For the last 40 years, American teens with drug problems, learning disabilities and other behavioural issues have been sent to residential facilities to endure "tough love" techniques that are widely known to include methods of outright physical and psychological abuse.
Whether labelled as boot camps, emotional-growth schools, behaviour modification programs or wilderness programs, these organizations have operated without federal oversight, and state regulation of the schools ranges from lax to non-existent. Now, however, individual critics of the programs are using the Internet to find each other and mobilize, and are bringing change.
Consider the Elan School, in Poland, Maine, which has long been known for its extreme practices. On April 1, Elan shut its doors after four decades in operation, blaming negative publicity online—like this intense post on the social news site reddit– for recent declines in enrollment. "The school has been the target of harsh and false attacks spread over the Internet with the avowed purpose of forcing the school to close," Sharon Terry, Elan’s executive director, told the Lewiston Maine Sun Journal. The paper reported:
Despite several recent investigations conducted by the Maine Department of Education that Terry said have vindicated the school, "the school has, unfortunately, been unable to survive the damage."
Elan is just the most recent in a growing list of victories for opponents of tough residential programs for troubled teens. In the last three years, some 40 other private institutions like Elan have closed, and others have been condemned by state investigations, as activism online — mostly led by survivors of such programs and their parents — has increased.
