Seriously, your efforts to try to spin this are kind of sad.
The distance issue is really simple. You make a reasonable point that if you happen to be from a family where jet-setting is pretty common, and "community" is a relative term, and the parent has a Gulfstream, I suppose a trip of hundreds or even thousands of miles wouldn't pose much of a barrier. However, that's the exception for most families, and distance can be as much of a psychological barrier as much as a physical one.
By keeping youth closer to home there's a psychological and physical engagement with the family that is more likely to happen. Not to say that a parent couldn't just as easily place a child in an RTC down the street, and then never go see them, but it's more unlikely. Research shows that family engagement leads to better outcomes. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of mind, and the transition back can be jarring, leading to relapse and recidivism.
Making their dorms not look like jail cells helps. I've seen rooms in RTCs that look more like jail cells than the ones in Missouri.
But the real secret to their success is the screening process, where they are probably assessed multiple times by a trained team of social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists, on intake, and at the juvenile detention center. And lastly and most importantly, the youth have a lawyer, who can defend their client's rights and make sure that whatever screening process is being used is being properly administered. I can tell you that's something they didn't learn from the private industry.