LM, if you read over some of the discussion in this forum and some of the others, you'll find a whole lot of debate right along the same lines as your question. Parents very frequently say, after the fact, that they only saw the glossy brochures and talked to entheusiastic parent support group members and they really and truely thought they were sending their kids to a strict, but wonderfully well appointed boarding school w/ therapy. Look at the way HLA describes markets itself in their web site:
http://www.hiddenlakeacademy.com/Counse ... grams.aspxLooks like the perfect place for a kid who's not all that bad, but jepordizing a promising academic career or one who's not a criminal or a real danger to themselves or anyone, but just too much of a handful for regular school; the kind of kid who may need a firm hand and a little extra supervision.
That's how they sell it. And it's expensive and comes highly recomended by impressive people, so it must be good, right?
I think the best way to get an answer to your question is to try it yourself. Talk to the admissions people and to the edcons who place kids there. Describe a dangerous thug problem child and see what they say. Call back in a couple of days (or have someone else do it, they may be crazy but they ain't dumb) and describe a different kid, one who you know well doesn't need intensive, brutal reprograming, see what they say.
One of the worst in this industry (by some accounts, of course) was Elan in the `80's. In those days, they were taking foster care placements from Illanois and, I believe, other states. These were not ajudicated youths, but just kids who, for whatever reason, landed up in state custody and Elan cut them a deal to beat the usual costs of foster placement. They bit. There was one hell of a dustup and those state contracts went *poof*.
Of course, kids who really are in deep trouble and who do need some kind of guidance or therapy also land up in these places. In my opinion, they're so much more screwed than the ones who's prior behavior leaves them some credibility. They get the worst of it and no one but NO one will ever believe them. They're sitting ducks. It works the same way as a girl w/ a bad reputation trying to report a rape.
Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name. Thy kingdom nada, thy will be nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.
--Ernest Hemingway, American author
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fka ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82
Why I Live at the PO