Tough love is big business in the U.S. Hundreds of youth rehab centres hold tens of thousands of troubled teens in poorly unregulated facilities—where they are often subjected to serious abuses.
One of the most notorious was KIDS of Bergen County, based in New Jersey. Running KIDS was a man named Miller Newton. Using his charismatic personality, he convinced parents their kids would die if they didn’t embrace his methods to save their children from drug abuse. He also claimed to be able to treat other ailments—everything from eating disorders to “sex addiction.”
Young people were often confined at KIDS for years at a time. They were subjected to serious abuses—being thrown to the ground and restrained by fellow participants for hours, watched on the toilet, kept out of school for years at a time. Many had never tried drugs.
One former client, Lulu Corter, spent 13 years at KIDS even though she had never done any drugs. She sued and won a settlement of $6.5 million (U.S.)—one of several successful lawsuits against KIDS totaling $15 million in judgements and settlements.
Corter’s lawyer, Phil Elberg, showed that Newton’s methods didn’t follow widely accepted standards for dealing with addiction and troubled youth.
Corter and other kids had to endure day-long group confrontation sessions known as “raps.” Leading many of the raps were peer counselors—young people whose main qualification was having graduated from KIDS themselves. In order to speak, clients had to “motivate”—vigorously waving their arms. Those who didn’t motivate properly or follow other rules were often restrained, sometimes hundreds of times during their stay at KIDS.
While restrained, one man testified in Corter’s court case, his mouth was covered when he asked to use the bathroom. “I would be forced to urinate or defecate on myself,” he said.
KIDS lost its Medicaid funding and facility in 1998. But young people have continued to experience serious abuse—and even fatalities—at other teen rehab centres amid a lack of government oversight, according to investigations by the U.S. Congress’s Government Accountability Office last year. A U.S. House of Representatives committee this week (Feb./09) approved legislation that would create minimum standards for preventing child abuse at the facilities.
