Must We Hate? Must We Beat Children?

"Must We hate," is of course something people have been asking for decades, especially when they recognize that the reasons for hatred is typically so irrational and senseless and it often does as much damage to those hating as it does to their victims, perhaps depending on who has the more political power. But if the racists do have the political power, as they often have, in Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa and the Segregated South then everyone pays the price.

One of the most famous articles about this was by Archibald Macleish who wrote "I had always thought of this hatred as something exceptional, something transient, something which would disappear with the illiteracy and poverty and ignorance out of which it came." Must We Hate? February 1963 This is true, as far as it goes; however I suspect the most important contributing cause or two wasn't recognized by most people at that time, and still isn't today.

There has been a growing amount of research, since then, showing that one of the leading long term causes of violence is almost certainly early child abuse leading to escalating violence later in life including bullying, hazing, racism, domestic violence, even murder and support for wars based on lies! However, even though this is widely known within the academic community little has been done to educate the majority of the public about it.

Perhaps another leading contributing factor is class conflict, since another leading cause of violence is abandoned inner cities, and wealthy people control the resources to deal with this, including providing much more funds for upper class students for education than for lower classes, especially minorities, and also make decisions about shipping jobs overseas so working class people have their wages suppressed, which is a major contributing cause of poverty and violence. And part of the way they get away with this is by blaming immigrants or minorities for stealing peoples jobs using them as scapegoats in a rigged economy.

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If we can reduce or stop child abuse, poverty, excessive income inequality and other contributing factors of violence and racism there should be little or no doubt that the answer is, no, we don't have to hate each other, eliminating many wars based on lies and racial struggles within our own country!

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I went into some of this in several previous articles including Cause and Effect of Hatred and Dobson’s Indoctrination Machine which explains how early child abuse is part of the indoctrination process that teaches children to blindly obey orders and adopt the beliefs of their parents from an early age without developing critical thinking skills to correct mistakes. Some of the sources I used for past articles include Alice Miller, Philip Greven, Murray Straus, James Garbarino, Barbara Coloroso and more; however none of these good academics get much if any media coverage, and there're are plenty more where they came from. If the media was willing to give a reasonable amount of time to some of the best researchers on this subject then the public would be much better educated on this subject and we could do much more to reduce violence but most of this research only read in the academic world and a small percentage of the public that seeks out the best research from libraries or alternative media.

Some of the lowest rates of violence in the country are in New England, including four states that routinely make it into the bottom ten for murder rates for the past seven or eight years at least, if not much longer, the other two states have occasionally also made it into the bottom ten, and aren't far above when they don't make it. This now includes Massachusetts which has been in the bottom ten for six of the last seven years, (on the seventh year it only missed the bottom ten by less than one tenth of one murder per hundred thousand and came in eleventh) and is the only state, with the possible exception of Minnesota to regularly make it into the bottom ten for murder states that has large abandoned inner cities with well above average murder rates.

One of the academic researchers almost never mentioned by the mainstream media is Charles Appelstein who has worked with troubled kids in foster homes or reform schools and has advised foster parents, teachers, social workers and other people that have worked with troubled youth, to help reform them before it's too late. There's good reason to believe that the tactics that he recommends are different from those used in other parts of the country including the South, for example, he opposes both corporal punishment and boot camp reform programs that use authoritarian methods to teach children to behave, both of which are much more common in the South, which includes the majority of the nineteen states that still allow corporal punishment in schools and as I have pointed out previously in Research On Preventing Violence Absent From National Media these nineteen states had, on average, between 22% and 31% higher murder rates than the other thirty-one states that no longer allow corporal punishment, for the past ten or eleven years.

Charles Appelstein i a leading educator of reformers in New England and they've taken very different tactics from other part of the country, even if the media doesn't report on this. When dealing with troubled youth he advises taking into consideration the abuse that many of them almost certainly went through previously, even is they can't track the experiences of each troubled child. Some of his methods are described in the following except from his book:

Charles Appelstein "No such thing As A Bad Kid" 1998

The Way of Empathy

Would you be terribly upset with a disruptive child if you knew he had been picked on unmercifully at school that day, or denied dinner the night before? Probably not. You would most likely respond empathically to his side of the situation — and rightly so. As important as it is to be in touch with our own emotions, we need to empathize with what is going on for the child and, if only for a moment, walk in his shoes.

I then present the following scenario: "Say that tomorrow morning when you arrive at work, you go directly to the office to watch a video from the worst ten minutes of the child's life. You see him being neglected and abused, and crying out for help. after viewing this tape, how do you think you would respond to the kid as the day unfolds?"

"With a lot more compassion," some will say, or "I don't think I'd be as rough on him," or "I probably wouldn't be able to yell at him." p.17

Suppose you are deciding between two children who are on a waiting list for admission to your group. The first child has lived in four foster homes and has burn marks on his hands, which have been traced to abuses by his father; he is portrayed as a sad and lonely boy who has never had a friend and does not trust adults. the second youngster is described as self-absorbed, manipulative, incapable of following directions, in constant need of attention, and willing to do anything to get it. Which child would you choose? Most people I ask select number one.

In actuality, these description are from two profiles of the same child; only the wording is different. Describe a child's personal history and people want to reach out to him; label his annoying behaviors and people are less willing to help. p.19

When yelling is reduced, children's behavior improves. In one residential program in Massachusetts where the staff significantly reduced their yelling, the use of physical restraints reportedly decreased by more than 50 percent. In other group situations in which yelling has been reduced adults say they are relieved to spend their time listening to the children rather than forcing the children to listen to them. A five-minute time-out, they note, has more impact when it is announced in a calm, supportive tone of voice than when it is ordered in an angry "Sit down for five minutes!" command.

.... How would you feel if you were late handing in a report to your boss and he suddenly spanked you? No adult would tolerate such an gregarious act; it is too demeaning and disrespectful. Imagine, then, what it is like for a child.

Spanking — including swatting, hitting, and tapping — is a maneuver in power and intimidation. Physically, it hurts. Emotionally, it makes a kid angry. The reason we get away with it that the children we spank are small, powerless, and unable to strike us back.

Not only do we save spanking for the young and defenseless but we often fail to see how counterproductive this angry, desperate act usually is. Spanking informs children that physical violence is an appropriate response to frustration. p.24 Charles Appelstein "No such thing As A Bad Kid" 1998 Published by the Gifford School in Weston Massachusetts

Taking into consideration previous abuse when trying to reform troubled children is vital to reform, especially since many boot camp reform programs often escalate previous abuse or intimidation instead of reversing it. there's been an enormous amount of political support for boot camp rehabilitation for decades because it teaches blind obedience; however this is a continuation of abusive child rearing tactics teaching blind obedience under the threat of violence in the form of corporal punishment or other abusive intimidating tactics that impair development of critical thinking skills, leads to blind obedience to authorities or those that are most powerful often other peers, and increased violence.

This teaches kids to blindly go along with the crowd especially if it happens to be a racist crowd.

But, of course what's far more important is preventing children from being abused in the first place and opposition to corporal punishment both at home and in schools is an important part of that; but there has to be some effort to teach at risk parents how counterproductive it is since they were raised to believe it is appropriate. Even though at risk parents were often abused as children they may not have learned how much damage it does, and often resort to the same tactics when raising their own children. I went into this previously in Burying Solutions to Prevent Gilroy, Dayton and El Paso Shootings (Includes excerpt about home-visiting program from "Lost Boys: Why our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them") where I cited Professor James Garbarino's recommendations to educate at risk parents; one of the most effective programs that he recommends is a "home visitor program" for at risk parents which I first heard about in an article in the Boston Globe in the nineties, when it was a relatively new program that was started in Hawaii and Massachusetts was one of the next states to adopt it. At that time the studies from Hawaii showed that it was very effective, since then they've confirmed this repeatedly and the program is now used in almost every state, if not every state, although some may use it more than others.

Apparently the Affordable Care Act expanded funds for this program significantly, which is good since it's far more const effective than ignoring the problem until it gets worse and they have to spend much more money dealing with high court costs for troubled kids. One of the studies James Garbarino cites says that "Babies in a comparison group of 'unvisited' families among an identified high-risk population had four times as much child maltreatment in the first two years of life."

To the best of my knowledge this didn't become a national program in almost every state if not every state until the ACA, and the states that did implement it for years, if not decades, before that have much lower murder rates than average including Massachusetts and Hawaii, as well as Connecticut, although I'm not sure how long they've had it, but a recent study New Evidence Suggests Home Visiting Can Prevent Child Neglect 04/26/2018 show's that it's worked very well and implies that it's not one of the new states that implemented it since the ACA. New Hampshire, which has been at the bottom of the FBI statistics for murder for at least six or seven years, before getting bumped to second last in 2018, also has been implementing it for years, but one local advocate is arguing for more, justifiably so, base don the evidence.

Both these articles and many more studies all agree that this is a very successful program that is helping reduce child abuse and neglect; and there are many other studies that show that child abuse and neglect are major contributing causes to longer term violence including murder, so it's reasonable to assume that this will also help reduce that as well. The New Hampshire article points out that only about 12% of the children that could benefit from this program are enrolled due to N.H. Medicaid requirements which only allow mothers under 21 that enroll their child within two weeks of being born and she argues this should be changed. The study from Connecticut refers to enrolled mothers instead of children, but if they're based on one mother per child then they actually have slightly less per capita, and even if there are many mothers with two or three children enrolled they probably could benefit from expansion.

Another program started in North Carolina in 2008 which was a few years before the ACA enabled a significant expansion in the program according to Durham NC program making a huge difference for families with newborns 12/02/2019 I also found additional articles about new home visiting programs from Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Alaska and Chicago Illinois, all that started since the North Carolina program in 2008, most after the ACA went into effect and a few that were only begun in the last few years; Pennsylvania apparently had some programs since 1989, however they were expanded significantly in recent years and may not have been widely available prior to that. These are all areas with above average murder rates, implying that the programs that were begun years if not decades might be mostly in states that currently have below average murder rates, often in the bottom ten. This isn't enough for a statistical analysis; however the research that is available shows that this could improve things significantly helping bring down long term violence and delinquency, although it's still not getting nearly as much attention as it should.

I haven't always been a big fan of the Affordable Care Act, since it was written with cooperation from insurance companies far more concerned with protecting their own profits than with the most cost effective way to provide health care; but, there should be little doubt that this is a worthwhile, long overdue program, and can go a long way to reduce many social problems including child abuse, violence and racism that are often much more common with abused children especially if they raised by racist parents.

Some of these articles clearly indicate that they're targeting low income at risk parents, often that may have come from abused households themselves. These parents have always needed the best services to overcome their problems but have almost always gotten the worst, since they haven't got the money to pay for them or the educational background to understand how much they might help. Apparently many of these at risk parents have been reluctant to accept help from this program, perhaps because their past experiences with social workers or other government officials including police have often been antagonistic, often treating them as if they've done something wrong and are suspect in some kind of wrong doing or charity cases, while ignoring how the economic system is rigged against the poor and increasingly the middle class as well.

This has been even worse when it comes to rehabilitation of children once they've already begun to have problems with the law, often promoting boot camp reform movements despite evidence of their abuses, and I suspect there is still some indication of class bias, even in programs like those supported by Charles Appelstein, although his recommendations aren't the cause of it, if this is the case. There's certainly no reason to suspect that he might be bigoted or anything like that and he's clearly trying to reduce abuse of children not make it worse but he's not the one making the policy decisions and has to deal with politicians and business people that are constantly trying to cut finds for programs like this, especially for low income people.

One thing that surprised me about the Gifford School, which is for foster children from troubled families, is that it's in Weston Massachusetts, one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest suburb west of Boston.

This made the marbles roll around in my head.

Are they enrolling foster children from Roxbury, Dorchester or Mattapan? How about Chelsea, Everett or Somerville? I have no way for knowing for certain but my best guess is no. Who's going to pay for foster care in such a high priced neighborhood? would there be political opposition? This is supposed to be one of the most liberal areas in the country, and in many ways it probably is but I seriously doubt if they would welcome a school for foster children from some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Eastern Massachusetts.

I wouldn't even be surprised if they were reluctant to accept troubled children from Waltham which is right next to them. There web page says that they only have about a hundred students and that they accept children withing a fifty mile radius, which would include all of these areas. But the areas that you might expect the most foster children to come from are probably the poorest areas that also have the highest rates of violence, and it's highly unlikely that a suburb with a median household income over $200,000 is going to want to take a risk by accepting what might be some of the most violent children.

This doesn't mean of course that all the children that Charles Appelstein worked with were from wealthy families; his book, which was written almost twenty years ago refers to numerous different schools throughout Massachusetts, and perhaps New Hampshire, although he doesn't specify the location of the income from typical foster children; and apparently he has since become a national adviser on the subject, perhaps doing more to teach other child care workers than working directly with kids now.

But the funds and political decisions are often controlled by the wealthy and historically their own prejudices have often been passed down to lower income people, often intentionally, especially in the South. Machiavelli recommended that governments keep the masses poor so they could easily control them; and even though modern politicians aren't nearly as authoritarian, or at least they do a better job pretending otherwise, there are still a lot of them that are clearly trying to rig the economic system. Income inequality and poverty is a major contributing cause of violence and when it's combined with subtle or sometimes more obvious ways to encourage racism as a divide and rule tactic it also leads to racism.

Howard Zinn once wrote about how some of the early slaves in America cooperated with white indentured servants while trying to escape together; the slave owners responded by punishing the African Americans more harshly and encouraging a racial divide telling the white servants that they were from a superior race and, lather encouraging them to blame the Africans Americans for stealing their jobs, a practice which continues today often blaming illegal immigrants or who ever some people might be prejudiced against.

More recently Jonathan Kozol reported about how they used corporal punishment in Roxbury against African Americans that they would never have done to white children; Michael Patrick MacDonald, from South Boston, reported about the treatment his older brother, who eventually committed suicide, went through in juvenile reform school including shock treatment and other abusive methods that were thought to teach people to behave and there are many other stories about abusive rehabilitation methods that are used much more often on lower income people, especially minorities.

These were decades ago, and the tactics used to rehabilitate or rear children have been changing dramatically since then but they're all being done at the local level and the vast majority of the public isn't aware of it. we have good research on the most effective methods to reduce violence but the vast majority of the public is unaware of it. The leading reason for this is that both the media and the political establishment is controlled by a small fraction of the wealthiest people and they control the information we use to make political decisions. Instead of educating the public about the most effective ways to reduce violence they provide repetitive propaganda that enables them to rig the economy which often makes things worse in areas where they don't do their own independent research.

The advantage of this, intentionally or not, is that it provides enormous amount of research opportunities by comparing areas using more effective methods to educate their kids and when necessary reform those that don't get the early care they need to those that don't do this so well. But of course, the bigger problem is that the media is still controlled by the wealthy and they have an unfair advantage when it comes to deciding which programs get funded.

In order for a democracy to function properly we have to allow all people access to a good education and the best research about every given subject, especially when it comes to reducing violence or fraudulent ways that wealthy people rig the economy in their own favor, which is essentially white collar crime and indirectly contributes to other types of crime endangering everyone.

At the end of his book Charles Appellstein writes, "It's too bad kids at risk can't vote, because if they could, increased assistance would win hands down. But today's sober reality is that many troubled kids and the adults who care for them are grossly under-supported," which is close to the truth but it's not good enough. Furthermore, funding good programs, with reasonable oversight, would save much more than it costs, since it's far cheaper than ignoring problems until they get much worse and we have to deal with high crime rates and prison populations, which current polices often create. They also need to have access to accurate information to make those decisions as well, which means that the best researchers needs a fair opportunity to inform the public about their work, without middlemen or reporters hired by wealthy people with a fiscal ideology.

Edit 12/21/2019: Prior to writing this I sent an E-mail to Charles Appellstein and a second one after I completed it, he probably didn't have time to respond earlier but sent the following reply afterward:

I was hired to provide training and consultation, many years ago, on behalf of the Gifford School. I never actually worked there. I think they welcomed kids from Boston. And because it's a day school, I don't believe the neighbors had much influence in who they accepted. Residential programs often have more tension with NIMBY (not in my backyard).

Sadly, Cambridge and Boston schools have a large number of kids who need special ed services. As a result, they often try and educate these kids in-house rather than spending big bucks sending them to private schools like Gifford.

Home visiting is certainly an effective intervention in preventing abuse and neglect.

Years ago I read a book that changed my life...written by 3 authors including James Garbarino, called Social Support Networks.

In it, they basically state that lack of support leads people to make bad decisions - such as abusive behavior.

Take a look at my handout. Look at the Eco Map. This is a very important tool. You can put a kid and/or family in the middle and then rate their support networks from -3 (significant lack of support in this area) to +3 (lots of support in this area). People who abuse their kids often have minimal support in their lives (e.g. few friends, few meaningful members, terrible financial resources, schools who are at times adversarial since their kids are problematic, lack of counseling/parenting/psychological support, no recreational opportunities, etc.)

Home visiting is a good intervention but it should be one of many that help connect at-risk family members to more sources of support.

Any time I work with a troubled family (or kid) my number one job is to raise numbers on their eco map by improving family connections, helping with job possibilities, getting them to attend church, providing parent training, encouraging recreational pursuits, helping them connect with neighbors, etc.

Every number that is raised on an eco map increases the odds for better behavior and higher functioning.

At every training I do, I ask the following question: Why do we have so many troubled kids and families?

I then say: "Here's my take...How many of you know the neighbors on your street where you live now just like you did when you were young?" Few hands go up. "How many of you see your immediate family (brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.) like you did when you were younger" Few hands go up. That's why we have so much abuse and neglect. The people who commit these atrocious acts are often isolated and, many times, also victims of abuse themselves and require psychological support.

To prevent hatred and violence, we need to systemically help people forge more meaningful and plentiful connections.

Human beings function better when they are happy. And when they are happy they use more parts of their brain. And what makes people happy: Meaningful social connections and support.

A good home visitor should, as part of their role, help family members to enhance and broaden their support networks.

This isn't the first time I received responses from academic researchers studying how to reduce violence, in addition to Charles Appellstein, James Garbarino, Murray Straus, Sherry Hamby, Susan Linn, and a few other academics have also replied, yet I'm sure many of these researchers are very busy. These researchers almost certainly didn't go into their careers to make as much money as they can, although I'm sure that's one factor, they did it because they wanted to address social problems.

If they can find the time to help someone like me, with a small following, that pokes through non-fiction books and asks a few questions, I have no doubt that they would be willing to help good reporters from mainstream media report on the most effective solutions to social problems, and some of them have come right out and said so, I think including Dorothy Otnow Lewis, who did get a little coverage at least once, but indicated that she would like to draw much more attention to this research.

Politicians and national media pundits almost certainly get paid much more than these researchers and they have the ability to do far more to educate the public about this research so that they could drive up popular support for programs that work, instead of relying almost exclusively on punishment as a deterrent, which is almost the only thing we hear from the traditional media, yet they choose not to.

The parts of the country that have the least amount of violence often have the most progressive, and perhaps best educated people willing to support good programs that stop social problems before they escalate and that may not rely solely on mainstream media for their information. The parts of the country, mainly the South, that rely almost exclusively in punishment as a deterrent are the ones that usually do have the highest rates of violence. Fortunately, while checking on the home visitor program I found that now it's even expanding in the South or the states with the highest murder rates. I didn't find much on Louisiana, which consistently has the highest murder rates for years if not decades, but they do have some programs, but Missouri, Maryland, Alabama and South Carolina have more news stories about expanding these programs.

Both Professor Garbarino and Charles Appellstein recommend community involvement including from churches; however they don't support some of the most extreme beliefs about strict use of corporal punishment that James Dobson recommends. This is part of the reason why some of the most religious areas in the Bible Belt are also some of the most violent; community involvement from churches can be helpful, but not if it's from extremist churches or cults.

If we can reduce violence as much as we have over the past twenty to thirty years without much help from the media and political establishment we can do much better with their help if they were reformed; some countries in Europe have already done this, and they have murder rates that are a fraction of ours often under 1 per 100,000 while ours is about 5.

These are my views and I don't expect some of these academics to agree completely with them, perhaps, since they have to be tactful if they want to get more media attention in the future. But if we can reform the political establishment at the grassroots and perhaps either create new media that does a better job or reform them as well, including the way they're financed, then we could solve many of these problems much more effectively.



The following are some additional sources on the subject:

"We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was 'legal' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was 'illegal.' It was 'illegal' to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws." Letter From a Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Jr. 16 April 1963

"'Rights' were something enjoyed by decent folk, and perhaps also by the serious professional criminal, who avoided violence and could afford a lawyer." Broken Windows James Wilson George Kelling March 1982

Zimbabwe bans the beating of children 03/02/2017

Zimbabwe caning: Court bans 'inhuman' juvenile punishment 04/04/2019

Disabled boy who murdered abusive neo-Nazi dad at age 10 to stay locked up until 23 after court decision 10/06/2016

The Hate Report: The Nazis are coming for your children 01/19/2018

This Is What Happens When You Hit Your Kids 09/19/2014

8 Ways You Can Stop Child Abuse Today! 02/07/2017

New Evidence Suggests Home Visiting Can Prevent Child Neglect 04/26/2018

Home Visiting in Maryland: Opportunities & Challenges for Sustainability 07/17/2012 There has been an infusion of federal grant funds under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act1 (ACA; “health care reform”) which is driving interest in expanding and sustaining Home Visiting programs. The ACA established the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program as part of Title V-Section 511 of the Social Security Act.

My Turn: Data shows that children need home visiting 04/15/2019

Home Visiting for South Carolina

Home Visiting In Idaho

Statewide Overview of Home Visiting Services in Alabama 09/20/2016

Missouri Home Visiting Programs

Parents as Teachers

Home Visiting and Maternal Mental Health

Which home visiting programs are effective in reducing child maltreatment? 05/29/2018

Pew's home visiting project

In Houston County, Georgia, nurses visit some new parents in the comfort of their homes – for free 01/16/2019

Home visiting program sends nurses into homes of new moms 01/25/2019

Free nurse visits for new parents in Pennsylvania 01/03/2019

Home-visit care for newborns helps allay parents' fears 06/18/2012

Chicago to Offer Free Home Nursing Services to Families with Newborns 11/19/2019

Nurses Bring In-Home Care, Connections in North Carolina 11/12/2019

Program offers free home visits from nurses for first-time, low-income mothers 12/04/2017

How Universal Home Visiting Models Can Support Newborns and Their Families 09/26/2019

Life and Death in a Troubled Teen Boot Camp 11/12/2015 In between, boys were made to do up-downs, scissor kicks, push-ups and wall sits until their legs burned and their lungs were on fire. “The bigger you were and the stronger you were and the more you liked fucking up the little guys, the more powerful you were,” says Hatton.

When Wilderness Boot Camps Take Tough Love Too Far 08/12/2014 Troubled teens are occasionally sent to corrective outdoor programs, where they hike for days or perform manual labor. But some parents are saying the physical exertion verges on abuse.

BOOT CAMP FOR KIDS: Torturing Teens for Fun and Profit

Report Recounts Horrors of Youth Boot Camps 10/11/2007 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.

Children in boot camp abuse investigation suffer lasting damage, lawyer says 08/06/2015 The solution, it declared, could be a police-sponsored boot camp for southeast Los Angeles County youth held at a military base in the mountains of San Luis Obispo. There, children would be inculcated with the three pillars of the LEAD program: Leadership, Empowerment and Discipline. Instead, authorities contend that the camp became a breeding ground for vicious assaults and physical and emotional abuse. A two-month investigation that included searching the cellphones, computers, vehicles, photos and belongings of camp leaders.

8 Charged In Teen's Boot Camp Death 11/28/2006

Feds: No civil right charges in teen's Florida boot camp death 04/17/2010

States Pressed As 3 Boys Die At Boot Camps 07/15/2001 The death of Tony Haynes, a 14-year-old, in the Arizona desert this month is increasing calls for stronger regulation of outdoor camps for troubled youths, an industry that has grown substantially over the last 20 years. At least 31 teenagers in 11 states have died at these camps since 1980, including 3 this year, in widely diverse circumstances. In Arizona, investigators said they were told that before Tony Haynes died counselors physically abused him and forced him to eat dirt.

Camp Fear November/December 2000 ISSUE Gina Score was the latest teenager to die at a juvenile boot camp. Why do so many states still insist that humiliation and abuse will straighten out troubled kids?

Wilderness therapy programs claim they'll straighten out your troubled teen with tough love and survival training. Some kids never come back. 12/0/2019

When tough love becomes brutal 10/14/2007