Fornits user Blombrowski may be another source for input regarding industry size. If you have a user name, ya might PM him to ask, just in case he doesn't spot this thread in the interim.
One of the problems is how does one define "the industry?" There are programs which rely more on coercion than physical restrictions as well as vice versa. There are programs which maintain they are
not part of this industry (despite marketing themselves on Struggling Teens); these usually claim to actually be "regular boarding schools with some extra differences." Does one include pediatric psychiatric hospitals and, if so, which ones, since some are clearly more nefarious in their approach than others. Or maybe ya might want to include them all. You mentioned "for-profit residential treatment for minors," yet there are
non-profits which, some would argue, are very much a part of this industry as well. Are there really key differences between for-profits and non-profits, when it comes to coercive excess? What about the therapeutic community programs set up in jails and juvenile detention centers? Some of those are run by local government, some are contracted out to for-profit organizations. And then there is the whole panoply of programs focused, more or less, within the religious spectrum...
...Blah, blah, blah. I take it you are writing a paper for school or similar?
