Documentaries

This arced documentary series follows ongoing efforts to expose America`s troubled teen industry (TTI); for decades this billion-dollar business has used what it calls "tough love" as a form of treatment despite numerous deaths. 

Years after being sent to a disciplinary school, a woman who is haunted by her experiences decides to expose the corruption and abuse of the troubled teen industry. 

Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare is a 2023 true crime documentary film directed by Liza Williams. The subject of the documentary is a series of troubled teen programs ran by a man called Steve Cartisano.  

Exposing the predatory and insidious behavior within the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) Churches, and the struggles of survivors to find justice.  

The Elan School was the last stop. Set deep in the woods of Maine, Elan delivered controversial therapy to troubled teens. It was a meat grinder of raw emotion and harsh discipline. Some say it sold hope, others say it sold Hell. 

A young evangelical filmmaker is granted unprecedented access inside a controversial Christian behavior modification program for troubled teens, where she discovers shocking secrets and young students that change her life. 

Filmmaker Robert May chronicles the case of a once-respected judge who received kickbacks for sending juvenile offenders to prison, even for minor crimes. 

There are more than 30 privately run schools for troubled youth operating in the state of Montana. They employ more than 600 people and pump an estimated 4 million into the state income taxes. It's an exploding industry, but strangely, most Montanans have no idea the schools even exist.  

Youth In Disorder is a starting point for parents and communities to learn about the issue of the "Troubled Teen" Industry (TTI) and Institutional Child Abuse (ICA). 

WWASP Survivors is run by a dedicated group of concerned alumni of WWASP-affiliated programs. Their mission is to raise awareness of the true dangers of WWASP Programs, to advocate for those still being held and abused in WWASP affiliated programs, and to provide validation and support to survivors of WWASP programs.

Chelsea wrote the WWASP Diaries while being held against her will at a behavior modification program called Tranquility Bay. Often considered one of the harshest of WWASP’s facilities, Tranquility Bay was a coeducational behavior modification school located in rural Jamaica.  The school operated from 1997 until 2009.  It housed children (mainly American) ranging from age 12 to over 19. 

Elizabeth is a survivor of Mount Bachelor Academy. She has been involved in mental health advocacy since 2009.

A true story about a boy who attended the abusive and corrupt Bethel Boys Academy. The story is captivating and heartbreaking. Author Allen Knoll tells his captivating story of surviving an incredibly abusive school that hid behind religion. He walks you through his experience and it's as if you are at the school itself.

Haywood Robinson was just seventeen when she was sent to a behavioral modification program in Montana-a horrible and painful experience. This raw and emotional memoir chronicles Haywood's struggles with mental illness and her lack of a diagnosis until her thirties. 

A survivor of the Troubled Teen Industry exposes the truth about the dark side of a billion-dollar industry's institutionalized abuse—and shares the story of her own fight for justice. Liz Ianelli, known around the world as Survivor993, spent years at the Family Foundation—labeled an “institution for troubled teens.” The children who went through The Family School like her were good people. They had potential and dreams, but they came out with lifelong trauma: anxious, angry, paranoid, self-hating and in pain. Most of them have suffered lives of hardship, unable to integrate back into society. Hundreds have died, mostly by overdose and suicide. 

Acclaimed journalist Kenneth R. Rosen knows firsthand the brutal emotional, physical, and sexual abuse carried out at these programs. He lived it. In Troubled, Rosen unspools the stories of four graduates on their own scarred journeys through the programs into adulthood. Based on three years of reporting and more than one hundred interviews with other clients, their parents, psychologists, and health-care professionals, Troubled combines harrowing storytelling with investigative journalism to expose the disturbing truth about the massively profitable, sometimes fatal, grossly unchecked redirection industry. 

Dear Renisha is filled with the trauma that comes from the betrayal of those who promised to protect and love. It stands proudly among other survivor stories and reminds us why torture will never be treatment. Full of the wisdom that comes from healing after great trauma, Sabrina reminds us why she rightly calls herself a survivor of the troubled teen industry. 

The Dead, Insane, or in Jail memoir series tells Zack Bonnie’s story of his years at the Rocky Mountain Academy (a CEDU school) in Northern Idaho in the late 1980s. Tricked into going there at age fourteen, Zack ran away after several weeks, only to be returned there later that summer, where he remained for over two more years. Combining Zack’s personal narrative with excerpts from personal correspondence, school communications, expert opinion, news items, personal journal entries, and school writing assignments, the book adds layers of meaning and third-party objectivity to the Zack’s story.

Straight described itself as a drug rehab, a "direction for youth." Strictly false advertising. An accurate description came from the ACLU, which called it "A concentration camp for throwaway teens." Inside the windowless warehouse, Straight used bizarre and intimidating methods to "treat" us; to turn us into the type of kids our parents wanted. Dead Inside takes readers behind Straight's closed doors, illustrating why the program was eventually investigated, sued, and closed down for abusing children. 

At the age of 16, Jeneen Miller was prosecuted without a fair trial for telling a family-kept secret about a wrong-doing that was perpetrated at the hands of her uncle. After bravely coming forth to her family, they were not open to the truth. Jeneen's justifiable rage was wrongfully mistaken by her parents when they assumed she was experimenting with drugs and alcohol. In 1988, Jeneen's parents used trickery to achieve the ultimate betrayal. Instead of the therapy they promised Jeneen, they turned her over to a prison camp in spite of her self-discipline, excellent academics and responsible behavior.