Last month Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres, forwarded me a link from ProPublica with a headline that made of us both infuriated. There Were Warning Signs Of Sexual Abuse At a Youth Center. Indiana Kept Sending Boys and Money Anyway. No one wants teenagers to be abused, especially at state-funded Christian facilities, but it was beyond maddening…
Jesus Land
Suffer the Little Children: Mike Pence’s Disturbing Connections to the Teen Treatment Industry
When I was fifteen, my parents sent me to Escuela Caribe, a fundamentalist Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. At this school students were forced to exercise for punishment, sometimes until they vomited or collapsed from exhaustion. Students were beaten with a leather strap for minor infractions. Staff members would slam students into…
Stop Child Abuse in Residential Treatment Programs for Teens
One of the most maddening things about being a product of the dysfunctional family with means complex is knowing that the abuse is still happening. That despite the Congressional reports, despite books like Julia Scheeres’ Jesus Land, or Maia Szalavitz’s Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, or Kate Logan’s documentary…