Essential reporting
Some reporting on the troubled teen industry stands apart: reporters who spent months on records requests, found the families and former staff, followed the money to the companies behind a program, or kept at a story until a program closed or a law changed. These are the articles we send people to first. Each one links to the original, with an archived copy where there is one, and a note from us on why it matters.
Everything else we have collected is in the news feed.
2026
They’re Putting Kids’ Lives at Risk
ProPublica and WPLN found that Wayne Halfway House did not report suspected abuse at its Tennessee juvenile facilities. The state opened an investigation after the reporting.
About Middle Tennessee Juvenile Detention, Mountain View Academy
Kearney center’s culture allowed sexual abuse of teens in state custody, new investigation finds
Sara Gentzler's reporting on the investigation into Nebraska's youth center at Kearney: 44 sexual abuse allegations from 37 boys against 19 staff, and the culture that let it go on.
Hundreds of calls to Colorado child abuse hotline from youth treatment centers go uninvestigated
Of 1,154 calls to Colorado's child abuse hotline from youth treatment centers in five years, 92% were screened out. Jennifer Brown's investigation for The Colorado Sun.
About Devereux Cleo Wallace Center, El Pueblo Boys and Girls Ranch, Mount Saint Vincent QRTP, Tennyson Center for Children
Inside a taxpayer-funded treatment center for adoptees, tales of abuse, neglect and little oversight
Inside Calo Programs in Missouri, a taxpayer-funded treatment center for adoptees: an Associated Press look at abuse, neglect and little oversight.
Adopted and Locked Away: Kids promised ‘forever homes’ instead confined in for-profit institutions
The Associated Press found adopted children sent to for-profit treatment programs, where many were restrained, abused or neglected.
About Asheville Academy for Girls, CALO Programs, Elevations RTC, Magnolia Mill School, Trails Carolina, Uinta Academy
2025
Dozens of Teens Who Spent Time at Abusive Florida Reform School Ended Up on Death Row
At least 34 boys from the Dozier School and 16 from Okeechobee ended up on Florida's death row. Leonora LaPeter Anton's investigation for The Marshall Project and the Tampa Bay Times.
About Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, Okeechobee Youth Development Center
2024
A Military-Style School for Troubled Teens Became a “Living Nightmare"
Rachel Browne's account of Robert Land Academy in Ontario, where two boys died trying to escape in 1998 and staff used their deaths to frighten students for years.
About Robert Land Academy
2021
The Shadow Penal System for Struggling Kids
The New Yorker on the programs struggling children are sent to, Teen Challenge among them, and the transport agents who take them there.
2020
Investigation Details Patterns of Abuse at Sequel Youth Facilities
APM Reports and OPB traced a pattern of violence, sexual assault and improper restraint across Sequel's facilities for foster children in more than 40 states.
About Riverside Academy
At the nation’s leading behavioral health nonprofit for youth, Devereux staff abused children in their care for years — while red flags were dismissed.
The Inquirer documented years of sexual abuse by staff at Devereux facilities in several states, and how the warning signs were dismissed.
2019
12 years, 58 complaints, no sanctions at Montana residential programs
The Missoulian found 58 complaints in 12 years against Montana's private youth programs and no sanctions from a board made up mostly of industry representatives.
About Clearview Horizon, Galena Ridge Wilderness Program, Gateway Freedom Ranch, Monarch School, Montana Academy, Ranch for Kids, Reflections Academy, Spring Creek Lodge Academy, Star Peak Crossing, Summit Preparatory School, Turning Winds Academic Institute
2018
‘It’s Like, Who’s Next?’: A Troubled School’s Alarming Death Rate
At least 90 former students of the Family Foundation School in New York have died since it closed in 2014, most of overdoses and suicide. Michael Wilson asked why.
About Family Foundation School
2014
New York City Sends $30 Million a Year to School With History of Giving Kids Electric Shocks
New York City was paying the Judge Rotenberg Center $30 million a year. ProPublica followed the money and the center's record of violations.
2013
Prisoners of Profit - The Huffington Post
Chris Kirkham's investigation of Youth Services International and its owner, James Slattery: abuse, medical neglect and unreported incidents across the company's juvenile facilities, alongside its lobbying for privatization.
About Brooklyn Arms Welfare Hotel, Broward Girls Academy, McIntosh Youth Development Center, Pahokee Youth Development Center, Thompson Academy
2000
An Investigation into Military-Style Juvenile Boot Camps and the Death of Gina Score
Gina Score, 14, collapsed on a run at a South Dakota state boot camp and died of heatstroke while staff took her collapse for defiance. Bruce Selcraig's account of the camp and the system around it.
About Canyon State Academy, Savage Leadership Challenge, State Training School in Plankinton
Undated
An Oklahoma boarding school promised help for troubled girls. Students say they got punishment instead.
Ashlynd Baecht's investigation of New Lifehouse Academy, an unlicensed Christian program for girls in rural Oklahoma: restraint, food restriction and unpaid labor, by former students' accounts.