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Teen escort company

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In the United States, a teen escort company, also called a youth transport firm or secure transport company, is a business that specializes in transporting teenagers from their homes to various facilities in the troubled teen industry.[1][2] Such businesses typically employ a form of legal kidnapping, abducting sleeping teenagers and forcing them into a vehicle. Teen escort companies in the United States are subject to little or no government regulation and commonly result in permanent trauma.[citation needed]

Gooning

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Gooning is a form of legal kidnapping, occurring predominantly in the United States, in which parents hire rehabilitation organizations to seize children they perceive as troubled and transport them to boot camps, behavior modification facilities, residential treatment centers, substance abuse treatment facilities, wilderness therapy, or therapeutic boarding school.[3] In most cases, the organizations send a group of people to show up by surprise and force the teenager into a vehicle, often under cover of darkness.[4]

Children who resist are frequently threatened, restrained with handcuffs or zip ties, blindfolded, or hooded.[4] Children who have been gooned frequently report post traumatic stress disorder, problems sleeping at night, and recurring nightmares into adulthood.[3] Paris Hilton's documentary This Is Paris details her experience at age 17 with gooning, culminating in her transport to Provo Canyon School where she was abused.[5][6]

United States

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As a transport option, parents in the United States are able to hire teen escort companies to transport their children from their homes to residential treatment centers (RTCs) and other facilities in the troubled teen industry.[7] These facilities go by many names, and include private religious re-education facilities,[8][9] teen residential programs, wilderness therapy programs, therapeutic boarding schools, boot camps, or behavior modification programs.[10]

In 2004, it was estimated that there were more than twenty teen escort companies operating in the United States.[10][11] Parents may use this type of service when they believe their child needs treatment outside the home, but the parent or child is not willing to travel there.[12] The service can cost $5,000 to $8,000 U.S. dollars.[13]

Often, teens to be transported are picked up during the middle of the night to take advantage of their initial disorientation and to minimize confrontation and flight risk. Aggressive tactics, such as being punched, restrained with handcuffs, or hogtied with cable wires, are common.[13][14][15]

The use of such services is controversial, because the services are subject to little or no government regulation[11][16][17] and because they are associated with treatment services which are themselves controversial. For teenagers seized in the middle of the night by strangers, being abducted by a teen escort company may result in permanent trauma.[17] Attempts to establish similar services in other countries have been quickly closed down by the authorities under their laws against child abuse, assault and torture.[citation needed]

References

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  1. ^ "The man who takes troubled youths to therapy camp". BBC News. 22 April 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  2. ^ "'Blindfolds, hoods and handcuffs': How some teenagers come to Utah youth treatment programs". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 2024-02-09. A lot of those Utah-bound kids arrive through a "secure transport" company, where parents pay thousands of dollars to have someone pick up their child and take them away.
  3. ^ a b Solomon, Serena (November 29, 2016). "The Legal Industry for Kidnapping Teens". vice.com. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
  4. ^ a b Salter, Jim (September 27, 2022). "Rules sought for 'gooning,' taking troubled kids to care". ABC News. Archived from the original on 28 September 2022. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
  5. ^ Goldsmith, Annie (August 24, 2020). "Paris Hilton Opens Up About Physical and Emotional Abuse at Boarding School". Town & Country. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  6. ^ Hilton, Paris (2023-08-14). "Paris Hilton: my boarding school hell and how I survived". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2023-08-14. Mom cooked. No one acted angry or odd or nervous. I was sound asleep at about 4.30 in the morning when my bedroom door crashed open. A thick hand grabbed my ankle and dragged me off the mattress. I was instantly awake.
  7. ^ Okoren, Nicolle (14 November 2022). "The wilderness 'therapy' that teens say feels like abuse: 'You are on guard at all times'". the Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  8. ^ "Dangers of teen escort transport | ASTART for Teens".
  9. ^ "The Lisa McPherson Clause".
  10. ^ a b The Exploitation of Youth and Families in the Name of “Specialty Schooling:” What Counts as Sufficient Data? What are Psychologists to Do? by Allison Pinto, Robert M. Friedman, and Monica Epstein, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida. American Psychological Association, CYF Newsletter, Summer 2005 (file dated September 28, 2005). Page 3.
  11. ^ a b "Residential Treatment Programs for Teens Consumer Information". www.consumer.ftc.gov. July 2008. Retrieved March 15, 2006.
  12. ^ Stein, Samantha (April 8, 2019). "Why I Kidnapped My Daughter". Psychology Today. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
  13. ^ Bauer, Laura; Thomas, Judy (September 5, 2022). "'Literally kidnapping': Teens taken against their will to boarding schools across US". The Kansas City Star. Archived from the original on September 8, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
  14. ^ Ortiz, Michelle Ray (1999-06-13). "'Escort Service' or Legalized Abduction?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-06-22.
  15. ^ Want your kid to disappear? by Nadya Labi, Legal Affairs, July–August 2004 and Journalism Center Awards: Nadya Labi Archived March 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ a b "Dangers of teen escort transport ASTART for Teens". www.astartforteens.org. Retrieved March 15, 2006.

Further reading

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