This is AMERIKA!
Yeah, let's militarize our country and youth, and see what we get.
After all, boot camps mean they might wear the uniform later, right?
If these stories do not prove that AmeriKa is a CULTURE of DEATH and TORTURE, I don't know what will, Amurkns?
Sorry your country is now a shit country, 'murkns!
"Report Recounts Horrors of Youth Boot Camps" by DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — Reports of abuse of troubled young people in privately run boot camps and other residential treatment centers are widespread, with examples numbering in the thousands, according to a federal report released Wednesday.
The report also found that managers of these programs, which are largely unregulated, faced little or no punishment for their actions.
The report, by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, examined the cases of 10 teenagers who died while at programs in six states, finding “significant evidence of ineffective management” and “reckless or negligent operating practices.” The report detailed evidence that teenagers were starved, forced to eat their own vomit, and to wallow for hours in their own excrement.
[Good Lord!
That is TORTURE!!
I don't care how messed-up these kids are, this is ABOMINABLE!!!
Where is the love, folks?
Aren't we supposed to LOVE OUR CHILDREN and HELP THEM?!
Not HURT, TORTURE, and KILL them!!!!!!
Add this in with the taserings, the Gotbaum case, and a myriad of other incidents, and WE GOT A POLICE STATE RIGHT NOW AMERICA!!!!
TIME to REVOLT!!!!!
And Bush just said "We don't torture?"
Once and for all, readers, HE IS A FUCKING LIAR then!!!!!!
In one instance, a boy was so dehydrated that he ate dirt to survive, according to witnesses and an autopsy.
[Kid found out what it is like to be a Muslim in this world, didn't he?]
Investigators also found that owners and employees were seldom sent to prison, even when teenagers died in their care. Five of these programs are still in operation, some under new names or in other states.
The report was released at an emotionally wrenching hearing of the House education committee, where lawmakers heard from the parents of three teenagers who died. Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who is head of the committee, said he planned to introduce legislation early next year to create a federal role in regulating the industry, a move that the ranking Republican, Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, said he would most likely support.
The report is a harsh rebuke to industry defenders, like the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, a trade group that has dismissed accusations of abuse and death as “the noisy complaints of a few individuals.” Its director, Jan Moss, told lawmakers Wednesday that the group did not police its members but that she would take the findings of the federal report to her board to “review them in depth.”
[How dare they call these torture camps therapy?!?]
Residential treatment programs for troubled teenagers seek to straighten out these youths far from home by forcing them into wilderness settings and exposing them to harsh behavior modification techniques. About 10,000 to 20,000 young people are enrolled in these programs, which cost from $130 to $450 a day, the report said. Some receive federal money for special education and other services, but they face no federal oversight. While some states regulate them closely, others do not even require that they be licensed.
[In other words: TORTURED!!!!!
Don't ever let them send your kid to boot camps, parents, and please don't let them fill your kid up with psychiatric drugs!
Please love your children!]
Mr. Miller compared conditions in these programs to torture. “If you walked into this room, you’d think we were talking about human rights abuses in third world countries,” he said.
Lawmakers heard from the parents of Aaron Bacon, who died at 16 while at the Northstar Expeditions in Escalante, Utah. Speaking before photographs of his emaciated son taken an hour before his death, his eyes dark pools of pain, Aaron’s father, Robert, said the boy had been starved, with his weight falling to 108 pounds from 130 in just three weeks. He was 5 feet 11 ½ inches tall, and wrote poetry. His parents said they saw Northstar as a place that would distance Aaron from negative influences at his high school, where he had begun dabbling in drugs.
But a “bloody and tattered journal” he was forced to keep as part of his therapy contained, instead of poetry, “an unbelievable account of torture, abuse and neglect,” Mr. Bacon said. Aaron had spent 14 of 20 days “without any food whatsoever,” while being forced to hike 8 to 10 miles a day. “On the days he did have food, it consisted of undercooked lentils, lizards, scorpions, trail mix and a celebrated canned peach on the 13th” day, Mr. Bacon said.
“I feel I sent my son to his death, to a program that now I know couldn’t have provided any of the services they promised,” he said, his voice cracking.
[Yeah, that is fucking ripping my heart out right now.
I can hardly see the keys.
That POOR KID!!!!!!
And the FATHER LEFT BEHIND!!!!
Oh, the GUILT HE MUST FEEL!!!!
Don't blame yourself, dad!
You could never have known this was going to happen, especially after the bullshit media and society told you boot camp would be a good thing.
And here is one more thought, Amurkns:
Think about all the other families that AmeriKa has destroyed around this world with its wars and secret torture chambers.
How many children have been imprisoned, tortured, or killed in those far away places where our military is "doing good?"
860 of whom are under the age of 16.
?
Gregory D. Kutz, managing director of forensic audits and special investigations at the accounting office, also testified. He said Aaron was beaten “from the top of his head to the tip of his toes” during his month in the program.
Northstar’s owner, William Henry, and four employees pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in 1994, but none served time in prison, with Mr. Henry receiving three years’ probation and community service. The program has since shut down.
Mr. Kutz said that because no agency or registry tracked the industry, it was impossible to say how many programs existed, how much money they collected or how frequently abuse occurred. But in 2005 alone, his report found, “33 states reported 1,619 staff members involved in incidents of abuse and neglect.”
The director of the trade group, Ms. Moss, came under blistering attack at the hearing. Three of the programs that federal investigators examined in the deaths of teenagers — where staff members dismissed dehydration, head trauma and other health crises as signs of manipulative behavior — remained members of the association, even after the deaths.
[Yeah, DON'T LISTEN to the kid!
And HOW THE HELL WILL THIS TYPE of TREATMENT REFORM THESE KIDS?
Did anyone even ask that question?
Now, I know some of the kids are wild, but is this really the way to treat them, no matter what problems they have?
The U.S. is ILL, people.
OUR SOCIETY is SICK, TWISTED, EVIL and ILL!!!!!]
Representative Dale E. Kildee, Democrat of Michigan, said wilderness programs used membership in the association as a kind of “Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” luring parents with a false sense of security.
The group does not independently investigate accusations of abuse, Ms. Moss said. But by 2009, she said, it will require members to have a trained clinician on staff, and meet other professional standards."
"Parents call for greater oversight of boot camps; Congress is told poor training is a factor in deaths" by Nancy Zuckerbrod/Associated Press October 11, 2007
WASHINGTON - A federal investigator and parents whose children died at youth boot camps urged other families yesterday to avoid enrolling teens in such programs until there is more oversight of them.
"Buyer beware," said Greg Kutz, who led a congressional investigation into the camps. "You really don't know what you're getting."
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found thousands of allegations of abuse, some of which involved death, at boot camps, also referred to as residential treatment programs, since the early 1990s.
Kutz said the GAO closely examined 10 closed cases where a teenager died while enrolled in one of the programs.
"Ineffective program management played a key role in most of these deaths," Kutz testified before the House Education and Labor Committee.
He said the staff at the facilities was often poorly trained, and children weren't properly fed and were exposed to dangerous conditions. He said teenagers' cries for medical assistance or help were ignored.
Kutz said in only 1 of the 10 cases studied closely was anyone found criminally liable and sentenced to serve prison time.
Residential treatment programs are slickly marketed to parents who are at a loss as to how to help an emotionally troubled teen, Kutz said.
[It's known as preying on desperate parents.]
Bob Bacon of Phoenix, whose son Aaron died while enrolled in a wilderness program in Utah, said he was fooled by the owners of that facility into believing his son would be well cared for.
"We were conned by their fraudulent claims and will go to our graves regretting our gullibility," he said.
Bacon said his son was forced to hike 8 to 10 miles a day with inadequate nutrition and was not given protective gear to withstand freezing temperatures. When Aaron complained of severe stomach pains and asked for a doctor, his pleas were ignored even though he had dramatically lost weight and suffered from other serious symptoms, his father testified. Aaron died of an acute infection related to a perforated ulcer.
Congressional lawmakers said yesterday that federal legislation may now be necessary to better ensure the safety of children enrolled in such programs.
[Rather than that, how about SCRAPPING THESE MINDLESS MILITARIZATION PLANS?!!
Why we gotta REGIMENT and MILITARIZE OUR KIDS?
For the ETERNAL WARFARE STATE?]
Jan Moss, executive director of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, a trade group, said many children have been helped by residential treatment programs.
She said the industry was taking steps to improve, but "clearly we still have a very long way to go."
And why does George Bush's AmeriKa hate children, readers?
"US children get needed healthcare less than half the time, study finds" by Linda A. Johnson/Associated Press October 11, 2007
TRENTON, N.J. - As Washington debates children's health insurance, a startling study finds that children who regularly see doctors get the right care less than half the time - whether it's preschool shots or chlamydia tests for teen girls. The findings, from the first comprehensive look at children's healthcare quality, are particularly troubling because nearly all the 1,536 children in the nationwide study had insurance.
Eighty-two percent were covered by private insurance. Three-quarters were white, and all lived in or near large or midsize cities.
Two healthcare specialists called the findings "shocking." Others said minority children, those with more-restrictive insurance, and the millions with no insurance certainly fare even worse.
They said the results highlight the importance of the debate over the proposed expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which Congress approved and President Bush vetoed. A vote to override the veto is set for next week.
The study, by the Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute and the nonprofit Rand Corporation research group, concludes that overall, doctors gave children appropriate outpatient medical care only 47 percent of the time.
"They got an F," said Dr. Joseph F. Hagan, a Burlington, Vt., pediatrician. Hagan co-edited the American Academy of Pediatrics' latest update to its children's health guidelines, due out this month.
"I think it reflects some unpleasant realities about our current healthcare system," he said.
The compliance rate was even worse than that found in a study of adults: They got only 55 percent of recommended care.
The research found children's doctors did best in providing the recommended care for acute medical problems - 68 percent. They scored just 53 percent for treating chronic conditions, and 41 percent for preventive care.
The study, based on two years of medical records of children in 12 metropolitan areas, including Boston, was reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine."
