Jim Abrams
Associated Press
June 24, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House approved national standards on juvenile boot camps and other public and private programs intended to help troubled youth. Lawmakers acted Wednesday following reports of abuse and deaths involving young people with behavioral, emotional or mental problems.
The legislation, which passed 318-103, would bar excessive "tough love" practices such as denying essential water, food, clothing, shelter or medical care. Physical restraint would be allowed only when the safety of the child or others is at issue. Also, children would have to have reasonable access to a telephone.
"Today we are taking an important step toward finally ending the horrific abuses that have gone on far too long in the residential programs for teens," said the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.
The White House expressed opposition and the Senate has yet to consider the measure.
The bill is a result of widespread accounts of youngsters suffering harmed or neglected at therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness camps and boot camps. An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 teenagers attend such camps.
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said 28 states in 2006 reported at least one youth fatality in a residential facility from accidents, suicide or neglect. The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System came up with 34 states reporting 1,503 incidents of youth abuse and neglect by faculty staff in 2005.
GAO researchers cited examples of a 15-year-old who died from a severed neck artery after being held face down in the dirt for 45 minutes and a 14-year old who died at an Arizona boot camp of dehydration after being forced to sit in 113-degree desert heat as punishment for asking to go home.
The GAO also reported a case where boys at a boot camp were required to stand with bags over their head and a hangman's noose around their necks.
An Associated Press survey identified more than 13,000 claims of abuse in juvenile correction centers around the country from 2004 through 2007, although just 1,343 were confirmed. Experts said few claims are ever confirmed. Some troubled young people will make up stories, but in other cases, the youth are pressured not to report abuse.
The legislation would require staff to receive training in what constitutes child abuse and neglect, and directs programs to have emergency medical care plans in place.
The Health and Human Services Department would have the authority to impose fines of up to $50,000 for every violation of the law.
The top Republican on the Education and Labor Committee, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California, stressed that many of the programs were well run and successful. But he said the bill was needed "because of cases where the programs have harmed the young people they are meant to heal."
The White House said in a statement it opposed the bill because it expands federal oversight and could make states less inclined to meet their responsibilities in preventing and investigating abuse.
To meet some White House objections, sponsors of the bill removed a requirement that HHS make unannounced site inspections of covered programs at least once every two years. They said they were laying out minimum national standards, and it was up to the states, within three years, to come up with their own standards and enforce them for all programs.
Sponsors also took out a section that would have created a new private right of legal action for victims seeking damages.
On the Net:
Information on the bill, H.R. 6358, can be found at: http://thomas.loc.gov/
