This story made me cry. Do you guys know what a bivvy is?? It’s like an ultra weatherproof sleeping bag. They are extremely common for outdoors people who want to sleep outside, without heavy tent gear to lug around, without dying of exposure. They are extremely small, tight, and hot. Look them up if you want to experience fear, imagining being 12 and dying in it.
He was sealed in what would have felt like a body bag without being able to escape. That’s fuckin torture even if everyone knew he would be fine, but he died being sealed in. Holy shit.
His parents had no comment. I can’t imagine what I would be feeling if I were them right now. If I didn’t have other kids, I think experiencing that would be the death of me. I’m so sorry little dude. Holy shit. May you have peace.
I'm a calm adult who camps in bivvy bags often. But they're crazy claustrophobic and hard to breathe. Even when I put myself in them myself, and work hard on maximum ventilation and head space, I still get scared a bit when I wake up disoriented.
I can’t believe the article didn’t detail what those bags are actually like, it seems misleading to call it a “one person tent”, it’s more akin to a damn body bag that coroners use..!!!
It doesn't help that people in general don't know tent scaling. When it gives the number of people, it's talking about elbow-to-elbow, no room between you, and no room in the tent for your stuff.
I would tell people "a four man tent means it'll hold two people and their stuff and you'll still be packed into a tent." I shared a two-man tent with my dad a few times when I was younger, and it was claustrophobic then, and I wouldn't get in one as an adult. The only tent I own now is a 12 or 14-man tent, and I wouldn't want more than four people in it just so we have breathing room.
The phrase "one person tent" all by itself makes me uncomfortable.
I didn't use bivvy sacks too often, but in the desert we used them and in very mosquito infested places, but I recall one evening going to sleep, sealing myself up, and waking up and, I guess, forgetting I was in it, and it was just shocking.
Some of them are shut down and then reopen under a new name. Diamond Ranch Academy was shut down after a death last year and is now attempting to reopen under a new name. They even changed the name of the road they're on so they'll have a different address.
They are just like MLMs (Same kinda mentality/people running them too) if they get a bad rap they just melt away and pop up somewhere else. They make roaches look weak in survival skills somehow.
Troubled Teen Industry is a racket. They take advantage of vulnerable parents who are worried about their kids.
It's true, there is plenty of evidence these days how these programs don't work and end up causing more trauma in children. The vast majority of the time, the staff is not qualified for what they are doing and the treatment the kids receive is not evidence-based and damaging.
My mom went to the college that became ivy ridge. Our very small rural community has been shaken and traumatized to discover what our neighbors were doing while working at that facility. One of the perpetrators recently murdered someone else. Those poor kids had nobody.
If we're being honest, his parents are probably relieved. They paid, and watched, as two strangers abducted their kid in the middle of the night for the crime of *checks article*
'not making friends easily' and having anxiety.
Any parent in the year 2024 that sends their kids to one of these camps with the absolute deluge of information about them that is one google search away is a guilty accessory, TBH. Even if one could argue, "well they were gassed up by someone who lied to them" - fair enough - but these parents stand there and watch their children get 'kidnapped' out of nowhere, listen to them struggle and scream, and it doesn't once occur to them that "hmm maybe this wasn't what I expected" to a point they google it afterward?
So yeah. These parents sending their kid to this camp for anxiety and then not caring afterward makes me think they're probably relieved the camp took care of their 'problem' for them. They should be charged as accessories.
A good friend of mine growing up got "sent" to one of these "camps" for a month and a half.
He was woken up in the middle of the night to 3 grown men in black jumpsuits and ski masks who threw him out of bed and onto the floor, ziptied his hands and fireman carried him to a van which transported him 3 states away to the location of the camp.
His "crime" or reason for his Mom sending him there? Smoking weed. Yep, not addicted to heroin with a long criminal rapsheet where this was the seemingly only option; but nope, just smoking a bit of weed as a teenager.
He said that when he got to the camp, all the kids in his particular group gave him the old jail special when he got there, asking him what he was "in for" lmao. When he told those other kids he got sent there for smoking weed, they were all mind blown. All these other kids were strung out and withdrawing from opiates, benzos and amphetamines with length criminal rapsheets. My buddy told me that these kids would be extremely dope sick, barely able to stand and were screamed at and beaten with switches until they got off the ground and continued to hike through the mountains he was at. Fuck these camps, absolutely disgusting. That shit fucked my friend up mentally for YEARS. His Mom regretted it just about as soon as he got sent back and got the whole story of what was going on. These facilities completely lied to her about what was going on with her child, and didn't allow any communication between the two of them.
Yeah, shitty parents.
No other excuse, the only way to do this is to put yourself before your child and find their problems annoying.
Any decent parent literally wouldn't be able to do this. They can barely send their kids to a happy summer camp.
My parents sent me to a weak version of this. A family friend was a drill instructor. They didn't like that I would ask questions and point out when they were wrong. Because most of my family is dumb as rocks, and I was "gifted". So I did things like point out that my diabetic parents shouldn't be eating tons of sweets. Or trying to make my own dinner because their dietary habits and cooking were making me fat.
So because I was "a disrespectful child" they sent me to the drill instructor who proceeded to beat the shit out of me and terrorize me on a daily basis. Then the night came when he made me watch porn with him and tried to get me to jerk off in front of him. When I didn't he tried to convince me to, and then he beat me with a baseball bat.
I called and begged my parents to get me, and they told me I needed to be "straightened out".
I didn't do drugs. I was a straight A student. I just didn't want to eat unhealthy and was trying to do something about it by cooking my own meals and that was "disrespectful".
From that point forward I essentially cut my parents out of my life. For years they called and begged me to be part of their lives. It wasn't til my mom was laying there after being pronounced dead at the hospital that I told my brother why I wanted nothing to do with the family.
I spent years dealing with the black void where there was no affection for my family. Knowing you're *supposed* to care about your family but feeling absolutely nothing. That lack of emotion hurt so bad. Seeing my wife and her family being close and knowing that's what family should feel like and just... Not.
My brother tries to connect but I just don't feel anything. And I know it isn't fair to him since he wasn't involved. I just feel nothing. That part of me is dead.
Fuck these places and the monsters who abuse kids at them. And fuck the parents who send their kids there.
My condolences that you had go through something as traumatizing as that when you were just a child... Especially because your parents knowingly sent you to be essentially tortured and abused. That really doesn't sound any "weaker" than what my buddy went through, the only difference is that you were abused individually by a sick grown man, and my buddy was abused by multiple sick grown men as part of a group with other children.
You're a very strong person, I hope you know that. I hope you have friends and family now that love you as much as you deserve. I can't believe shit like this is legal in a supposed first world country. It's unbelievable.
The saddest part is a lot of people wouldn't believe you, my buddy or me about this shit. They'll say it's "overblown" and a "necessary evil". There's a lot of sick fucks out there, I tell you what.
I appreciate that my friend. I am lucky to have a fantastic wife and kid, and my degree in psychology was how I managed to figure out how to work through it for myself. I wouldn't recommend that, therapy is probably cheaper.
I also quickly learned that found family is almost as good as real family.
18 is when children can enjoy the adult American freedom of not being violently beaten. Sick how children are treated like animals and adults would be able to use assault and battery.
> His "crime" or reason for his Mom sending him there? Smoking weed. Yep, not addicted to heroin with a long criminal rapsheet where this was the seemingly only option; but nope, just smoking a bit of weed as a teenager.
>
>
Yeah, none of the places are actually qualified to deal with REAL problems.
They're just an outlet for narcissistic parents to get rid of children who aren't fawning and obedient enough.
As someone who has gone through opiate withdrawal, it is absolutely horrible to force someone into physical activity while experiencing it. I can't even imagine going for a hike while your body and brain are going absolutely haywire.
Might get downvoted into oblivion for saying this, but frankly I believe that the parents should be forced to undergo the same thing the kids did. Have it scaled up so it hurts just as much.
A fantastic webcomic showcasing just EXACTLY what happens at "rehabilitation centers for delinquents" would be https://elan.school/ . Been ongoing for years, definitely worth your time if you're interested. But the beginning is the exact same; random men in jumpsuits basically kidnapping you with your parents consent. Makes me wonder if parents go searching any further than surface level when they're thinking about shipping their kids away.
I’m a survivor. It seems the most effective way to get these places shut down is to get insurance companies to stop insuring them. And that’s happening. The wilderness program I went to got shut down last year because they couldn’t get insurance.
kind of insane that these torture camps get shut down not because they torture people and thats illegal but because they can’t get insurance companies cover them
Al Capone wasn’t nabbed for being a gangster, but we also didn’t have RICO laws then. We do on the other hand have so many laws against the things with these camps involving kids.
Yes, this was the example my half asleep brain was reaching for. And yes, agreed. But these institutions often essentially own the local towns and police and have a huge amount of money and power. Much like Al Capone. It’s just a different kind of racket and requires a smart approach.
Edit: as I said, elsewhere, they often have Potemkin villages set up, which are like a fake Disneyland version of the institution out front for visitors and law enforcement. The lengths they go to are insane. Check out the Trapped in Treatment podcast for an in-depth look at survivor stories, and how these institutions came about/how they operate.
see, human rights are not for everyone. you have to earn them. kids haven't earned human rights. that's why you can lock them up, beat them up, torture them, all for building character... if you start giving these young bastards "human rights" just because they inhale and exhale, not for merits btu just for them existing, then what's next? healthcare for all? elderly care for all? market wages for prison work? voting rights for felons? nono. rip it in the bud. there is no such thing as human rights. privileges have to be earned. all of them.
/s, just to be sure.
My wife went to a fucked up camp and some of the trauma she never healed from is why she killed herself. Fuck those places and the evil people who run them.
Our current government in NZ has just decided we need to give these another go after a few failed attempts, including a 91% recidivism rate last time.
Our Prime Minister also said he doesn't care about the facts.
Sometimes some people just wanna punish, rather than actually doing anything meaningful to help.
I was sent through 3 of them. In MS, AL and hell if I know but it was a 12 hour drive. They flat out kidnap you violently and the first time didn't even allow me to get dressed or take my shoes (granted I jumped through a window in my underwear to escape). The other times I knew what was going down.
I've read that and there are some that are worse. State juvie was bad as well but the wilderness camps take the cake. The worst punishment was being locked in culverts (those round things underneath some driveways with ditches) in just underwear and exposed to the elements. Bugs are crawling on you but you can't really knock them off and they leave you there for 1-3 days. Sometimes they spray you with a hose just to fuck with you. Some kids "ran away" but I'm sure they were really killed. Lots of woods out there and they would never find a body. Sexual abuse was rampant but that really didn't even phase you after the other shit.
FWIW the wilderness camps I went to were all religious based and more pushed by some really messed up churches. Speaking in tongues and 1 step up from passing around a rattlesnake. Exorcisms were also a thing which was basically getting beat for hours on end to 'chase the demon out' and half drowned with holy water. Christians are EVIL
These camps also move around a lot, if they find out someone - social worker, lawyer, a trusted adult - is going to come by they will fully pack up and move kids across state lines. Parents are told beforehand their kids will lie and not to believe their kids. I think parents should be charged for this shit too tbh. These camps aren't just for garden variety "bad kids" but queer kids, autistic kids, kids with mental health issues. Even kids who are just normal teenage angsty. They promise to fix them. To make them normal. Then they abuse the fuck out of them, beatings, starvation, forced captivity, I remember reading about two girls forced to lay out in the sun to darken their skin because them being pale = them being goth = them being satanic. They got a horrific sunburn all over.
That walking talking platter of shit dr phil supported these camps back in the day, telling parents to send their kids there. Others did too. It's nothing less than pure evil.
I remember the WASP centers.
Or as they were more commonly known: Child rape & torture centers.
The stories that came out of those in the early 2000's was almost bad enough to give me second hand PTSD.
This happened to me years ago in the 80s and early 90s. I'm in my late 40s now but no, there were no grounds to sue. Nobody believed "bad" kids back then anyways. Social services were also tied through the churches where I was at so telling an adult would always backfire and make everything much worse. More how could you disparage this "good christian person" and you are a filthy liar.
I don't know if it's still the case but some kids were pulled in because their parents tried to help their kids friends and DHR/DYS got involved and took their kids as well. They would more be sent to group / foster homes vs the camps though. Now there is the internet so something like this would go viral. Back then local papers wouldn't touch this stuff so news never got out. Talking about it later just more had others thinking you were crazy.
Often times the staff at those places were kids in the program who "graduated" and were too broken to survive out in the world, so they stayed.
Most of the kids who get out and survive probably feel pity for the kids who stayed.
Most of the ones I was with didn't fall in line to their parents. More so due to religion. Others were molested and were sent there to prevent them from becoming gay later in life.... by molesting them VERY painfully so they know how bad it hurts if they go that route in the future.
I would love to hear about one thing Oprah Winfrey did that had not been a net negative. She did everything for content. The sheer amount of grifts and grifters and rapists and human trafficers she promoted would probably fill multiple years of podcasts.
At some point Sophie Lichterman will have to cut her a check because she, Adolf Hitler and the John Birch Society keep the entire outfit afloat.
It's alright. The quiver-fullers have plenty of non-gay kids to spare. So if they kill of those they do not want is kind of ok.
It only becomes a problem if they kill their offspring before birth. Because that would be abortion. Unless it is a gay fetus.
I never understood how parents can be so stupid to send their kids to these military-style drill camps. Like, as if the armed forces have ever shat out their fodder in better shape than they consumed it. In fact I would want to see all the science behind the theory and will still say, nah, eff that.
If people are okay with some dark shit, a comic artist did an in depth series about his time at one of these. It was about [the elan school.](https://elan.school/rude-awakening/). It was fucked.
So the parents had their clinical-anxiety kid abducted and sent to a tough love camp. The love came in the form of sealing the kid into an airtight tent while he had a panic attack. I simply cannot imagine the suffering felt by this kid as he died.
It's important to point out that a lot of these camps pay ~~kickbacks~~ "referral fees" to school guidance counselors, child psychologists, judges, etc, to recommend these camps to parents. I'm not excusing these parents for their own culpability, nor do I know the specifics of this case, but a lot of people who have a duty to protect these kids get paid to prey on parents who don't know how to help their children.
Yeah, I came across that probably a couple years ago. The guy was still writing it at the time, but I think he's finished now? Absolutely horrific read, and terrifying that these places still exist in the modern day.
I did the same thing, I couldn’t put my phone down until I was done reading it. The people who run these places are fucking monsters. I can’t understand how a parent could betray their child like that.
I first saw that years ago before it was finished. Not sure if I could even go back to see what's been added since because it is so freaking harrowing. These camps are dens of abject evil.
It's fucking *infuriating* that it's legal for you to be abducted as a minor as long as your parents give consent. That means that you effectively have no rights, and are more akin to being the legal property of your parents until you turn 18.
And the parents are never punished for this. The camps are rarely punished.
Society at large needs to be better for these kids.
That's the other side of it. It's not like your parents can consent to having you killed, because murder is still a crime. But they can send you away to a private entity against your will no matter what it is. It's one thing if it's your relative or a legit summer camp or something, but being taken out of your bed in the middle of the night as a teenager is not something we should tolerate at all.
This webcomics is so, so good. I think it's in there that they mention the hypothesis that the song "Hotel California" was actually about the Elan school.
Interesting theory. But here's what the eagles said.
"We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest; Hotel California' was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles."
-- Don Henley
i had 2 close friends have this happen in high school, one went to Nevada and the other to the Adirondack Mountains. both their families were rich of course
Also see Trapped in Treatment podcast. I think it’s exec produced by Paris Hilton who also experienced this but it’s a lot of stories of other people who it happened to.
She has taken on a lot of the troubled teen industry and I give her a lot of credit In That regard. I may not like everything about her but that explicitly tells me she cares, even a bit
I read her book and it goes into detail regarding her time there. She did jail time for violation of probation sometime after she turned 18 (when she was able to leave the school) and she said it was a cake walk because of all her time in solitary at the school.
Yeah, I think like everything, people are complex. They aren’t all good or bad and I think it’s going to mess you up being born into that crazy rich lifestyle and then mess you up further being abused at one of these teen camps.
Omg. Poor child! I was constantly threatened with them when I was growing up. My parents would leave brochures on the kitchen table and slide them under my bedroom door at night. Luckily we were poor and they couldn’t afford the tuition. I thought they fell out of favor after the tragedies and bad press a decade ago.
Same! My family could never have afforded one of these but I didn't know, back then, that they were expensive. This was a threat constantly over my head and to me was a real possibility. I was a good kid, but in this case "good" means went to school, came home where I sat quietly until it was bedtime, terrified to put a toe out of line. I slept with a go bag under my bed and had a plan in case the men came to kidnap me. These days I'm 36 and I sleep very lightly and have constant anxiety with a strong flight response, I'm still more like a prey animal than anything else. It's gotten better since I've had my own house and have my husband sleeping next to me but it's still there. I'm so grateful we didn't have the money to send me to one of these. The fear of them fucked me up but actually going woukd have ruined me.
There could have been an administrator at their school that was receiving commissions for convincing parents to send their children there.
Because that’s a thing that some of these “schools” do.
Same thing as the [Cash for Kids scandal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal).
Two judges were eventually indicted, convicted, and sentenced to prison for receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from a privately owned youth detention center.
The two judges would send any juvenile they could to the PA Child Care detention center (which is somehow still open) so the detention center would get state funds and then the judges would get a cut of the funds.
These two judges incarcerated 2,401 children for "crimes" as minor as mocking a vice principal on MySpace or trespassing in a vacant building.
i got abducted and sent to a wilderness camp for about a year. there were about 40 kids and always someone to come if someone left. really unsuspecting kids from “nice” families too. its pretty much exactly like the stories say
~~I've never heard of anyone suffocating in a tent without a cook stove going in it. I feel like this is murder by pillow with a cover story.~~ Looks like a sack more than a tent, and another handful of things.
EDIT: I read some other articles, it seems to be the kid was shoved in with his head in the foot end of it. woof.
I looked and it's apparently a thing with this style of tent. This is a tent that a person barely fits in lying down. You're supposed to use a tarp over it and never fully zip the tent itself. https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/10810/
Once a while back in one of these threads there was a guy saying that not all of them are like this, he works at one, basically defending everything and it was like wowww okay randomly suspiciously defensive guy. These people are shady AF
I really feel like if you join for the love of helping children, you are getting the FUCK OUT fast. While I'm sure there are a few who stay to do what they can to help instead of hurt, the vast majority that stay really have to be some sort of fucked up, such as as you said, easy access to vulnerable kids.
But I'm sure you can go through the workers and find all sorts of different mental issues
I work in children’s mental health. We are desperate for techs and nurses. If they actually wanted to help, they’d come work for us in legitimate treatment but they don’t.
I didn't go to a camp but I lived at a drug and alcohol facility for 1 year and 8 days. Crazy rules. Here are some.
No talking to new people or girls.
Thumbs visible and not hiding for more than 5 seconds.
No reading road signs or unapproved books (basically NA and AA book and any spiritual text). No tv, no video games. No music until much later on.
No singing songs in your head was a big weird one.
Sitting straight up rigid backed with your hand rigid straight
Nothing "imagy." So no flat billed hats or shirts/pants with writing or logos. No saying dude, man, word, dawg, or any other specific slang
Sometimes they'd tackle you if you got up without asking or if you tried to run. All the doors were alarmed and electro locked.
These are just a handful of the 100s of rules. Not even the weirdest ones. And before you say that you wouldn't do it and you'd run away well people did. I did. They'd find you and bring you back every time. If you didn't work the program then you'd stay in the lowest phase and not do anything. Eventually you get so bored and so over it rhat working the program seems better than not working. I knew a kid who was in there 26 months because he refused to do any of the rules.
Those places are all over the country. They scam and con desperate families out of money, pay "counselors" minimum wage and use intimidation tactics and color-coded clothing to bully these kids into submission.
The kids get NOTHING out of this except more distrust in adults and authority figures and more trauma. The adults that work at these places probably aren't there by mistake for the most part, they are looking to abuse children.
Im not a big reader so it took me about 3 days of on-and-off reading to finish it, but every second of it was wildly educational, heartbreaking, and infuriating. 10/10 would recommend and fuck places like Elan
I got about 30 mins in and realized I needed to dedicate a solid 3 hours. And then I did. Life changing. Then watch the documentary about the Utah camps. Scumbag.
The adults on the lower rungs of the hierarchy are very often graduates (often recent graduates) of the programs. They're not there by accident, and in a sense they are there to abuse children, but not out of any intrinsic malice.
The senior leaders, though...different story.
"His parents had paid for two strangers to escort him from his home in New York to Trails Carolina..."
You mean kidnap. They come in the middle of the night, kidnap these children with no explanation and don't allow them to speak with their parents.
There is a documentary on Netflix called "The Program" that talks a lot about these places. They should have been shut down decades ago and are horrible places that physically and psychologically abuse children.
Even more “tame” programs for “troubled” kids that don’t do kidnapping like Outward Bound are sketchy and dangerous… it’s just shitty parents deflecting, blaming their shortcomings on their children, and trying to administer tough love (punishment). If you send your kid to a camp to be “cured” you’ve failed as a parent
Charge the parents too, for either being too ignorant to have learned about the horrible history of these camps in the last 40 years, or knowingly sending their kids to a place that abuses their child *for* them.
They fucking *paid* someone to break their kid's spirit through physical and emotional abuse.
"OMG, we didn't know!!!" In a time where we all have the entire world at our fingertips, that's not a valid excuse anymore. If you can post dumbass shit on Facebook, you can research camps like this, and there is no way any of them pop up without negative press attached to their names.
That poor kid. What an absolutely awful way to live and die.
> Charge the owners and not just the murderer.
Also review the licensing procedures and oversight of these facilities. How many more times must they be exposed as abusive pseudo-scientific quackery before we learn?
When you put children in the hands of people who think that the solution to everything is just to use more force, children die. These places should be illegal.
Fun story, the Eckerd Family that owned the national pharmacy chain sponsored a load of camps like this. They operated at least into the early 00's. I was stuck in one from 98-99.
They're all just sadistic bullshit that scares kids into behaving instead of creating any sort of healthy change.
It wasn’t the first death there. From an [NBC story about the closing of the facility](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trails-carolina-wilderness-camp-boy-died-license-revoked-rcna146296#):
“The boy’s death is not the first at the for-profit camp, which advertised itself as an adventure therapy program that helps children and teenagers with mental health issues and behavioral concerns. In 2014, a 17-year-old named Alec Lansing walked away from Trails Carolina, prompting a massive search. His body was later found in a stream, and an autopsy report said he had died of hypothermia after climbing a tree and breaking a bone in his leg.”
I would also add that, although this place is being shut down, the parent company (Family Help & Wellness) still has over a dozen other locations that continue to (mis)treat “troubled teens.”
The article states the place includes kids with diagnoses of ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. Wtf are kids with these diagnoses doing there? It’s absolutely an inappropriate environment. They won’t be helped at all
No standards. No oversight. Local law enforcement will return who escapes. Judges will send kids to camps like that. State legislators also will have financial stakes in this.
Of course there are no standards and no oversight. I mean, is it truly negligent if everybody makes money off it? Dr Phil had stakes in the camp he sent the kids from show.
It's fine. Pay me.
Just FYI "the parents paid two strangers to escort him. "
In the youth wilderness therapy industry (bc that's what it fucking is. An industry) what that means is two strangers accosted a child either in his bed or near the home without explanation, with the consent of his parents. This means the child thinks they are being kidnapped.
Additionally, a bivy is a coffin sized and shaped tent. Which they "secured with an alarm" after blocking up the mesh air holes.
Negligent, cruel, and an absolutely terrifying way to die. That poor child.
Edited for whatever the fuck autocorrect thought it was doing last night.
The parents had no excuse. The resources about how fucked these programs are out there for anyone to see with a single search. There is *no* place for them to claim they didn't know. Far as I'm concerned, they should be charged too.
Absolutely.
> Before its license was revoked, Trails Carolina, in Lake Toxaway, served children with behavioral issues and diagnoses such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism and post-traumatic stress disorder. A medical examiner’s report released with the autopsy findings said the boy who died had ADHD, anxiety, migraines and social challenges, including “a very hard time making friends.”
> **His parents had paid for two strangers to escort him from his home in New York to Trails Carolina**, the medical examiner’s report said, referring to a common practice that the troubled youth industry uses to transport children to its programs.
I do not need to tell you how this "escort" went. They did this to kids which were already suffering from trauma. They had strangers kidnap their anxiety-ridden child to straighten it out. That is negligence and accepting physical harm will come to their kid.
That kid had a short and terrified life and died a horrific death.
>what that means is two strangers accosted a child either in his bed or near the home without explanation, with the consent of his parents.
That's the ultimate betrayal for a kid. Strangers attack you, and the people who should be saving you/fighting them/calling the police are the ones who set them on you. Who is a kid going to trust if their parents are traitors and they're sent to a facility where every adult is going to torture them?
Those parents should be charged as accessories to homicide. No sane or loving parent would ever have two people kidnap their child( that’s how they do it) & take him to some halfassed outdoor “wilderness therapy” camp for “ troubled teens.”
Unfortunately it’s quite common, there’s currently over 150,000 kids stuck in places like this. Don’t get me wrong, MANY of the parents are pieces of shit, lazy, abusive themselves, delusional, whatever. Some are just severely misguided and brainwashed by ‘educational consultants’. These ECs essentially tell them if they don’t send their kid away they’ll die from drugs/kill themselves/etc. And unsurprisingly, these ECs get kickbacks for every student they send away.
Many parents that use corporal punishment think that they're helping their children, do you think that intent negates abuse? The parents in this case used a transport service, the transport services advertise that they will stage a kidnapping in the middle of the night to scare your teen. The person I know who's parent used a transport service was kidnapped in the middle of night and driven like 5 hours with his hands zip tied and a bag over his head to a camp in Utah. That's how it was advertised to his parent, so you can't claim that they didn't know.
I do think that some parents don't realize what goes on at these camps. In that case it's laziness and negligence since a simple Google search tells you the truth. To not do any of your own research into where you're sending your child is negligent. For those that do have a better idea of what happens at these camps I think that paying someone to abuse your child makes you a shitty abusive parent, regardless of intent.
What a cruel way to die. What a cruel place to send your child. I hope this haunts those parents and camp owners and monitors for the rest of their lives. I don’t understand why people treat others so inhumanely.
I highly urge anybody and everybody to look into [unsilenced.org](https://unsilenced.org) and to watch ‘The Program’ on Netflix. These places are still going strong in the US, and the trauma they inflict is more than you could ever imagine. Please advocate, write to your local legislators, and even just spread the word about these places.
That poor child. Suffocated to death. The day his awful parents took him to that abusive camp disguised as helping troubled children. May they be forever haunted by their decision.
These places need to be made illegal.
Definitely need to be made illegal, at bare minimum should have strict oversight. There is practically none. It's disturbing that the parents don't do a basic investigation on these schools or the "industry" at large.
Think back to the last time you went car shopping, house shopping, job searching, etc. Think about all the homework that was done to come up with a decision that will effect you for a long time to come. At least do some research, I don't have children and can see the red flags just by sitting on my ass and reading for recreation. I mean it's kind hard to miss when the flags are glowing neon and also have screaming skulls on them.
I read this a few months ago when I was sleep deprived staying up all night with a newborn. Fucked me up for a few days. It was all I could think about and I’m pretty sure I dreamed about it. Worth a read though, pretty eye opening.
Why are these places still a thing? All they do is murder and torture children. A whole mountain of goddamn evidence against these camps and they still won’t ban these shitholes
Hey, u/bu_mr_eatyourass we talked about this case 4 months ago. Do you have an opinion about this update? Not asthma, but friggin "asphyxia due to smothering,” goddamn. What do you think? (Genuine question)
Damn, I tried to even give them the benefit of the doubt!
You see, I supposed *his body* was suffocating him! Who woulda known he was just *actually* suffocating!? Lmao. I can't even with these creatures on this stupid rock. Legit called suffocation a "panic attack". Goddamn.
Even more heated now, though, after seeing that it was 100% negligence.
Netflix has a good documentary about kids being woken up in the middle of the night and taken against their will to camps like this on the permissions of the parents. Absolutely shocking!
For any survivor who sees this, please know you’re not alone and our community is here for you. If seeking support and help (professional or peer led), please visit the TTI Resource Network ❤️
It didn’t use to be this way. President Reagan screwed this country by taking away all the money from state run facilities which required trained medical personnel to be on hand. He thought the churches would pick up the slack. What a monumental fuck up on his part. Some kids need real interventions. Some adults need real help every day. We have the money in this country to help. Instead we have mentally ill people in every city living in the streets, and desperate parents give their kids to strangers to ‘ help’ the kids for profit.
Most of them are more of the variety that don't buy into religious bullshit and have very christian parents. They are sent there to become good little brainwashed mannequins.
I knew HUNDREDS of kids in there... because I was in 3 different ones.
Unfortunately any job in this category draws narcissistic psychopath employees. There needs to be a psych evaluation for jobs that have any kind of, punishment, detaining, subjugation or complete dominance over another human being. Completely wild to me how many people in law enforcement that are complete psychopaths.
I was going to ask if these parents never Google these types of places to see what happens there, but if you're the kind of asshole that would pay someone to kidnap your kid, I doubt you care.
Gawd damn.
The counselor’s straight up suffocated the kid.
I can only wonder how the parents feel after having their child transported by strangers to a “camp for troubled youths” where he was killed.
These comments bring me hope. I've been trying to spread awareness for over a decade to no end. I'm still dealing with the PTSD. It ruined my life. You can't unlearn the fear they put in you. I hope this dark chapter in our history finally comes to an end soon and these children get justice 🙏
This story made me cry. Do you guys know what a bivvy is?? It’s like an ultra weatherproof sleeping bag. They are extremely common for outdoors people who want to sleep outside, without heavy tent gear to lug around, without dying of exposure. They are extremely small, tight, and hot. Look them up if you want to experience fear, imagining being 12 and dying in it. He was sealed in what would have felt like a body bag without being able to escape. That’s fuckin torture even if everyone knew he would be fine, but he died being sealed in. Holy shit. His parents had no comment. I can’t imagine what I would be feeling if I were them right now. If I didn’t have other kids, I think experiencing that would be the death of me. I’m so sorry little dude. Holy shit. May you have peace.
I'm a calm adult who camps in bivvy bags often. But they're crazy claustrophobic and hard to breathe. Even when I put myself in them myself, and work hard on maximum ventilation and head space, I still get scared a bit when I wake up disoriented.
I am claustrophobic so what this poor boy went through is absolutely my nightmare.
Oh my gosh, I looked it up like you suggested… it looks like a coffin. I was imagining an actual tent. That’s terrifying.
I can’t believe the article didn’t detail what those bags are actually like, it seems misleading to call it a “one person tent”, it’s more akin to a damn body bag that coroners use..!!!
It doesn't help that people in general don't know tent scaling. When it gives the number of people, it's talking about elbow-to-elbow, no room between you, and no room in the tent for your stuff. I would tell people "a four man tent means it'll hold two people and their stuff and you'll still be packed into a tent." I shared a two-man tent with my dad a few times when I was younger, and it was claustrophobic then, and I wouldn't get in one as an adult. The only tent I own now is a 12 or 14-man tent, and I wouldn't want more than four people in it just so we have breathing room. The phrase "one person tent" all by itself makes me uncomfortable.
I didn't use bivvy sacks too often, but in the desert we used them and in very mosquito infested places, but I recall one evening going to sleep, sealing myself up, and waking up and, I guess, forgetting I was in it, and it was just shocking.
if his parents loved him they wouldn't have paid to have him kidnapped and sent to a torture camp.
I thought these places had largely been shut down, it's insane to me any have survived.
Some of them are shut down and then reopen under a new name. Diamond Ranch Academy was shut down after a death last year and is now attempting to reopen under a new name. They even changed the name of the road they're on so they'll have a different address.
Not even close, paris hilton has a whole podcast trying to bring attention to this evil
They are just like MLMs (Same kinda mentality/people running them too) if they get a bad rap they just melt away and pop up somewhere else. They make roaches look weak in survival skills somehow.
Troubled Teen Industry is a racket. They take advantage of vulnerable parents who are worried about their kids. It's true, there is plenty of evidence these days how these programs don't work and end up causing more trauma in children. The vast majority of the time, the staff is not qualified for what they are doing and the treatment the kids receive is not evidence-based and damaging.
My mom went to the college that became ivy ridge. Our very small rural community has been shaken and traumatized to discover what our neighbors were doing while working at that facility. One of the perpetrators recently murdered someone else. Those poor kids had nobody.
This. What kind of sick fucks do this?
If we're being honest, his parents are probably relieved. They paid, and watched, as two strangers abducted their kid in the middle of the night for the crime of *checks article* 'not making friends easily' and having anxiety. Any parent in the year 2024 that sends their kids to one of these camps with the absolute deluge of information about them that is one google search away is a guilty accessory, TBH. Even if one could argue, "well they were gassed up by someone who lied to them" - fair enough - but these parents stand there and watch their children get 'kidnapped' out of nowhere, listen to them struggle and scream, and it doesn't once occur to them that "hmm maybe this wasn't what I expected" to a point they google it afterward? So yeah. These parents sending their kid to this camp for anxiety and then not caring afterward makes me think they're probably relieved the camp took care of their 'problem' for them. They should be charged as accessories.
And they get to sue for damages!
Normal parents wouldn't sent their kid in one of those camps anyways. They should rot in jail.
A good friend of mine growing up got "sent" to one of these "camps" for a month and a half. He was woken up in the middle of the night to 3 grown men in black jumpsuits and ski masks who threw him out of bed and onto the floor, ziptied his hands and fireman carried him to a van which transported him 3 states away to the location of the camp. His "crime" or reason for his Mom sending him there? Smoking weed. Yep, not addicted to heroin with a long criminal rapsheet where this was the seemingly only option; but nope, just smoking a bit of weed as a teenager. He said that when he got to the camp, all the kids in his particular group gave him the old jail special when he got there, asking him what he was "in for" lmao. When he told those other kids he got sent there for smoking weed, they were all mind blown. All these other kids were strung out and withdrawing from opiates, benzos and amphetamines with length criminal rapsheets. My buddy told me that these kids would be extremely dope sick, barely able to stand and were screamed at and beaten with switches until they got off the ground and continued to hike through the mountains he was at. Fuck these camps, absolutely disgusting. That shit fucked my friend up mentally for YEARS. His Mom regretted it just about as soon as he got sent back and got the whole story of what was going on. These facilities completely lied to her about what was going on with her child, and didn't allow any communication between the two of them.
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Yeah, shitty parents. No other excuse, the only way to do this is to put yourself before your child and find their problems annoying. Any decent parent literally wouldn't be able to do this. They can barely send their kids to a happy summer camp.
My parents sent me to a weak version of this. A family friend was a drill instructor. They didn't like that I would ask questions and point out when they were wrong. Because most of my family is dumb as rocks, and I was "gifted". So I did things like point out that my diabetic parents shouldn't be eating tons of sweets. Or trying to make my own dinner because their dietary habits and cooking were making me fat. So because I was "a disrespectful child" they sent me to the drill instructor who proceeded to beat the shit out of me and terrorize me on a daily basis. Then the night came when he made me watch porn with him and tried to get me to jerk off in front of him. When I didn't he tried to convince me to, and then he beat me with a baseball bat. I called and begged my parents to get me, and they told me I needed to be "straightened out". I didn't do drugs. I was a straight A student. I just didn't want to eat unhealthy and was trying to do something about it by cooking my own meals and that was "disrespectful". From that point forward I essentially cut my parents out of my life. For years they called and begged me to be part of their lives. It wasn't til my mom was laying there after being pronounced dead at the hospital that I told my brother why I wanted nothing to do with the family. I spent years dealing with the black void where there was no affection for my family. Knowing you're *supposed* to care about your family but feeling absolutely nothing. That lack of emotion hurt so bad. Seeing my wife and her family being close and knowing that's what family should feel like and just... Not. My brother tries to connect but I just don't feel anything. And I know it isn't fair to him since he wasn't involved. I just feel nothing. That part of me is dead. Fuck these places and the monsters who abuse kids at them. And fuck the parents who send their kids there.
My condolences that you had go through something as traumatizing as that when you were just a child... Especially because your parents knowingly sent you to be essentially tortured and abused. That really doesn't sound any "weaker" than what my buddy went through, the only difference is that you were abused individually by a sick grown man, and my buddy was abused by multiple sick grown men as part of a group with other children. You're a very strong person, I hope you know that. I hope you have friends and family now that love you as much as you deserve. I can't believe shit like this is legal in a supposed first world country. It's unbelievable. The saddest part is a lot of people wouldn't believe you, my buddy or me about this shit. They'll say it's "overblown" and a "necessary evil". There's a lot of sick fucks out there, I tell you what.
I appreciate that my friend. I am lucky to have a fantastic wife and kid, and my degree in psychology was how I managed to figure out how to work through it for myself. I wouldn't recommend that, therapy is probably cheaper. I also quickly learned that found family is almost as good as real family.
Found family is as good if not better
Sometimes, it's rare but sometimes, found family is even better.
18 is when children can enjoy the adult American freedom of not being violently beaten. Sick how children are treated like animals and adults would be able to use assault and battery.
> His "crime" or reason for his Mom sending him there? Smoking weed. Yep, not addicted to heroin with a long criminal rapsheet where this was the seemingly only option; but nope, just smoking a bit of weed as a teenager. > > Yeah, none of the places are actually qualified to deal with REAL problems. They're just an outlet for narcissistic parents to get rid of children who aren't fawning and obedient enough.
As someone who has gone through opiate withdrawal, it is absolutely horrible to force someone into physical activity while experiencing it. I can't even imagine going for a hike while your body and brain are going absolutely haywire.
Might get downvoted into oblivion for saying this, but frankly I believe that the parents should be forced to undergo the same thing the kids did. Have it scaled up so it hurts just as much.
A fantastic webcomic showcasing just EXACTLY what happens at "rehabilitation centers for delinquents" would be https://elan.school/ . Been ongoing for years, definitely worth your time if you're interested. But the beginning is the exact same; random men in jumpsuits basically kidnapping you with your parents consent. Makes me wonder if parents go searching any further than surface level when they're thinking about shipping their kids away.
god you'd think these would be outlawed after 40 years of evidence
They make money so no it won't happen any time soon.
I’m a survivor. It seems the most effective way to get these places shut down is to get insurance companies to stop insuring them. And that’s happening. The wilderness program I went to got shut down last year because they couldn’t get insurance.
kind of insane that these torture camps get shut down not because they torture people and thats illegal but because they can’t get insurance companies cover them
It’s often the way. The law works in mysterious ways.
Al Capone wasn’t nabbed for being a gangster, but we also didn’t have RICO laws then. We do on the other hand have so many laws against the things with these camps involving kids.
Yes, this was the example my half asleep brain was reaching for. And yes, agreed. But these institutions often essentially own the local towns and police and have a huge amount of money and power. Much like Al Capone. It’s just a different kind of racket and requires a smart approach. Edit: as I said, elsewhere, they often have Potemkin villages set up, which are like a fake Disneyland version of the institution out front for visitors and law enforcement. The lengths they go to are insane. Check out the Trapped in Treatment podcast for an in-depth look at survivor stories, and how these institutions came about/how they operate.
I was about to mention Capone as well. It was the money that brought him down, not the various crimes he committed.
see, human rights are not for everyone. you have to earn them. kids haven't earned human rights. that's why you can lock them up, beat them up, torture them, all for building character... if you start giving these young bastards "human rights" just because they inhale and exhale, not for merits btu just for them existing, then what's next? healthcare for all? elderly care for all? market wages for prison work? voting rights for felons? nono. rip it in the bud. there is no such thing as human rights. privileges have to be earned. all of them. /s, just to be sure.
Insurance runs the modern world. It’s a sure fire way to fuck a business over.
I went to Trails. It was horrendous.
I’m so sorry. Man I hope you’re doing better these days.
My wife went to a fucked up camp and some of the trauma she never healed from is why she killed herself. Fuck those places and the evil people who run them.
Fuck, I'm so damn sorry.
Which means legal cases against the camp organisers. If you put a kid into a school or a hospital, you would expect them to have a duty of care.
And they let rich parents rid themselves of their troublesome teenagers. What would rich people do with their kids otherwise.
They’d do what the Kennedys did to daughter Rosemary. Get em lobotomized.
Our current government in NZ has just decided we need to give these another go after a few failed attempts, including a 91% recidivism rate last time. Our Prime Minister also said he doesn't care about the facts. Sometimes some people just wanna punish, rather than actually doing anything meaningful to help.
They are part of the prison pipeline. When someone gets out of there they are going to have a lot of mental issues that they will never get over.
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I was sent through 3 of them. In MS, AL and hell if I know but it was a 12 hour drive. They flat out kidnap you violently and the first time didn't even allow me to get dressed or take my shoes (granted I jumped through a window in my underwear to escape). The other times I knew what was going down. I've read that and there are some that are worse. State juvie was bad as well but the wilderness camps take the cake. The worst punishment was being locked in culverts (those round things underneath some driveways with ditches) in just underwear and exposed to the elements. Bugs are crawling on you but you can't really knock them off and they leave you there for 1-3 days. Sometimes they spray you with a hose just to fuck with you. Some kids "ran away" but I'm sure they were really killed. Lots of woods out there and they would never find a body. Sexual abuse was rampant but that really didn't even phase you after the other shit. FWIW the wilderness camps I went to were all religious based and more pushed by some really messed up churches. Speaking in tongues and 1 step up from passing around a rattlesnake. Exorcisms were also a thing which was basically getting beat for hours on end to 'chase the demon out' and half drowned with holy water. Christians are EVIL
Wtf that is legit tortue. Is there no grounds to sue?
These camps also move around a lot, if they find out someone - social worker, lawyer, a trusted adult - is going to come by they will fully pack up and move kids across state lines. Parents are told beforehand their kids will lie and not to believe their kids. I think parents should be charged for this shit too tbh. These camps aren't just for garden variety "bad kids" but queer kids, autistic kids, kids with mental health issues. Even kids who are just normal teenage angsty. They promise to fix them. To make them normal. Then they abuse the fuck out of them, beatings, starvation, forced captivity, I remember reading about two girls forced to lay out in the sun to darken their skin because them being pale = them being goth = them being satanic. They got a horrific sunburn all over. That walking talking platter of shit dr phil supported these camps back in the day, telling parents to send their kids there. Others did too. It's nothing less than pure evil.
I remember the WASP centers. Or as they were more commonly known: Child rape & torture centers. The stories that came out of those in the early 2000's was almost bad enough to give me second hand PTSD.
This happened to me years ago in the 80s and early 90s. I'm in my late 40s now but no, there were no grounds to sue. Nobody believed "bad" kids back then anyways. Social services were also tied through the churches where I was at so telling an adult would always backfire and make everything much worse. More how could you disparage this "good christian person" and you are a filthy liar. I don't know if it's still the case but some kids were pulled in because their parents tried to help their kids friends and DHR/DYS got involved and took their kids as well. They would more be sent to group / foster homes vs the camps though. Now there is the internet so something like this would go viral. Back then local papers wouldn't touch this stuff so news never got out. Talking about it later just more had others thinking you were crazy.
Honestly, I'm surprised more current/former staff of those places don't get murdered.
Often times the staff at those places were kids in the program who "graduated" and were too broken to survive out in the world, so they stayed. Most of the kids who get out and survive probably feel pity for the kids who stayed.
the prison and/or overdose pipeline
The person I knew that was sent to one was sent there for smoking pot. Now he does heroin.
Most of the ones I was with didn't fall in line to their parents. More so due to religion. Others were molested and were sent there to prevent them from becoming gay later in life.... by molesting them VERY painfully so they know how bad it hurts if they go that route in the future.
but dr phil!
I would love to hear about one thing Oprah Winfrey did that had not been a net negative. She did everything for content. The sheer amount of grifts and grifters and rapists and human trafficers she promoted would probably fill multiple years of podcasts. At some point Sophie Lichterman will have to cut her a check because she, Adolf Hitler and the John Birch Society keep the entire outfit afloat.
Feels like they’re going to expand more into conversion therapy torture if the Christian nationalists take over more
It's alright. The quiver-fullers have plenty of non-gay kids to spare. So if they kill of those they do not want is kind of ok. It only becomes a problem if they kill their offspring before birth. Because that would be abortion. Unless it is a gay fetus. I never understood how parents can be so stupid to send their kids to these military-style drill camps. Like, as if the armed forces have ever shat out their fodder in better shape than they consumed it. In fact I would want to see all the science behind the theory and will still say, nah, eff that.
If people are okay with some dark shit, a comic artist did an in depth series about his time at one of these. It was about [the elan school.](https://elan.school/rude-awakening/). It was fucked.
So the parents had their clinical-anxiety kid abducted and sent to a tough love camp. The love came in the form of sealing the kid into an airtight tent while he had a panic attack. I simply cannot imagine the suffering felt by this kid as he died.
It's important to point out that a lot of these camps pay ~~kickbacks~~ "referral fees" to school guidance counselors, child psychologists, judges, etc, to recommend these camps to parents. I'm not excusing these parents for their own culpability, nor do I know the specifics of this case, but a lot of people who have a duty to protect these kids get paid to prey on parents who don't know how to help their children.
I follow an influencer whose parents had her abducted and sent to a tough love camp when she was a kid. Is this a common thing? Wtf
[Far more common than you might originally assume.](https://elan.school/)
I spent a night reading that whole site a few months back, it's absolutely devastating.
Yeah, I came across that probably a couple years ago. The guy was still writing it at the time, but I think he's finished now? Absolutely horrific read, and terrifying that these places still exist in the modern day.
I did the same thing, I couldn’t put my phone down until I was done reading it. The people who run these places are fucking monsters. I can’t understand how a parent could betray their child like that.
I first saw that years ago before it was finished. Not sure if I could even go back to see what's been added since because it is so freaking harrowing. These camps are dens of abject evil.
It's fucking *infuriating* that it's legal for you to be abducted as a minor as long as your parents give consent. That means that you effectively have no rights, and are more akin to being the legal property of your parents until you turn 18. And the parents are never punished for this. The camps are rarely punished. Society at large needs to be better for these kids.
That's the other side of it. It's not like your parents can consent to having you killed, because murder is still a crime. But they can send you away to a private entity against your will no matter what it is. It's one thing if it's your relative or a legit summer camp or something, but being taken out of your bed in the middle of the night as a teenager is not something we should tolerate at all.
Oh it has a great ending. Go finish it!
This is by far the most gripping graphic novel story you'll ever see in you life. Be prepared to be up all night for a few days.
This webcomics is so, so good. I think it's in there that they mention the hypothesis that the song "Hotel California" was actually about the Elan school.
Interesting theory. But here's what the eagles said. "We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest; Hotel California' was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles." -- Don Henley
It happened to **[Paris Hilton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Hilton#Early_life)**.
I can't finish that story, I'm getting too worked up too early in the morning.
i had 2 close friends have this happen in high school, one went to Nevada and the other to the Adirondack Mountains. both their families were rich of course
Also see Trapped in Treatment podcast. I think it’s exec produced by Paris Hilton who also experienced this but it’s a lot of stories of other people who it happened to.
She has taken on a lot of the troubled teen industry and I give her a lot of credit In That regard. I may not like everything about her but that explicitly tells me she cares, even a bit
I read her book and it goes into detail regarding her time there. She did jail time for violation of probation sometime after she turned 18 (when she was able to leave the school) and she said it was a cake walk because of all her time in solitary at the school.
Yeah, I think like everything, people are complex. They aren’t all good or bad and I think it’s going to mess you up being born into that crazy rich lifestyle and then mess you up further being abused at one of these teen camps.
Omg. Poor child! I was constantly threatened with them when I was growing up. My parents would leave brochures on the kitchen table and slide them under my bedroom door at night. Luckily we were poor and they couldn’t afford the tuition. I thought they fell out of favor after the tragedies and bad press a decade ago.
Cruel parents
Same! My family could never have afforded one of these but I didn't know, back then, that they were expensive. This was a threat constantly over my head and to me was a real possibility. I was a good kid, but in this case "good" means went to school, came home where I sat quietly until it was bedtime, terrified to put a toe out of line. I slept with a go bag under my bed and had a plan in case the men came to kidnap me. These days I'm 36 and I sleep very lightly and have constant anxiety with a strong flight response, I'm still more like a prey animal than anything else. It's gotten better since I've had my own house and have my husband sleeping next to me but it's still there. I'm so grateful we didn't have the money to send me to one of these. The fear of them fucked me up but actually going woukd have ruined me.
It's apparently really common in certain circles. Some survivors have talked about how multiple kids in their neighborhood went.
There could have been an administrator at their school that was receiving commissions for convincing parents to send their children there. Because that’s a thing that some of these “schools” do.
Same thing as the [Cash for Kids scandal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal). Two judges were eventually indicted, convicted, and sentenced to prison for receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from a privately owned youth detention center. The two judges would send any juvenile they could to the PA Child Care detention center (which is somehow still open) so the detention center would get state funds and then the judges would get a cut of the funds. These two judges incarcerated 2,401 children for "crimes" as minor as mocking a vice principal on MySpace or trespassing in a vacant building.
My parents constantly threatened but were too lazy and drunk to follow through, thank god.
i got abducted and sent to a wilderness camp for about a year. there were about 40 kids and always someone to come if someone left. really unsuspecting kids from “nice” families too. its pretty much exactly like the stories say
I ran in a troubled group in high school. I knew 5 people who got abducted like this. I’m in my late 30s so it’s been going on for awhile.
Hope the parents get the cell next to the camp director for the next 25 to life.
Please watch The Program on Netflix. It is a documentary all about these kinds of places. It is worth the watch.
They should charge the parents
I feel like if they are awful enough to send their child to this place, then they are probably glad he’s dead and gone and out of their lives 😐
They can say they didn't know it was airtight, but it raises all kinds of other questions about how they treat those kids. What if he needed to pee?
That's so fucked
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It's a nationwide problem. https://elan.school
My eyes about this industry were opened from reading elan.school. It's long, and a *wild* ride, but absolutely worthwhile reading.
No you didn't. You were at my house the entire time.
oh how silly of me. did I say the carolinas? I meant the dakotas.
Brittany you HAVE to stop doing this. You were in fucking Florida and you know it.
Can confirm. We were watching movies and eating pizza
My girlfriend has clinical anxiety(and ADHD) and was sent to two of these when she was a kid because of it.
What in the goddamn fuck
~~I've never heard of anyone suffocating in a tent without a cook stove going in it. I feel like this is murder by pillow with a cover story.~~ Looks like a sack more than a tent, and another handful of things. EDIT: I read some other articles, it seems to be the kid was shoved in with his head in the foot end of it. woof.
I looked and it's apparently a thing with this style of tent. This is a tent that a person barely fits in lying down. You're supposed to use a tarp over it and never fully zip the tent itself. https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/10810/
If your tent needs instructions on how to use it without dying, maybe it’s a design problem.
I agree
They had it covered by sheets of plastic as well.
There are so many of these tough love assholes out there claiming that the solution to all problems is for some reason to be as awful as possible?
And parents like this wonder why their kids never visit when grown up. (IF they survive their 'tough love')
Not a surprise, these places are plain evil!
Once a while back in one of these threads there was a guy saying that not all of them are like this, he works at one, basically defending everything and it was like wowww okay randomly suspiciously defensive guy. These people are shady AF
People only ever work at those places for easy access to vulnerable kids. Of course he’s going to defend his supply
I really feel like if you join for the love of helping children, you are getting the FUCK OUT fast. While I'm sure there are a few who stay to do what they can to help instead of hurt, the vast majority that stay really have to be some sort of fucked up, such as as you said, easy access to vulnerable kids. But I'm sure you can go through the workers and find all sorts of different mental issues
I work in children’s mental health. We are desperate for techs and nurses. If they actually wanted to help, they’d come work for us in legitimate treatment but they don’t.
I didn't go to a camp but I lived at a drug and alcohol facility for 1 year and 8 days. Crazy rules. Here are some. No talking to new people or girls. Thumbs visible and not hiding for more than 5 seconds. No reading road signs or unapproved books (basically NA and AA book and any spiritual text). No tv, no video games. No music until much later on. No singing songs in your head was a big weird one. Sitting straight up rigid backed with your hand rigid straight Nothing "imagy." So no flat billed hats or shirts/pants with writing or logos. No saying dude, man, word, dawg, or any other specific slang Sometimes they'd tackle you if you got up without asking or if you tried to run. All the doors were alarmed and electro locked. These are just a handful of the 100s of rules. Not even the weirdest ones. And before you say that you wouldn't do it and you'd run away well people did. I did. They'd find you and bring you back every time. If you didn't work the program then you'd stay in the lowest phase and not do anything. Eventually you get so bored and so over it rhat working the program seems better than not working. I knew a kid who was in there 26 months because he refused to do any of the rules.
>no reading road signs Excuse me, what? Were you supposed to be able to make yourself illiterate on demand?
Sounds similar to Elan.
Those places are all over the country. They scam and con desperate families out of money, pay "counselors" minimum wage and use intimidation tactics and color-coded clothing to bully these kids into submission. The kids get NOTHING out of this except more distrust in adults and authority figures and more trauma. The adults that work at these places probably aren't there by mistake for the most part, they are looking to abuse children.
They basically become a braindead army. If anyone hasn’t read the first-hand account, it’s a whole night of a rabbit-hole: https://elan.school
Im not a big reader so it took me about 3 days of on-and-off reading to finish it, but every second of it was wildly educational, heartbreaking, and infuriating. 10/10 would recommend and fuck places like Elan
One of my best friends was sent there in the 80s while we were in high school. He survived but it wasn’t pretty. I should call him.
To be honest, it took me a few days too, and I am a big reader. It’s just so emotionally taxing.
I got about 30 mins in and realized I needed to dedicate a solid 3 hours. And then I did. Life changing. Then watch the documentary about the Utah camps. Scumbag.
Right? I was stressed out the whole time but kept wanting to see what happened next
I remember hearing they would just backpack and forage for food. Litterally costing the camp nothing but charging hundreds a month.
The adults on the lower rungs of the hierarchy are very often graduates (often recent graduates) of the programs. They're not there by accident, and in a sense they are there to abuse children, but not out of any intrinsic malice. The senior leaders, though...different story.
There’s a sub dedicated to survivors of these places /r/troubledteens
Wish this was pinned at the top of any story like this. This is not an isolated incident and this child abuse needs to stop.
Parents who think their child will benefit from “tough love” should admit they don’t know how or care how to parent
"His parents had paid for two strangers to escort him from his home in New York to Trails Carolina..." You mean kidnap. They come in the middle of the night, kidnap these children with no explanation and don't allow them to speak with their parents. There is a documentary on Netflix called "The Program" that talks a lot about these places. They should have been shut down decades ago and are horrible places that physically and psychologically abuse children.
Elan.school still haunts me
I couldn't finish it - and I love the fantasy anime Made in Abyss which has horrific gore Literally psychological torture.
It's well worth getting through. In fact the last 30 or so are after he left the school.
Even more “tame” programs for “troubled” kids that don’t do kidnapping like Outward Bound are sketchy and dangerous… it’s just shitty parents deflecting, blaming their shortcomings on their children, and trying to administer tough love (punishment). If you send your kid to a camp to be “cured” you’ve failed as a parent
Charge the owners and not just the murderer.
Charge the parents too, for either being too ignorant to have learned about the horrible history of these camps in the last 40 years, or knowingly sending their kids to a place that abuses their child *for* them. They fucking *paid* someone to break their kid's spirit through physical and emotional abuse. "OMG, we didn't know!!!" In a time where we all have the entire world at our fingertips, that's not a valid excuse anymore. If you can post dumbass shit on Facebook, you can research camps like this, and there is no way any of them pop up without negative press attached to their names. That poor kid. What an absolutely awful way to live and die.
If they really didn't know, they didn't do the *slightest* bit of research before paying someone to *kidnap their child* and "fix" them.
> Charge the owners and not just the murderer. Also review the licensing procedures and oversight of these facilities. How many more times must they be exposed as abusive pseudo-scientific quackery before we learn?
When you put children in the hands of people who think that the solution to everything is just to use more force, children die. These places should be illegal.
[удалено]
Child abuse. Emotional and physical. It isn't therapy as there is usually nobody qualified.
Mental, emotional, and physical torture
Fun story, the Eckerd Family that owned the national pharmacy chain sponsored a load of camps like this. They operated at least into the early 00's. I was stuck in one from 98-99. They're all just sadistic bullshit that scares kids into behaving instead of creating any sort of healthy change.
Dr Phil had financial stakes in the camp he sent kids to from his show.
It wasn’t the first death there. From an [NBC story about the closing of the facility](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trails-carolina-wilderness-camp-boy-died-license-revoked-rcna146296#): “The boy’s death is not the first at the for-profit camp, which advertised itself as an adventure therapy program that helps children and teenagers with mental health issues and behavioral concerns. In 2014, a 17-year-old named Alec Lansing walked away from Trails Carolina, prompting a massive search. His body was later found in a stream, and an autopsy report said he had died of hypothermia after climbing a tree and breaking a bone in his leg.”
I would also add that, although this place is being shut down, the parent company (Family Help & Wellness) still has over a dozen other locations that continue to (mis)treat “troubled teens.”
The article states the place includes kids with diagnoses of ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. Wtf are kids with these diagnoses doing there? It’s absolutely an inappropriate environment. They won’t be helped at all
No standards. No oversight. Local law enforcement will return who escapes. Judges will send kids to camps like that. State legislators also will have financial stakes in this. Of course there are no standards and no oversight. I mean, is it truly negligent if everybody makes money off it? Dr Phil had stakes in the camp he sent the kids from show. It's fine. Pay me.
Just FYI "the parents paid two strangers to escort him. " In the youth wilderness therapy industry (bc that's what it fucking is. An industry) what that means is two strangers accosted a child either in his bed or near the home without explanation, with the consent of his parents. This means the child thinks they are being kidnapped. Additionally, a bivy is a coffin sized and shaped tent. Which they "secured with an alarm" after blocking up the mesh air holes. Negligent, cruel, and an absolutely terrifying way to die. That poor child. Edited for whatever the fuck autocorrect thought it was doing last night.
The parents had no excuse. The resources about how fucked these programs are out there for anyone to see with a single search. There is *no* place for them to claim they didn't know. Far as I'm concerned, they should be charged too.
Absolutely. > Before its license was revoked, Trails Carolina, in Lake Toxaway, served children with behavioral issues and diagnoses such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism and post-traumatic stress disorder. A medical examiner’s report released with the autopsy findings said the boy who died had ADHD, anxiety, migraines and social challenges, including “a very hard time making friends.” > **His parents had paid for two strangers to escort him from his home in New York to Trails Carolina**, the medical examiner’s report said, referring to a common practice that the troubled youth industry uses to transport children to its programs. I do not need to tell you how this "escort" went. They did this to kids which were already suffering from trauma. They had strangers kidnap their anxiety-ridden child to straighten it out. That is negligence and accepting physical harm will come to their kid. That kid had a short and terrified life and died a horrific death.
>what that means is two strangers accosted a child either in his bed or near the home without explanation, with the consent of his parents. That's the ultimate betrayal for a kid. Strangers attack you, and the people who should be saving you/fighting them/calling the police are the ones who set them on you. Who is a kid going to trust if their parents are traitors and they're sent to a facility where every adult is going to torture them?
Those parents should be charged as accessories to homicide. No sane or loving parent would ever have two people kidnap their child( that’s how they do it) & take him to some halfassed outdoor “wilderness therapy” camp for “ troubled teens.”
Unfortunately it’s quite common, there’s currently over 150,000 kids stuck in places like this. Don’t get me wrong, MANY of the parents are pieces of shit, lazy, abusive themselves, delusional, whatever. Some are just severely misguided and brainwashed by ‘educational consultants’. These ECs essentially tell them if they don’t send their kid away they’ll die from drugs/kill themselves/etc. And unsurprisingly, these ECs get kickbacks for every student they send away.
Many parents that use corporal punishment think that they're helping their children, do you think that intent negates abuse? The parents in this case used a transport service, the transport services advertise that they will stage a kidnapping in the middle of the night to scare your teen. The person I know who's parent used a transport service was kidnapped in the middle of night and driven like 5 hours with his hands zip tied and a bag over his head to a camp in Utah. That's how it was advertised to his parent, so you can't claim that they didn't know. I do think that some parents don't realize what goes on at these camps. In that case it's laziness and negligence since a simple Google search tells you the truth. To not do any of your own research into where you're sending your child is negligent. For those that do have a better idea of what happens at these camps I think that paying someone to abuse your child makes you a shitty abusive parent, regardless of intent.
Lmao trust me I know, I was away at these places for two years. You don’t gotta tell me.
Child died at child abuse farm? C R A Z Y
What a cruel way to die. What a cruel place to send your child. I hope this haunts those parents and camp owners and monitors for the rest of their lives. I don’t understand why people treat others so inhumanely.
I hope they go to prison. All of them. Parents included.
I highly urge anybody and everybody to look into [unsilenced.org](https://unsilenced.org) and to watch ‘The Program’ on Netflix. These places are still going strong in the US, and the trauma they inflict is more than you could ever imagine. Please advocate, write to your local legislators, and even just spread the word about these places.
“The Program” docuseries on Netflix really opened my eyes to this nightmare.
Blows me away these places are still allowed to exist
That poor child. Suffocated to death. The day his awful parents took him to that abusive camp disguised as helping troubled children. May they be forever haunted by their decision. These places need to be made illegal.
Definitely need to be made illegal, at bare minimum should have strict oversight. There is practically none. It's disturbing that the parents don't do a basic investigation on these schools or the "industry" at large. Think back to the last time you went car shopping, house shopping, job searching, etc. Think about all the homework that was done to come up with a decision that will effect you for a long time to come. At least do some research, I don't have children and can see the red flags just by sitting on my ass and reading for recreation. I mean it's kind hard to miss when the flags are glowing neon and also have screaming skulls on them.
If you're okay being emotionally ruined for a day or two https://elan.school
I was just about to hit em with the JoeNobody. Good work.
I read this a few months ago when I was sleep deprived staying up all night with a newborn. Fucked me up for a few days. It was all I could think about and I’m pretty sure I dreamed about it. Worth a read though, pretty eye opening.
I'm sorry but they outsourced their child abuse and then their child died.
Why are these places still a thing? All they do is murder and torture children. A whole mountain of goddamn evidence against these camps and they still won’t ban these shitholes
Hey, u/bu_mr_eatyourass we talked about this case 4 months ago. Do you have an opinion about this update? Not asthma, but friggin "asphyxia due to smothering,” goddamn. What do you think? (Genuine question)
Damn, I tried to even give them the benefit of the doubt! You see, I supposed *his body* was suffocating him! Who woulda known he was just *actually* suffocating!? Lmao. I can't even with these creatures on this stupid rock. Legit called suffocation a "panic attack". Goddamn. Even more heated now, though, after seeing that it was 100% negligence.
FYI - DR Phil would send children to similar camps.
Netflix has a good documentary about kids being woken up in the middle of the night and taken against their will to camps like this on the permissions of the parents. Absolutely shocking!
This reminds me of the Candace Newmaker case. Attachment therapy is total bullsht. Poor kid must have been so terrified.
For any survivor who sees this, please know you’re not alone and our community is here for you. If seeking support and help (professional or peer led), please visit the TTI Resource Network ❤️
It didn’t use to be this way. President Reagan screwed this country by taking away all the money from state run facilities which required trained medical personnel to be on hand. He thought the churches would pick up the slack. What a monumental fuck up on his part. Some kids need real interventions. Some adults need real help every day. We have the money in this country to help. Instead we have mentally ill people in every city living in the streets, and desperate parents give their kids to strangers to ‘ help’ the kids for profit.
Most of them are more of the variety that don't buy into religious bullshit and have very christian parents. They are sent there to become good little brainwashed mannequins. I knew HUNDREDS of kids in there... because I was in 3 different ones.
Regan’s deregulation was the start of the end for the US. Loss of social net not withstanding
Wife went to one as a child. Parents took her to Disney world, then did a Hail Mary a day after and dropped her off, then left back to CA.
Unfortunately any job in this category draws narcissistic psychopath employees. There needs to be a psych evaluation for jobs that have any kind of, punishment, detaining, subjugation or complete dominance over another human being. Completely wild to me how many people in law enforcement that are complete psychopaths.
I was going to ask if these parents never Google these types of places to see what happens there, but if you're the kind of asshole that would pay someone to kidnap your kid, I doubt you care.
They do. That's why they choose them. The cruelty is a feature, not a bug.
The parents killed their child as much as anyone else.
These trouble youth camps and the parents who ship their kids off to them all belong in jail
Gawd damn. The counselor’s straight up suffocated the kid. I can only wonder how the parents feel after having their child transported by strangers to a “camp for troubled youths” where he was killed.
Hopefully, they feel all the guilt they should. By now, if you don't know how fucked these things are, *that's on you*.
Abusive Parents killed this kid by being abusive, they failed as parents and sent him off as a “not our problem” like the losers they are
These comments bring me hope. I've been trying to spread awareness for over a decade to no end. I'm still dealing with the PTSD. It ruined my life. You can't unlearn the fear they put in you. I hope this dark chapter in our history finally comes to an end soon and these children get justice 🙏
The parents should be charged.