Muskogee — Participants in a court-sanctioned work camp lived in squalid, bedbug-ridden barracks and were forced to work as many as 60 hours a week in a program that masqueraded as drug treatment, The ACLU of Oklahoma claims in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Muskogee on behalf of seven former participants in the DARP Foundation program. DARP offers some defendants in Oklahoma courts a chance to avoid prison in exchange for working a variety of manual labor jobs.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of all former DARP clients. The ACLU estimates as many as 2,000 people may have attended the program over the past 10 years.

DARP has campuses in Tahlequah and Decatur, Arkansas.