Residential Treatment Programs: Concerns Regarding Abuse & Death in Certain Programs for Troubled Youth

October 2007 The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found thousands of allegations of abuse lodged against residential treatment programs for troubled youth between 1990 and 2007; however, it was unable to generate a more concrete number because no single entity collects comprehensive nationwide data. The inability to disaggregate the data for public versus private treatment programs, and an inability to capture the size of the industry itself, hampered the refinement of the number of actual abuse allegations formally lodged against residential treatment programs. To conduct this study, the researchers conducted expert interviews, searched the internet for Web sites alleging abuse, and . . .