauma
issues, to kids who have difficult family relationships
or just aren't performing to their parents' preferences.
Not performing to their parents preferences?
What does that even mean?
Children aren't [BLEEP] iPhones.
You can't put them on airplane mode when you're busy.
Each year, some 50,000 kids in the US
are sent into residential treatment programs-- boarding
schools, tough love wilderness programs, and boot camps,
often against their will.
Kids are sent to these programs by their parents,
and strangely, daytime TV.
There is a program that's called
the WinGate Wilderness Program.
He's the clinical director at Wilderness Treatment Center.
The Center for Discovery.
Turnabout Ranch is a terrific place that specializes
in working with teens.
You too fight about how this child should be parented,
and neither one of you are within a country
mile of what needs to happen.
OK, not every phrase needs to be made folksy.
We get it.
You're just a regular guy who's not at all
qualified to be a doctor.
But despite the endorsement of Hometown Buffet Krampus,
these facilities are actual physical and psychological
nightmares for children.
I witnessed and endured physical abuse, restraints,
emotional, mental abuse.
I was forced onto medications.
I was taught that everything that happened to me
was all my fault.
I had to do forced labor outside
in below-freezing temperatures and sleep on a wooden
plank with no pillow.
The family of a boy who died in a car accident at the ranch
says he had jalapeno pepper juice poured into his eyes,
and that he was carried from a pole, bound by hands and feet
like one would carry a large dead animal.
I had just turned 13 years old.
They did a full intake cavity search.
I had a supervised shower, which was also very traumatizing.
That is truly horrifying.
Those facilities aren't using tough love to help teens grow.
Those are businesses that are abusing
children to make a profit.
The US Government Accountability Office
found thousands of allegations of abuse
in the troubled teen industry, yet there
are no federal laws or agencies regulating the centers.
It's the kind of lax child care that
led to Yakko, Wakko and Dot being locked
in the Warner Brothers tower.
They tried to tell us how bad it was in their theme song,
but no one listened.
For decades, governments were incentivized
to apply lax regulations because these programs
generate hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
In 2015, Utah reported that it brought in $328 million
from its troubled teen programs, and the industry accounted
for more than 6,000 jobs.
And I get that Utah needs the money.
Big Love merchandise is still the number two
source of income in the state.
Programs like Provo Canyon have been referred to "as if hell
itself was on Earth", but when marketing
to parents these programs make hell
seem like a really refreshing hike.
One brochure that we received in the mail had a picture
of mountains, a snow-capped mountain
with a beautiful pristine lake, a lot of pine trees.
The pictures look great.
You see this vast wilderness, you see
the kids around the campfire.
Come to find out later that High Impact is really a horse corral
budded up against a dog kennel, and kids march in a circle
inside a horse corral.
That is appalling.
I mean, yes, we need to teach children
that life is an endless slog of going in circles until you die,
but there are more humane ways to do it.
Many facilities are ill equipped to care for children at all,
let alone provide the psychological support
needed to help children with mental health needs.
In fact, many of these programs don't employ licensed staff
or supervising physicians.
So not only are some kids sent there by Dr. Phil,
they have to be treated by Dr. Phils.
Still, troubled teen programs continue
to stay in business because they prey on desperate parents.
The parent wants so badly for the kid to be OK,
and they're offered this solution that
not only alleviates the kind of stress and pain
that they're experiencing in their own lives,
but gives the promise that their kid is going to be OK.
That maybe they'll come home better
and obedient and healthy.
Programs also use tactics to scare already worried parents,
warning them that if they don't enroll their kids,
their child will end up in jail or dead.
That is a parent's biggest fear.
The second biggest of course, is that their kid will grow up
to be a professional juggler.
Due to the stigma surrounding the issues that cause parents
to seek help, Americans are about as aware of these abuses
as they are that Canada made their own version
of "The Matrix".
The plot's mostly the same, but instead
of taking place in a simulation, it takes place in a moose.
Furthermore, once a child has enrolled,
many facilities restrict communication
with their parents, making it difficult for a child
to even report abuse.
The whole program is based off of a "break you down to build
you back up" mentality.
Any time they broke a rule, big or small, former students
say they were punished, forced to be silent,
or put in isolation, sometimes for months.
They did rape reenactments on the girls that
had been sexually abused before the program,
and they would have a male staff come in
and reenact the rape on the victim.
And while that was happening, we were instructed to yell
things at her like whore, slut.
It effectively breaks you.
You lose your sanity.
You lose hope.
You know what, forget reform.
We should just [BLEEP] burn that place to the ground.
But if you're confused how these camps
have operated largely unchecked for so long, you are not alone.
Inconsistent rules across states,
including licensing, employee certification requirements,
and how the programs identify, makes government oversight
of the industry a challenge.
No license is required, no oversight is needed,
and no training is mandated.
The state simply does not keep track of them.
Anyone could buy a piece of property
here, put together a website, and start charging parents
several thousand dollars a month to send
them their troubled kids.
So basically, the only requirement
to run one of these camps has been a Geocities account.
During the past several years, we've become more aware
of industry abuses, thanks to both lawsuits
brought by former residents, as well as
celebrities who've gone public to describe
the trauma they faced.
In her documentary last year, Paris Hilton
discussed being taken from her home in the middle
of the night, making her think she was literally being
kidnapped by strangers, and sent to a troubled teen program
against her will.
Earlier this year, she testified before the Utah
State Legislature about the abuses she experienced.
And in March, the state passed a new law increasing oversight.
As of 2015, at least 86 kids have died in these programs.
And yet since 2008, Congress has repeatedly failed to advance
a federal bill on the issue.
Last month in Washington, Paris joined Senator Jeff Merkley
and Representatives Ro Khanna, Rosa DeLauro, and Adam Schiff,
to advocate for the Accountability
for Congregate Care Act.
The act would help make it easier
to hold teen facilities accountable
and hopefully better protect kids.
We need to pass this legislation now, because every kid deserves
to be cared for, to feel safe, and to never, ever have to go
on television with Dr. Phil.
We'll be right back.
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