The Troubled Teen Industry is a vast network of under-regulated and/or unregulated therapeutic boarding schools, boys and girls homes, wilderness survival camps, rehabs and other programs designed to break the will and spirit of so called “troubled teens”. Parents send their children willingly to these places and these place then strip them of their identity and unique personalities so they can imprint a new one. One that is more aligned with the morals and world view of the parents and/or state. Its a practice that harkens all the way back to indigenous schools where Native American teens were stripped of their language, separated from their families, their heads shaved and some killed, raped, tortured in the assimilation process.
You may be thinking, “Ya but there’s no way we still treat kids like that today.” But you would be wrong. As we speak, right now, there are thousands of young children, teens and sometimes even younger, being tortured, neglected, abused, raped, beaten, worked half to death in facilities across this country and the globe in what us survivors call the Troubled Teen Industry. Due to religious loopholes, holes in the law, lack of oversight, negligence, and corruption this industry preys on troubled youth. It preys on parents struggling to help their children with behavioral issues, disabilities, and is a fascist approach to parenting. “Lets just dump the kid in some place that beats some sense into them and teaches them to work hard.”
You can learn more about my experience being abused, used as a child slave, and witnessing abuse in Agape Boarding School in my books and in the following interviews:
The Hammer Podcast has many other young men that came forward with me to discuss the abuse we suffered and witnessed at Agape Boarding School, as well as survivors of other programs that have come forward. You can find more here:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheHammerPodcast/podcasts
You can read more about Agape Boarding School, the Christian fascist boarding school I was forced to attend for four years in Missouri in the following links/videos/articles:
There are some differences between the different types of Troubled Teen Industry programs but I think those differences are fairly insignificant if you consider the end goal of all of these programs is to break the individual will of the teen, rob them of their own individualism and whatever identity they have, then imprint whatever their parents or the state wants onto them. Those who refuse to conform stay longer, are beaten more regularly, made to do the harder work or shamed and shunned into submission. These harsh punishments often cause lasting mental health disorders in children that can plague survivors for the rest of their lives. I would know as I am one such survivor with CPTSD or complex PTSD partially from my experiences in the Troubled Teen Industry. Still, I will do my best to cover those differences in this blog.
The abuse that I suffered at Agape Boarding School broke my spine in several places, has caused me to suffer with chronic sciatica since 16 years of age, and I’m 39 now. I have had night terrors of being beaten, working in the fields, hauling brush, rocks, building houses, working on farms etc while they screamed at us. I’ve suffered a lot at the hands of these fascists who think they can punish a kid into submission and force them to be whatever they want. I am living proof of what happens when you are too heavy handed in your approach to raising your children. I and my fellow survivors from Agape can tell you stories that would make your stomach curl. For some of those stories and the history please refer to my books which you can purchase and read on Amazon.
While some argue that the Troubled Teen Industry started with Synanon and Charles Dederick, as I explain in my book, I think it started with UK boarding schools and indigenous boarding schools. I detail how the behavioral boarding school model gave birth to the assimilation model of indigenous boarding schools and there is evidence that Synnanon took some of its ideas for punishment and assimilating teens from indigenous boarding schools. In both cases, the indigenous schools and therapeutic boarding schools were often run by Christians, Catholics and Mormons because the governments of the UK, US, Australia and other countries understood that religious people would be more willing to do this due to their stringent morals and that they would also be exempt in many cases from the law due to their religious beliefs. This means that this form of evil vile fascism has existed and has been used to crush the will and spirits of teens and force them to conform for hundreds of years and even pre-dates the US as a country furthering my point that it is a global enterprise and not just a unique problem we face here in the US.
BOARDING SCHOOLS
Contrary to popular belief these places are not uncommon and in fact some of the most affluent and powerful people in the world have even experienced abuse in these programs. In an article entitled “King’s school: Gordonstoun abuse flourished for decades” published by the BBC Ken Banks explains that even the King of England King Charles attended a school that was plagued with accusations of child abuse.
“Child abuse at Gordonstoun School – where the future King Charles was educated – was allowed to flourish unchecked for decades, an inquiry has ruled.
Lady Smith, chairwoman of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI), has published her findings into residential care for children at the Moray school and its associated junior school, Aberlour.
She concluded that children who boarded at both establishments were exposed to risks of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse – and that for many those risks materialised.
Lady Smith said: “I have no difficulty in finding that children were abused at Gordonstoun and Aberlour in a variety of ways over a long period of time.”
In another article entitled “Abuse in Britain’s boarding schools: why I decided to confront my demons” survivor Alex Renton tells his story of revisiting the place he was abused at.
“Today, 40 years since I last saw the school, we step in through Latrobe’s columned porch as though entitled. Nothing can touch us: we’re parents. Ruth, my wife, grips my hand. A friend who works in post-traumatic stress disorder warned us, quite gravely, of the risks when people visit scenes of past troubles; of hyper-arousal – sweats, nausea, high heart-rate. Or the opposite, hypo-arousal: a state of lethargy, a feeling of unreality. But I’m fine. Pulse steady. People hurt you, not places.
There were no ghosts, no shocks as we toured the corridors and classrooms. I have not been looking forward to the smell. I could summon the brew: disinfectant, boy sweat, meat stew, chalk dust. An incense of misery. But it is gone. There is no chalk these days.
It is the details from other senses that clamour. The give of a floorboard in a corridor, the sunlight through a window, the shape of a wooden refectory bench, an echo of children’s voices. We enter a cosy girls’ dormitory where the low black beams were, suddenly, shockingly familiar. And the brick fireplace. This used to be headmaster “Billy” Williamson’s study. I’d scrutinised those bricks, the way they sat upon each other, many times over those five years. Waiting for his flap-jowled face to stop shouting and get to business: detail the punishment or the beating.
Just down the corridor, two worn wooden steps led to the tiny dormitory where I slept in my first term at the school. I and the other eight-year-olds would turn our faces into our mattresses, pull pillows over our heads. If you wept out loud, the 10-year-old dormitory captain and his deputy threatened to whip you with a belt. That was their prerogative, they told us on the first night, a few hours after our mothers had extracted promises from them to look after their little ones.”
Notice how 40 years later the sights, smells, and senses trigger vivid memories in this survivor’s mind. As if he was there again. This is a classic symptom of PTSD and can last decades after the incident or be a life-long mental health concern. I myself have cPTSD or complex PTSD. Over 20 years have passed and still, today, even now certain sights, smells, sounds can trigger memories and flashbacks. Medication, meditation and therapy have helped me cope and adapt but the scars remain.
To read the entire article go here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/04/abuse-britain-private-schools-personal-memoir
As I previously mentioned white people, colonizers, took native teens from Native American families and placed them in boarding schools meant to assimilate them. Many died and the trauma inflicted on these people is intergenerational. You can learn more about some of the atrocities that happened to the indigenous teens in the following links/videos:
https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/code-talkers/boarding-schools/
https://www.history.com/news/how-boarding-schools-tried-to-kill-the-indian-through-assimilation
Harsh punishment, manual labor, and sexual abuse are a common thread in the Troubled Teen Industry. It doesn’t matter what model you examine; whether that be the boarding school model, the rehab model, the boys and girls home, straight camp, wilderness survival camp, etc model…those three things seem to happen a lot in all of them. Harsh punishments, manual labor, and sexual abuse. They are a common thread that survivors report and that thread is what binds us survivors together. We share in that trauma. We share the pain of a lost childhood. We share in the fact that we were all abused or witnessed abuse in the Troubled Teen Industry.
REHAB/SYNANON
More recently there has been a large focus on the rehab model of the Troubled Teen Industry due to the advocacy of Paris Hilton and groups like Breaking Code Silence, Unsilenced, etc. and you can read/learn about Charles Dederick, Synanon and the history behind the more secular rehab model of the Troubled Teen Industry in the following links.
You can learn more about her contributions to the movement by simply Googling “Paris Hilton Troubled Teen Industry” or watching her memoir “This is Paris”.
Other famous survivors of the Troubled Teen Industry include Kat Von D, Drew Barrymore and Danielle Bregoli aka Bhad Bharbie. So, as you can see, nobody is safe from this predatory industry. Not kings or celebrities. All children are at risk as long as this network of under regulated and unregulated private prison camps for children continues to operate unchecked. While indigenous schools were used to break the will and identity of native teens and imprint a “white Jesus” mentality and set of morals on them, the Troubled Teen Industry continues to do the same to children of all races, nationalities, backgrounds, and cultures. This fascist approach to child rearing continues and spans the entire globe.
Several documentaries and docuseries have explored the troubled teen industry, exposing the alleged abuses and lack of regulation within these programs. Here’s a list of some notable ones:
Netflix:
- The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping (2024): This docuseries follows Katherine Kubler and former classmates of the Academy at Ivy Ridge as they expose the abusive conditions and lasting trauma experienced at the behavior modification facility.
- Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare (2023): This true crime documentary focuses on a series of troubled teen programs run by Steve Cartisano, highlighting the brutal conditions and questionable practices within these wilderness camps.
Max (formerly HBO Max):
- Teen Torture, Inc. (2024): This documentary series investigates the troubled teen industry, exposing the “tough love” approach and allegations of abuse, death, and sexual assault within these programs.
Other Platforms:
Children of Darkness (1983): This older documentary, available on PBS, examines the lives of mentally ill and emotionally troubled children in various institutions, including the Elan School, highlighting the challenges and potential for abuse within these facilities.
Kidnapped for Christ (2014): Available on Tubi, Pluto TV, Fandango at Home, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV, this documentary exposes the abuse of LGBTQIA+ youth at a behavior modification school in the Dominican Republic.
The Last Stop (2017): Available on Tubi, Pluto TV, Sling TV, Fandango at Home, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play Movies & TV, and Apple TV, this documentary/drama explores the controversial Elan School in Maine.
https://www.max.com/shows/teen-torture-inc/6e25d97c-26ec-439b-83ef-6b3cca5af597
https://time.com/6837656/the-program-cons-cults-kidnapping-netflix-documentary-series/
If you are a survivor of the Troubled Teen Industry looking for other survivors, support, or want to share your stories and experiences with others who “get you” visit r/TroubledTeens on Reddit.
Additional articles about the Troubled Teen Industry:
https://www.unh.edu/inquiryjournal/blog/2022/04/troubled-teen-industry-its-effects-oral-history
https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/15963-the-troubled-teen-industrys-troubling-lack-of
https://www.buzzfeed.com/meganeliscomb/troubled-teen-industry-survivor-ama
https://www.sltrib.com/news/health/2025/02/21/troubled-teen-industry-utah/
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2024/09/17/child-catcher-troubled-teen-industry
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