아시아뉴스통신

뉴스홈 전체기사 정치 산업ㆍ경제 사회 국제
스포츠 전국 연예·문화 종교 인터뷰 TV

Troubled US teens left traumatised by tough love camps

  • [서울=아시아뉴스통신] 레악카나 기자
  • 송고시간 2021-06-20 02:15
  • 뉴스홈 > 국제
Paris Hilton released a YouTube documentary about her life last year showing her decades-long struggle with trauma. (Photo by= BBC News)

[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] As one of the most famous faces of the 2000s, people think they know the story of Paris Hilton. So, when the 40-year-old released a YouTube documentary about her life last year, many were shocked to learn about her decades-long struggle with trauma, BBC reported.

Hilton tearfully recounted how she was woken up by strangers in her bedroom in the middle of the night as a teenager and forcibly taken across the country. She said her unanswered cries for help repeatedly play out in nightmares which make it difficult to sleep. Her story, though shocking, is not unique. Hilton is one of thousands of American children sent every year by their parents into a private network of "tough love" residential programmes and schools marketed at reforming their behaviour. 


The Troubled Teen Industry (TTI) has become an umbrella term for a wide scope of private residential programmes like these aimed at modifying adolescent behaviour. From boot camps to boarding schools, these facilities are marketed as treatment for a broad range of behavioural and mental health issues including eating disorders, drug use and defiance. The size of the industry and its yearly turnover of teenagers across the US remains elusive because there is no federal regulator monitoring it.