Discrimination against children -- or "childism," as the late academic Elisabeth Young-Bruehl sought to brand this specific form of prejudice -- is a civil rights problem in America. Parents sometimes feel that all their kids need is a bit of "tough love" and unfortunately, that "tough love" can transform into physical and emotional abuse.



One phenomenon that many people are unaware of is how parents from the "tough love" school have actually outsourced their responsibilities to (often exorbitantly expensive) behavioral modification institutes in the middle of nowhere which likely promise that after months or years in their institutions, the kids will almost certainly come out 'fixed.' But this promise is a scam.

I call it the invisible civil rights crisis because kids are being given bad treatment and thus being emotionally abused, but as they're cut off from contact with anybody who isn't either from the institution or trusted by the institution, they are invisible to the outside world. You may know somebody who has been sent to one of these institutions. If you know a teenager who has disappeared, his parents say he's at "boarding school," and none of his friends have been able to get in touch with him or get details about the institution he's at, his parents have likely shipped him off. For my Orthodox Jewish friends reading this, you possibly came across the rather unfortunate story in 2008 about the boy who had been unjustly sent to Tranquility Bay. I attended one of these institutions myself for 26 months.



I wanted to begin a discussion so folks can get an important perspective on these places outside what they tell parents. We are lucky to have here somebody who is quite experienced with and knowledgeable about many of these institutions, activist Bill Boyles. By way of introduction, Bill is a founding member of the Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY) from Orlando, FL. At 14, he was forcibly escorted to Brightway Adolescent Hospital in St. George, UT, where he stayed briefly before being sent to another facility, Paradise Cove in Western Samoa. After spending 22 months in Paradise Cove, he was transferred to yet another program, Casa By The Sea in Ensenada, Mexico. He spent 8 more months in Casa By The Sea before graduating shortly before his 17th birthday. All of the above programs were under the umbrella organization, World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASP). He discovered CAFETY one night after deciding to try and find old friends from his WWASP days and has never looked back. He works for the abolishment of abusive programs and the establishment of youth rights.



Bill, I think when people first hear about these institutions, they're curious and have a lot of questions. First off, they like to assume that parents wouldn't just send kids off if the school staff didn't possess some expertise and the kids hadn't exhibited some terrible pattern of behavior. Can you discuss those points? Would you say the staff at these institutions are generally trained properly and the kids deserve what they get?