The TTI-The Troubled Teen Industry

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“Every year, thousands of children are sent against their will – often ripped out of their beds in the middle of the night by strangers – to private facilities to be treated for various mental illnesses, addiction issues, and perceived behavioral problems... it is estimated that there are over 120,000+ children kept in over 5,000+ centers around the United States and abroad. This is collectively known as the ‘Troubled Teen Industry’” (“The Troubled Teen Industry”). The troubled teen industry, or the TTI, is a for-profit organization that capitalizes on parents' fears and manipulates them into willingly sending their children to unregulated correctional facilities. These unregulated facilities lack governmental oversight and often lead to the …show more content…

Parents with genuine concerns about their children’s well-being are the primary targets of this multi-level marketing scheme. “Parents are often manipulated through fear tactics into believing their children desperately need this type of facility and are then manipulated to not believe their children if they say anything bad about the facility” (“TTI and its effects”). While it is not the parent’s intention to harm their child, they are at their wits end and are desperate for a solution. Through the troubled teen industry’s false advertisement of an effective correctional facility, they con desperate parents into willingly sending their kids away, believing that this decision is for the benefit of their kids. To protect the parent's view of the facility, they are lied to, being told that their child’s troublesome behavior includes lying about the facility to guilt-trip their parents. By using such tactics, the troubled teen industry is able to protect a parent’s positive perception of the program. This leads parents to disregard any signs of distress or pleas for help from their teen, chalking it up to slander and further solidifying the prospect that their teen is in desperate need of rehabilitation. To be a teen in this foreign place with no allies other than their parents and find out that even they don't believe in their cries for help. It is distressing to know that no one is on your side because you are deemed untrustworthy for simply being placed in a facility when in reality, they are victims of more abuse than most people can imagine. Although the majority of the TTI’s compliance tactics on teens involve using physical force, they also utilize psychological methods, namely the point and level systems. TTI survivor Jamie Mater recalls how “Residents’ behavior.[was] reinforced through a

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