Wed, Apr 30, 2008 (2:09 a.m.)

An ongoing federal investigation into abuses at private boot camps for troubled teenagers produced more damning testimony before Congress last week.

An investigator working for the Government Accountability Office, which researches issues for Congress, said officials promoting the programs are apt to deceive parents.

A recording was played of a conversation between a GAO investigator posing as a father and a person representing a boot camp. The investigator was warned not to tell his wife of the true nature of the camp.

“I want you to tell her that it is a college prep boarding school,” the investigator was told. “If she thinks that you want to send your daughter to a place where there are drug addicts and people that are all screwed up, she will look at you and say, ‘No way.’“

Testimony about the boot camps otherwise known as residential treatment facilities, behavior modification programs and therapeutic boarding schools also included that their marketing techniques can be misleading.

Allegations of physical and mental abuse at many private boot camps number in the thousands, GAO investigators testified last fall. In a report that shocked members of Congress, they recounted several deaths at such loosely regulated camps and detailed the abuses and neglect that led to the tragedies.

The Associated Press reported that investigators last week recounted more gruesome details of disciplinary life at some of these programs, including a pit bull being trained to bite students in the groin, bags placed over the heads of teens and nooses fastened around their necks.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education Committee, has introduced legislation that we strongly support. It would require the federal Health and Human Services Department to inspect such programs. It would also require that boot camp managers disclose the qualifications, roles and responsibilities of all staff members, and that the staff undergo training on what constitutes child abuse and neglect and how to report it if they see it.

We hope this bill is put on a fast track.