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Teen escort company

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In the United States, a teen escort company, also called a youth transport firm or secure transport company, is a business that specializes in transporting teenagers from their homes to various facilities in the troubled teen industry.[1][2] Such businesses typically employ a form of legal kidnapping, abducting sleeping teenagers and forcing them into a vehicle. Teen escort companies in the United States are subject to little or no government regulation and commonly result in permanent trauma.[3]

Methodology

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Teen escort companies regularly employ the practice of gooning, a form of legal kidnapping occurring predominantly in the United States, in which parents hire rehabilitation organizations to seize children they perceive as troubled and transport them to boot camps, behavior modification facilities, residential treatment centers, substance abuse treatment facilities, wilderness therapy, or therapeutic boarding school.[4][5][6] In most cases, the organizations send a group of people to show up by surprise and force the teenager into a vehicle.[7]

Children to be transported are often picked up during the middle of the night to take advantage of their initial disorientation and to minimize confrontation and flight risk. Aggressive tactics, such as being punched, restrained with handcuffs, or hogtied with cable wires, are common.[4][8][9] Children are sometimes picked up at school, with the school staff unaware of the escort company's employees' true intentions.[10]: 568 

Children who resist are frequently threatened, restrained with handcuffs or zip ties, blindfolded, or hooded.[7] Children who have been gooned frequently report post traumatic stress disorder, problems sleeping at night, and recurring nightmares into adulthood.[4] Paris Hilton's documentary This Is Paris details her experience at age 17 with gooning, culminating in her transport to Provo Canyon School where she was abused.[11][12]

United States

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As a transport option, parents in the United States are able to hire teen escort companies to transport their children from their homes to residential treatment centers (RTCs) and other facilities in the troubled teen industry.[13][14] These facilities go by many names, and include private religious re-education facilities,[15][16] teen residential programs, wilderness therapy programs, therapeutic boarding schools, boot camps, or behavior modification programs.[17]

In 2004, it was estimated that there were more than twenty teen escort companies operating in the United States.[18][19] Parents may use this type of service when they believe their child needs treatment outside the home, but are unable or unwilling to travel there.[20] The service can cost $5,000 to $8,000 U.S. dollars (up to $10,500 in 2024).[4] Many teen escort companies do not have any training or background requirements for prospective employees.[10]: 568 

The use of such services is controversial, because the services are subject to little or no government regulation[19][21][22][15] and because they are associated with treatment services which are themselves controversial. For teenagers seized in the middle of the night by strangers, being abducted by a teen escort company may result in permanent trauma.[15] Attempts to establish similar services in other countries have been quickly closed down by the authorities under their laws against child abuse, assault and torture.[citation needed]

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Films and television

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References

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  1. ^ Telep, Trisha (April 22, 2014). "The man who takes troubled youths to therapy camp". BBC News. Archived from the original on April 19, 2025. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  2. ^ Miller, Jessica; Fuchs, David; Craft, Will (March 8, 2022). "'Blindfolds, hoods and handcuffs': How some teenagers come to Utah youth treatment programs". Salt Lake Tribune. ISSN 0746-3502. Retrieved January 6, 2023. A lot of those Utah-bound kids arrive through a "secure transport" company, where parents pay thousands of dollars to have someone pick up their child and take them away.
  3. ^ Evans, Rachelle (March 13, 2024). "Gooning is clearly the wrong choice for our children". The Michigan Daily. Archived from the original on September 30, 2024. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d Solomon, Serena (November 30, 2016). "The Legal Industry for Kidnapping Teens". Vice. Archived from the original on October 17, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
  5. ^ Anderson, Sulome (August 12, 2014). "When Wilderness Boot Camps Take Tough Love Too Far". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on January 30, 2025. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  6. ^ "The Troubled Teen Industry's Troubling Lack of Oversight". www.law.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on December 27, 2024. Retrieved July 27, 2025. Teens may be subject to legally and ethically dubious tactics before they ever step foot on the grounds of the RTF, with the advent of an industry practice dubbed "gooning" by which youth are placed into these facilities against their will. Some parents hire transport services to stage kidnappings of their children, violently extracting teens from their homes in the middle of the night and delivering them to RTFs thousands of miles away
  7. ^ a b Salter, Jim (September 27, 2022). "Rules sought for 'gooning,' taking troubled kids to care". ABC News. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  8. ^ Bauer, Laura; Thomas, Judy (September 5, 2022). "'Literally kidnapping': Teens taken against their will to boarding schools across US". The Kansas City Star. Archived from the original on September 8, 2022. Retrieved October 20, 2022.
  9. ^ Ortiz, Michelle Ray (June 13, 1999). "'Escort Service' or Legalized Abduction?". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 2165-1736. OCLC 3638237. Archived from the original on January 5, 2025. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  10. ^ a b Robbins, Ira P. (June 14, 2014). "Kidnapping Incorporated: The Unregulated Youth-Transportation Industry and the Potential for Abuse" (PDF). American Criminal Law Review. 51 (563): 563–600. Retrieved March 7, 2025.
  11. ^ Goldsmith, Annie (August 24, 2020). "Paris Hilton Opens Up About Physical and Emotional Abuse at Boarding School". Town & Country. Archived from the original on May 27, 2025. Retrieved September 23, 2020.
  12. ^ Hilton, Paris (August 14, 2023). "Paris Hilton: my boarding school hell and how I survived". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on April 7, 2025. Retrieved July 27, 2025. Mom cooked. No one acted angry or odd or nervous. I was sound asleep at about 4.30 in the morning when my bedroom door crashed open. A thick hand grabbed my ankle and dragged me off the mattress. I was instantly awake.
  13. ^ Okoren, Nicolle (November 14, 2022). "The wilderness 'therapy' that teens say feels like abuse: 'You are on guard at all times'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on July 16, 2025. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  14. ^ Ingram, Sarah (March 26, 2023). "Kidnapped and taken into the woods: 'Why I had my teen gooned'". Metro. Archived from the original on March 13, 2025. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  15. ^ a b c "Dangers of Teen Escort Transportation Services". astartforteens.org. Archived from the original on June 29, 2025. Retrieved July 28, 2025.
  16. ^ Touretzky, Dave (January 23, 2016). "The Lisa McPherson Clause". www.cs.cmu.edu. Archived from the original on June 24, 2025. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  17. ^ Pinto, Allison; Friedman, Robert M.; Epstein, Monica (September 28, 2005). "The Exploitation of Youth and Families in the Name of "Specialty Schooling:" What Counts as Sufficient Data? What are Psychologists to Do?". CYF Newsletter. Summer 2005. Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida: American Psychological Association. Full text Archived 2025-02-18 at the Wayback Machine
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference pinto was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ a b "Residential Treatment Programs for Teens Consumer Information". www.consumer.ftc.gov. July 2008. Archived from the original on August 5, 2013. Retrieved March 15, 2006.
  20. ^ Stein, Samantha (April 8, 2019). "Why I Kidnapped My Daughter". Psychology Today. Archived from the original on July 27, 2025. Retrieved July 27, 2025.
  21. ^ Labi, Nadya. "Want your kid to disappear?". Legal Affairs. Archived from the original on August 3, 2012.
  22. ^ "Journalism Center Awards: Nadya Labi". Archived from the original on March 19, 2008.

Further reading

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  • Magnuson, Doug; Dobud, Will; Harper, Nevin J. (July 13, 2022). "Can Involuntary Youth Transport into Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Treatment Programs (Wilderness Therapy) Ever Be Ethical?". Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal. 41: 417–425.
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