Mother Jones on the slate of unregulated religious homes billed to parents as moral boot camps where unruly teens can “get on track academically, restore broken relationships, and learn to walk with God.”

…in her first weeks at the academy’s Missouri compound—a summer-camp setup in remote La Russell, population 145—she and other girls snuck letters to their parents between the pages of hymnals in a local church they attended, along with entreaties to congregants to mail them. When another girl snitched, Roxy said, McNamara locked some girls in makeshift isolation cells, tiled closets without furniture or windows. Roxy got “the redshirt treatment”: For a solid week, 10 hours a day, she had to stand facing a wall, with breaks only for worship or twice-daily bathroom trips.

Go read the whole thing.

h/t Maria

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

17 replies on ““Character Building” for Troubled Teenage Girls”

  1. Torturing children is an old Christian practice. See Canada and Ireland where the Catholic Church tortured generations of children. That is, when they weren’t raping them.

  2. Remember, not all Christians are like that: some of them just abuse their kids at home, the old fashioned way.

  4. If it saves them from being tormented forever with the acquiescence of the One who loves them best, I guess it’s worth it.

  5. @1, you’ve used the past tense there. I’m docking you a couple of points for that.

    Isn’t naming your daughter “Roxy” sort of like telling her “I want you to grow to be the best stripper you can be”?

  6. TWICE daily bathroom trips? that is criminal. that is very dangerous. urination is critical to human health. these people should be thrown in jail and sued. gah.

  7. @5,
    “Roxy” isn’t the girl’s actual name, it’s the pseudonym the article’s writer gave her.

    I wonder if these “homes” are also tax-exempt?

  9. I’m glad these places didn’t exist when I was 14 and/or that my mom was too cheap to pay to send me to one. That sounds right up her alley.

  11. @5 – I see it as more of a flapper or fast-talkin’ dame name. I know a young woman named Roxy, and she has so far failed to live up to all my expectations for her.

    I did, however, once work with a woman named Misty..

  15. I think this should be filed under “There is No Morality Without Religion”.

    These houses of abuse keep getting away with their crimes because of religious privilege. They say “trust us, we’re Christians!” and credulous people who think Christian = good take them at their word. Those credulous parents, legislators, regulators and police deliver the children up to be abused, because they trust in the outer trappings of religion. They need to realize – these scoundrels are using religion as a shield for their vileness. ANYONE can say they’re Christian and dress and behave in public like one – and scoundrels take advantage of that to trick people into paying them to destroy their children.

  16. @3, the new Canyons school district in no way slapped down the LDS church. They merely withdrew the offer to sell that land to the Magic Underpantsers so they didn’t get the pants sued off them by the Summum church for religious favoritism. Which is awesome and hilarious and disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

  17. Speaking of Utah’s own reform schools, an old friend of mine was sent to the Utah Boys Ranch and it completely scarred him for life. His LDS parents sent him when we were 14 or 15 for dabbling in atheism. He came out of there and immediately became a drug-addicted alcoholic, something he still struggles with 16 years later, and he suffers from PTSD. He told the most horrific stories. He was funny and so smart before the UBR, and it destroyed all of that. That place is well-respected and faith-based, and it is truly evil.

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