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In 2012, a new charity

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bursts onto the scene. It's

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called Believe in Magic and it

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grants wishes to seriously ill children.

0:20

It has the support of the biggest boy band

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when questions arise about her story, they

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reveal she could be facing another,

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very different danger. What is

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this girl going through?

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It wasn't supposed to end like this. Listen

0:46

to Believe in Magic with me, Jamie

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Bartlett.

1:00

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1:30

Three, two, one.

1:34

Sophie, did your parents ever

1:36

send you to camp in the wilderness? I

1:39

don't feel like there is any wilderness

1:41

in Denmark. But I

1:44

was a scout for a bit, so

1:46

we did sit in a forest and tie knots. Have

1:48

you been sent to the wilderness?

1:51

I have. I've been sent to camp in the middle

1:54

of the Canadian rainforest. That's a Canadian

1:56

rainforest. Yeah, Vancouver is incredibly

1:58

humid and has a bunch of rain.

1:59

forests. So I was in

2:02

the middle of the Canadian rainforest and it's

2:04

a Christian boarding camp in the middle

2:06

of the woods in BC and it

2:08

was

2:09

so old school and we used

2:11

to sing classics like and

2:19

songs that are so North American

2:22

that they make me cringe but also I love it

2:24

because our God is an awesome God

2:26

he reigns from heaven above with

2:28

wisdom power and love our God

2:30

is an awesome God. I'm an atheist.

2:33

God is an awesome God. But yeah awesome.

2:37

But a good song is a good song.

2:39

Wait so did your parents send you

2:41

to the rainforest to become a Christian? A

2:44

good song is a good brainwash.

2:48

I mean it was just the closest camp was

2:50

nearby and it was a cheap

2:52

babysitter. I'd stay there overnight for like

2:55

a week or two at a time which I'm sure they

2:57

were happy with and I loved

2:59

it. So I went into

3:01

this whole nostalgia hole. I was like oh I wonder

3:03

you know does it still exist and everything and

3:07

I found this photo and was like oh this is

3:09

this is what

3:09

I remember. This is a lot more

3:12

raw let's just say. It's more like oh

3:15

my god is you

3:17

know like in horror films when they change an

3:19

innocent children's song to like oh

3:22

god it's off key

3:24

yeah and the only

3:26

other thing I could find online was a walkthrough

3:29

video of the camp from 2002 and they

3:31

were

3:31

doing a location scout for a horror

3:34

film. Yeah yeah

3:36

yeah that makes a lot of sense. On this

3:38

episode of Bad People, Bad Camp,

3:42

how should we deal with delinquent

3:43

teens? This episode

3:45

contains mention of violence and the physical

3:47

and psychological abuse of children. And

3:49

as always there may be some strong language. I'm

3:51

Dr. Julia Shaw, criminal psychologist. And I'm Sophie

3:54

Hagen, stand up comedian.

3:55

And this is Bad

3:58

People.

4:06

My relationship with my parents growing up was

4:08

complicated. I just did not

4:11

want anything to do with them.

4:12

Strangers go into teenagers'

4:14

bedrooms in the middle of the night, take them often

4:17

from their beds, bundle them into the back

4:19

of vans, and drive them down

4:21

dark roads like this to these camps

4:24

in the middle of nowhere.

4:25

All the guy said is you can do this the easy way or the hard

4:27

way, either way you're coming with us. Do

4:29

you know where you were going or what was happening to you? Not

4:31

at all. We are approached every single

4:34

day with survivors of this industry

4:36

who are coming out of these particular programs

4:38

and stating that they too have been abused.

4:41

The guys that worked at the camp grabbed us and

4:43

then we got back and they literally just

4:46

beat the hell out of us in front

4:48

of everyone, just to let everyone know if you

4:50

run away this is what happens.

4:54

Our story starts on July 1, 2001. It's 10.30 p.m. on a Sunday

4:56

evening and Melanie Hudson is

5:01

called to a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona,

5:04

but no one will tell her why. When

5:08

Melanie arrives at the hospital and informs the

5:10

staff who she is, she's then taken

5:12

into a separate room and the

5:14

doctor enters, looks at Melanie

5:17

and tells her that they did everything they could

5:20

for her son.

5:23

Her 14-year-old boy Anthony,

5:25

or Tony as he was often called, was

5:27

found in the scorching Arizona

5:29

desert.

5:30

What was he doing in the desert? He

5:33

was one of around 50 kids between the ages of 6

5:35

and 17 who were enrolled in a specific

5:38

wilderness program. I literally

5:40

just finished Paris Hilton's memoir,

5:42

which

5:43

is incredible. Why

5:45

were you reading Paris Hilton's memoir? I

5:47

like having my ideas

5:50

of people challenged and I've read a lot

5:52

of these like Jessica Simpson's

5:55

memoir, Melanie B's memoir,

5:58

because these people are all portrayed in the media.

5:59

like in very sexist ways and then

6:02

when you read what they have to say you're like oh actually

6:04

this is like a very intelligent

6:06

just human being and I like being like oh okay

6:09

yeah actually the media was the bad guy and

6:12

her book is amazing and she talks extensively

6:15

about her time in one of these wilderness

6:17

programs so I

6:20

feel like I'm very caught up

6:21

so for people who don't know for people don't

6:23

know well well and also it'll

6:26

be interesting to see what research says

6:28

on this and what Paris

6:30

Hilton says on

6:32

this. You're already

6:34

like terrified that I'm going to be like what Paris Hilton

6:37

says. I will always listen

6:39

way more to Paris Hilton than science.

6:43

So wilderness therapy is supposed to

6:45

be a treatment strategy for those people

6:47

who are struggling notably for at-risk

6:49

adolescents and young adults. The idea is that

6:51

they leave their familiar surroundings

6:53

and then go and address behavioral and

6:55

mental health issues through the powers of

6:57

nature. The philosophical

7:00

underpinning actually comes from a German educator

7:02

Kurt Hahn who in 1941 partnered with

7:04

Lawrence Holt

7:07

to train young sailors. Their program

7:09

was called Outward Bound and it started

7:11

with a school in Wales and now has 38 well-regarded

7:15

schools in six different continents and hundreds

7:17

of copycats throughout

7:18

the world. So we're taking advice

7:20

from a German in 1941.

7:24

I also had this thought and

7:27

the first thing I did was look up Kurt Hahn because I

7:29

was like is this eugenicsy?

7:32

And the reason he was

7:35

in the UK was because he was forced to leave

7:37

Germany. Ah he was Jewish. Fair

7:39

enough. Although he later converted to Christianity

7:42

because God is an awesome

7:45

God. Let's go to the forest. So Kurt Hahn

7:47

particularly wanted to support

7:50

the moral

7:51

and

7:59

ethical development of

7:59

young people. Oh,

8:01

this is his whole thing. He's like, school is not

8:03

enough if you just read from textbooks. He had a very stringent

8:05

schooling and he was like, I want this to be more

8:07

wholesome and more well-rounded for others. Among

8:10

other programs, he inspired the

8:12

creation of the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

8:15

Have you heard of it? No. No,

8:17

but every single UK lister probably

8:19

has because Prince

8:22

Philip, aka the Duke of Edinburgh, went to the

8:24

school in Scotland where Kurt Hahn was the headmaster

8:27

and the Duke of Edinburgh Award is a huge deal. And

8:30

what is it?

8:31

Every year in the UK, around half

8:33

a million people between the ages of 14 and 25 do

8:35

their D

8:38

of E, as the kids call it. I think

8:40

I would produce a Hannah did it.

8:43

I did do it. Ooh, what was it like? I

8:46

hated it. You

8:48

basically go out into the

8:50

forest for a few days with your friends and

8:53

you walk around, you're supposed to camp,

8:56

you carry everything that you need on your back. And

8:59

yeah, you're supposed to learn new skills and develop.

9:03

And you felt more well-rounded

9:06

because of your wilderness experience? I mean, no,

9:08

I enjoyed the experience with my friends. I didn't

9:10

enjoy the camping part. Yeah, I'm not

9:12

really a camping person. We didn't

9:14

sing songs. You also like... I like us

9:17

a lot. Oh, Prince is an awesome prince.

9:19

I like you. I already

9:21

do gizelas. Well,

9:23

thank you for sharing, Hannah. Now turn off your microphone.

9:26

It's about us. So Julia,

9:28

wilderness plays

9:30

a part of this. Yes.

9:32

And the dominant educational philosophy

9:35

of this, of the wilderness piece in particular,

9:37

is widely called Outdoor

9:39

Adventure Education, or OAE.

9:42

And the

9:43

philosophy behind that is that teens develop

9:45

their character through experiential

9:48

education in the wild. It

9:50

sounds positive, but it's also too vague

9:53

to really...

9:54

Do you know what I mean? Well, I think

9:56

it's vague on purpose, but I think the

9:58

core principle is good. I think

10:01

the idea that you should be learning things that aren't just

10:03

in textbooks and aren't just in like classical

10:05

literature, which is what certainly German

10:08

education at that point would have focused on, and like mathematics.

10:10

So actually going outside is good. Nature

10:14

is nice. Yep. But

10:16

there are versions of this outdoor

10:19

adventure education, which are very troubling.

10:21

Let's cross the ocean from Scotland to the US.

10:27

In 1966 at

10:30

Brigham Young University in Utah, Professor

10:32

Larry Olson taught a course called Youth

10:35

Leadership Through Outdoor Survival.

10:37

And he was teaching this to students facing

10:40

academic probation. Now

10:42

something that struck me was the use of the

10:44

term survival.

10:46

So this inspired a series of more

10:48

extreme wilderness initiatives than Hans'

10:51

original ones. And

10:53

the programs that are often

10:55

inspired by this go by many different names, including

10:58

wilderness programs, wilderness therapy,

11:00

boot camps, therapeutic boarding schools.

11:03

Sometimes they're just called academies, which is obviously

11:06

a wider term as well, but

11:08

Reminds you of like military stuff. Correct.

11:11

Residential treatment centers is another word. Rebilitation

11:13

centers, behavior modification facilities,

11:15

which always sounds very ooh, clockwork orange.

11:19

And together it's called the

11:21

troubled teen industry.

11:24

Yeah. And when you just say the word

11:26

troubled, that in itself,

11:28

like they have very definitions

11:30

of what troubled means. Yes. From

11:33

people or kids going through a bit

11:36

of a hard time to kids

11:38

who have committed violent crimes. But

11:40

generally, children and teenagers are

11:42

seen as troubled if they have an addiction or

11:45

behavioral and emotional problems. I

11:47

mean, Paris Hilton just went drinking a lot

11:49

and didn't like going to school. That's addiction and

11:51

that's a behavioral problem. Is it addiction or is it just having

11:53

a great time? A lot.

11:56

In 2011, Joanna Betman

11:58

and colleagues at the University of Utah published

12:00

their analysis of a random sample

12:03

of 473 psychological evaluations of

12:06

kids who went to these programs.

12:08

So she got almost 500 kids, looked at their

12:11

profiles and said who's actually going to these programs.

12:14

And she found that most of the kids were in quotes,

12:17

delinquent, substance abusing and oppositional. 86%

12:21

of the sample reported the use

12:23

of illicit substances, most commonly

12:26

weed. 44% had assaulted

12:28

someone and many had assaulted

12:30

family members. That's important to me

12:32

because I think it helps

12:34

to capture the fact that this is often a last resort.

12:37

And so some of these kids are quite a lot of them, 44%

12:41

are getting into physical fights and

12:43

potentially attacking their own parents or siblings. And 40%

12:47

were taking prescribed psychological

12:49

medication most for depressive

12:51

and ADHD symptoms. I can't believe how

12:54

much

12:54

I'm saying the words Paris Hilton. But

12:57

in her book she talks about how she has

12:59

ADHD and how when she was at

13:01

these camps she recognized the same

13:03

ADHD traits in many of the other people

13:05

she met. And she had this like theory where

13:08

she was like yeah obviously because school

13:10

like isn't built, at least when she was young, the

13:13

schools aren't built for people with ADHD so

13:15

they're just like considered troubled because they

13:17

can't learn in the same way. There's

13:20

something that strikes me about you talking about Paris

13:22

Hilton and something that while I was

13:24

reading the literature on this also struck me which

13:26

is this it feels like because

13:29

many wilderness camps especially the ones that

13:31

we're talking about are paid for. So

13:33

these aren't public services, these

13:35

are parents saying I am going

13:38

to pay for someone to help treat my child.

13:40

The fact that 40% are already

13:42

taking prescribed psychological medication in

13:44

a country that has no

13:46

governmental health care,

13:48

this is a very specific self-filtered

13:50

set of individuals. It kind of feels

13:52

like this is what rich people do with their kids or meet

13:55

moderate to high earning innovative

13:57

people do with their kids because they're like I can't

13:59

deal with them.

14:00

What do you feel about that? I just...

14:03

Is it like a privileged thing? Well,

14:06

it's an interesting form of, because we're

14:08

going to get into the horrors of it,

14:09

you're paying someone to do

14:13

often grueling things with your kid. I'm

14:15

curious about what it is that you're saying about... So

14:18

usually we associate sort of correctional camps

14:21

and places where kids

14:24

or adults are who are getting into trouble.

14:27

We associate that usually with people who have committed

14:29

crimes and people who are in the system, in

14:32

care maybe even. Whereas this

14:34

is kids getting taken into residential

14:37

places for correctional reasons that

14:40

they can only go to because their parents

14:42

have enough money to put them there. It's basically like they're paying

14:45

for their version of a luxury prison. Yeah, or something

14:48

like that. Which is bizarre.

14:51

It is incredibly

14:53

strange. One of the traumatizing

14:56

aspects for many kids, in addition to the treatment

14:58

being involuntary, is that the

15:00

process of going to the school

15:02

can feel like being kidnapped. Because

15:05

they're often are literally being kidnapped.

15:08

Well, they're not in that their legal

15:10

guardians have arranged for it to happen.

15:11

Sure, but if they were kidnapped for

15:14

real, it would be exactly the same experience for

15:16

them. Or very similar, yeah. So

15:19

here's a clip of Republican state senator

15:21

for Utah, Mike McEl, speaking about

15:23

authorized kidnappings as we're referred to on

15:26

Sky News in late February 2023. At

15:30

Utah's state capitol, Senator Mike

15:32

McEl is working on national laws to

15:34

protect children in troubled teen schools.

15:37

He wants to regulate the secure transportation

15:39

industry known for those authorized

15:41

kidnappings. Kids

15:44

that are picked up in the middle of the night by two large

15:46

men, when you start treatment with

15:48

that level of trauma, I think it's extremely

15:51

problematic. If I'm king for the

15:53

day, I ban it entirely. I just

15:55

don't think. I think the amount of damage

15:57

we're doing versus the amount of good we're doing,

16:00

we're creating, and I think the damage far

16:02

outweighs the good. I've got kids, when

16:04

I send my kids to a facility,

16:06

not a chance. I would never do that based on

16:08

what I've seen.

16:11

Because that's the thing, like once it

16:13

doesn't really matter if when they get

16:15

to the facility, someone is like, oh

16:18

but your parents allowed this. It doesn't really matter

16:20

because you've already had the traumatic experience of

16:22

being what has felt like kidnapped. And

16:25

even if you know that your parents

16:27

have authorized it, like going

16:29

into it, it still feels terrible. According

16:32

to research by Harper and colleagues from 2021,

16:35

in quotes, about half of outdoor

16:37

behavioral health care participants, so this wilderness

16:39

camps, attend involuntarily

16:42

and are transported by services specialized

16:44

for uncooperative youth. So

16:47

outdoor behavioral health care, OBH, is

16:49

another term for wilderness therapy.

16:52

It just seems so unnecessary

16:54

to have it be so violent, like

16:57

and unhelpful. I

17:01

don't understand how it could be an industry for

17:03

so long when there were so many

17:05

harrowing stories from it. Actually,

17:08

some of them aren't that bad. So in 2016,

17:10

Joanna Bettman and colleagues, who

17:13

was the person from the University

17:15

of Utah, we've talked about before, correct, her

17:19

team published the first meta-analysis of wilderness

17:21

therapy programs. And it seems that overall,

17:24

they kind of work. Their

17:26

team found that wilderness programs have a moderate

17:29

overall effect size, so they can improve things

17:31

like self-esteem, self-efficacy, behavior,

17:34

family functioning, interpersonal functioning, and

17:36

decreased drug use. But I assume that's

17:38

talking about the ones that

17:40

are not doing horrible things. Yes.

17:44

Like I assume those aren't necessarily the

17:46

ones with the kidnapping elements.

17:48

I mean, more

17:50

than half of wilderness programs, as I understand, have

17:53

that as a piece of it. But it could still be, even

17:55

if it starts terrible, that overall the

17:57

treatment works. And once the kids are there

17:59

in these wilderness programs,

17:59

programs. The idea is that daily

18:02

living conditions require group cooperation

18:04

and communication, things like building

18:06

fires, cooking, setting up shelter, hiking.

18:09

And

18:10

research does find that these kinds of things

18:13

can build self-esteem and interpersonal skills. So

18:15

it's not a ludicrous assumption

18:17

that learning how to camp might have some benefits.

18:20

Sure. It feels like there are two very different

18:23

types of places that use the

18:25

same terms. That's part of the issue,

18:27

is that this isn't a regulated field.

18:30

And accredited programs have significantly

18:33

better treatment outcomes than unaccredited ones. There

18:35

are thousands of wilderness programs

18:37

and only 17 are currently accredited

18:40

by the OBHC.

18:42

So Anthony, that we talked about in the beginning of this episode,

18:45

do we know why he was sent to one

18:47

of these facilities? He

18:49

was sent there because his mother was

18:51

struggling

18:52

with him. And he was arrested at

18:55

the age of 14 for shoplifting. He

18:58

also had a learning disability ADHD

19:00

and depression, which relates to some of the stuff we were just talking

19:03

about. Those are the kinds of kids who are normally enrolled in

19:05

these

19:06

camps. And the breaking

19:08

point came when he slashed

19:10

the tires on his mother's car. Yeah.

19:13

So on paper, you can see

19:15

how this sounds like a troubled teen. And

19:18

to address these issues, Anthony started taking medication

19:21

and attending therapy sessions. So

19:23

again, medication we know is also

19:26

common within this population. Melanie

19:28

said that it was actually her son's therapist who

19:30

recommended a particular boot camp, which

19:33

was described as a tough love program.

19:36

The term tough love fills me

19:39

with so much rage. It

19:41

is not a thing. Like believing

19:43

it's a thing is

19:44

so ridiculous. I'm

19:47

just thinking about all the circumstances in which the

19:50

term tough love is just a synonym

19:52

for abuse. It's

19:54

just abuse. Well, no, I think someone

19:56

can love someone and treat them harshly.

20:01

Yeah, you can abuse someone you love. Right. Because

20:03

you love them. Because it doesn't make the act of abuse love. No, that's

20:06

true. But it is still that you love the person and you're doing it because you

20:08

think it's good for them. And

20:09

that's where it gets complicated. Sure. Yeah,

20:11

because you learn it. Because it's like, oh, tough love. Sometimes you just need

20:14

some tough love. So you think that, oh, if

20:16

I just basically abuse this person, it'll

20:18

make them happier. And that's not how it works.

20:21

Or make them

20:22

grow into adults that are more

20:24

functional. It

20:26

makes me so angry. So Melanie trusted

20:28

her son's therapist, obviously. And

20:30

she'd spoken with other parents who had children in

20:32

the program that was recommended. And they also recommended

20:35

it.

20:35

And so she initially enrolled Anthony in a

20:37

daytime Saturday program in the spring of And

20:41

the idea was that he could continue attending regular

20:44

school during the week. But Anthony

20:46

continued to have behavioral problems,

20:48

to say it broadly. So Melanie enrolled

20:51

him in the program's five-week summer camp,

20:53

which she said, according to documents, cost

20:55

between $4,600 and $5,700 US.

21:01

That's wildly expensive, isn't it?

21:03

And also, as soon as there's a financial benefit to

21:06

it, I know, it just seems like they'd be more likely to want

21:08

to keep kids there for ages.

21:10

Classic example of a perverse incentive.

21:14

Yep. Who was behind the camp

21:16

that Anthony went to?

21:18

Anthony went to a camp that was owned by

21:20

Charles F. Long II. And

21:22

he ran a military-style wilderness program

21:25

that was supposed to give troubled teens a new

21:27

start. Of course, it's military-style.

21:30

That's very US on brand, isn't it? It

21:32

is. And it's even more directly US than that.

21:34

So Long's boot camp for wayward

21:37

teens was an imitation

21:39

of the Buffalo Soldiers.

21:40

Just to be completely

21:42

honest, I don't know what that is. I think the only

21:45

reference point I have for Buffalo Soldiers

21:47

is that song. The Buffalo Soldiers

21:49

was the nickname given to African-American soldiers

21:52

who mainly served on the Western frontier

21:55

following the American Civil War. And

21:57

Long's initial idea was for men

21:59

like him to celebrate or reenact

22:02

this 1800s US history.

22:05

Long even gave himself a rank and got everyone

22:07

to call him Colonel.

22:09

That's the most pathetic thing I've ever heard. It

22:11

was successful! So Long's buffalo

22:13

soldiers, they were an attraction

22:16

in local parades.

22:17

They had prancing horses, campaign hats,

22:19

cavalry uniforms, and they even performed

22:22

for visiting dignitaries, including

22:24

then-Governor George

22:26

Bush. In the

22:28

mid-1990s, Long, who claimed

22:30

to be a former marine and police officer

22:32

in the District of Columbia, expanded

22:34

his buffalo soldier program to include

22:38

at-risk kids. And

22:40

you just don't need qualifications to do that? It

22:42

appears not. Long

22:46

wasn't a counselor or therapist, and his idea

22:49

of therapy consisted of drill instructions

22:51

and desert isolation. You

22:54

can't say that. You can't say his

22:56

idea of therapy. That's like me

22:58

saying, well, my idea of exercise is

23:00

lying on the sofa,

23:01

eating crisps. You

23:03

can't have an idea of something if it's

23:06

the opposite of what the idea is. In

23:08

its seven years of operation, the Buffalo Soldier

23:10

boot camp had taken in close to a thousand

23:13

kids and had become

23:16

a local legend among parents struggling

23:18

with their kids. And that was the situation

23:20

that Anthony's mother was in.

23:22

So what happened to Anthony?

23:25

I'll explain everything after this

23:27

short break. Big, baggy

23:30

flamboyant, luminous green-pink and yellow

23:32

shirt, grill-creamed hair, boy bants, Levi's

23:35

denim jackets, whack on the cologne. Welcome

23:37

to Belfast, 1997. Not

23:40

just any old part of Belfast, but gay

23:42

Belfast. It was electric. There

23:44

was a Seminek guy dancing in cages. Every

23:47

cell in my body was just lit

23:49

up. That at the bar was Dairne Bradshaw. What

23:51

happened next would go on to threaten

23:53

peace in Northern Ireland. One

23:56

of the few gay police officers in the country

23:58

shot dead. If someone had

24:01

told them that Darren Bradshaw was going to be murdered,

24:03

it's a story that's never been told before.

24:06

For his own skin, he traded Darren's

24:08

life. This is blood on the dance floor. Listen

24:11

now on BBC Science.

24:13

And we're back.

24:15

There were dozens of witnesses

24:18

and different accounts of Anthony Haynes'

24:20

death, but there are certain facts that no

24:22

one disputes. At the end of

24:24

his first week in camp, Anthony and about 20 other

24:27

kids wanted to quit.

24:28

And this is common in these camps, but kids

24:31

can't leave. According

24:33

to Nevin Harper and colleagues, the completion

24:35

rate for most residential therapy contexts

24:37

for adolescents is about 50%. So

24:39

about half of kids don't complete the

24:41

program. But treatment

24:44

completion rates in wilderness camps have

24:46

been reported to be closer to 94%.

24:51

And according to Harper, a researcher who's quite

24:53

skeptical of wilderness therapies, this,

24:56

they write, is probably because of coercive

24:58

techniques that are used to keep teens

25:01

there. For example, they're not allowed

25:03

to leave. And if they try, they're sometimes held

25:05

down physically, or restraints

25:07

are used to keep them from running away. Do

25:09

we know what the conditions were like in Anthony's camp? It

25:12

looks like the conditions were tough. According

25:14

to the police, the kids were forced

25:17

to wear black clothing and to sleep in sleeping bags

25:19

placed on concrete pads

25:21

that had been standing in direct sunlight

25:23

during the day. And according to documents

25:25

subsequently filed by the prosecutor, the kids

25:28

were fed an insufficient diet. So they were starved,

25:30

basically. They were fed a single apple

25:32

for breakfast, a single carrot for lunch, and a bowl

25:34

of beans for dinner.

25:35

I feel like you could say that this was something

25:37

that took place at like

25:39

Guantanamo Bay, and I'd be like, sure.

25:42

Or prison. Like, it does sound like some

25:45

facilities. It sounds like someone's being punished.

25:48

After Long learned about the kids who

25:50

wanted to quit, so

25:52

the Colonel. Yeah, to the Colonel.

25:56

About the kids. He

25:58

made them sit for hours.

25:59

in the desert sun on a day

26:02

that reached approximately 113 degrees Fahrenheit,

26:05

which is about 45 degrees Celsius.

26:07

And of course the heat took its toll. So witnesses

26:09

said that while sitting in the sun, Anthony

26:12

began in quotes, eating dirt

26:14

because he was hungry.

26:16

Later on Anthony collapsed and appeared to have

26:18

a convulsive seizure, but the staff present

26:20

in quotes felt he was faking.

26:23

According to the detective's report and

26:26

one staff member reported that Anthony had a pulse

26:29

rate of 180, which is more than double

26:31

what is considered a reasonable resting heart rate

26:34

for a teenager.

26:35

So at this point you

26:37

call 911. You'd

26:39

think Long directed

26:41

two staff and three other kids enrolled in the program

26:44

to take Anthony to Long's room at a nearby

26:46

motel to

26:48

in quotes, cool him down and

26:50

clean up. They placed

26:52

Anthony in the flat bed of a staff

26:54

member's pickup truck and drove to the motel.

26:57

So they did not call 911, they put

26:59

him in a truck. Call 911.

27:02

This is when you call 911. Over

27:05

the next several hours the following series of

27:07

events occurred. Note that the following description

27:09

is disturbing. In Long's

27:11

motel room Anthony's limp body

27:14

was stripped and placed into the shower with

27:16

the water running.

27:18

If someone has hyperthermia, which

27:20

is when your body's too hot, a cool shower

27:22

is a good idea. So that is the advice is

27:24

to try and cool down the body obviously. However

27:28

the investigating detective detailed

27:30

that Anthony was left alone in the

27:32

shower for 15 to 20

27:34

minutes and the

27:35

reason for this was allegedly for his privacy.

27:41

During this time, so while he's in the shower, one of the

27:43

two staff members phoned to Long about

27:45

Anthony's condition and Long allegedly

27:47

said that in quotes,

27:49

everything will be okay. But

27:51

when staff members returned to the bathroom they saw

27:53

Anthony face down in the water.

27:56

That is awful. was

28:00

worse than that, but we will not describe it. A

28:02

staff member again called Long to say that Anthony

28:05

was not responding and he instructed

28:07

the staff member to take Anthony

28:09

back to the camp. Call 911,

28:12

what's happening? So when they returned to camp, Anthony

28:14

was apparently still breathing, allegedly,

28:16

but then he stopped

28:19

and that's when he was put in the back of a pickup

28:21

truck to get him help. Even

28:24

here, one staff member expressed his concern that

28:27

Anthony would die unless they called 911 immediately.

28:30

Yeah, that's way too, like that's too late now, he's

28:32

not breathing, like they should have called 911 hours

28:35

ago, I don't know if I mentioned that.

28:36

The county sheriff's office reported receiving

28:39

a phone call at approximately 9.43 that evening, saying

28:42

a camp participant in quotes

28:45

had been eating dirt all day, had refused

28:47

water and was now in an unconscious

28:49

state and not breathing.

28:51

This is the first recorded

28:54

instance in which the colonel or staff

28:56

sought medical attention for Anthony and

28:59

at this point instructions on how to perform CPR

29:01

were given and emergency help was dispatched,

29:04

but as you said, Anthony

29:06

died. It's too late. Yeah,

29:09

oh that's horrible, so frustrating.

29:12

A couple of months after Anthony's death, Charles

29:14

Long, the colonel, was

29:16

charged with second degree murder.

29:18

Oh good,

29:20

oh no, you said charged, that's not

29:22

a conviction. Right, a jury

29:24

trial began and the prosecution

29:27

argued that Long's boot camp was engaged in

29:29

the systematic humiliation and physical

29:31

abuse of children. One

29:33

young man called by the prosecution, a witness,

29:36

testified that after an escape attempt, Long

29:38

threatened him with a hunting knife, another

29:41

camper said he also tried to get away but was

29:43

caught and spent days shackled to

29:45

a barbecue post. Sounds like there's not

29:48

any love in this sub-love thing. And

29:50

all of these stories the prosecution claimed established

29:54

a culture of abuse that eventually led to Anthony Haynes's death.

29:56

And what did the defense have to say? The

29:58

defense said about telling Long's,

30:01

well let's say version of the truth, that

30:03

Anthony was a very sick boy both mentally

30:05

and physically.

30:07

So was Long guilty of second-degree murder?

30:09

No but

30:11

the jury found Long guilty of a lesser charge. He

30:13

was convicted in 2005 of felony

30:16

reckless manslaughter and felony aggravated

30:18

assault which is I mean it's pretty close to second-degree

30:21

murder and also like he didn't

30:23

intentionally kill the boy. Right like

30:25

if you're talking about murder

30:27

that's a hmm so yeah

30:30

that makes sense to me. He was sentenced to

30:32

a six year term and a five year term for

30:34

each of the different charges.

30:37

And this is not even the only case of someone dying

30:39

in these programs? No in 2007 the US Government

30:43

Accountability Office conducted a study on residential

30:45

treatment programs including wilderness

30:47

therapy programs, boot camps and academies and

30:50

the GAO, Government Accountability Office,

30:53

found thousands of allegations of abuse

30:55

some of which involved death at residential treatment

30:58

programs across the country. And is this just

31:00

in the US? No so

31:02

they found that across the country but they also found it

31:04

in American owned and American operated facilities

31:07

abroad specifically between 1990

31:10

and 2007. Their

31:12

reports raised concerns about the level of training required

31:14

or as we know lack of training required

31:17

of staff as well as what they described as

31:19

deceptive and questionable marketing practices

31:22

aimed at parents. Yeah it's absolutely

31:24

mind-blowing that there's no regulation.

31:26

Right so these are also particularly vulnerable children

31:29

because they're they have behavioral problems

31:31

they have mental health issues and you obviously

31:33

need trained professionals well ideally

31:35

at least dealing with them. If we

31:37

zoom out this leads to a bigger question which

31:40

is in general what is the best approach for dealing

31:42

with kids who are behaving badly?

31:44

Because so far all we've been talking about is what not

31:46

to do with kids who are behaving badly. When

31:49

you did bad things as a kid what do you think

31:51

worked to change your behavior? Was it punishment,

31:54

praise or something else?

31:56

Love, support. I

31:59

skipped school. Yeah, right. I stay home

32:01

from school. What makes

32:03

me go back to school? Yeah,

32:06

yeah, are these things? If someone's saying,

32:08

Hey, what's happening? Tell

32:11

me everything. You can't do anything. Like you can't

32:13

say anything wrong. There's no wrong answers. Tell

32:15

me what is it? Why is this a struggle for you? And how

32:18

can I help you?

32:19

If someone had slapped me across the face,

32:21

that

32:22

would not have in any way helped me. If someone

32:24

had said,

32:26

you just have to go to school period, do

32:28

as I say, that is not helpful. Is

32:30

there any science about how you should

32:33

deal with difficult behavior in

32:36

troubled kids? Yeah,

32:38

there is.

32:39

So in 2022, David Farrington

32:41

at Cambridge University, so he's quite famous. So

32:45

he is another famous scientist. Cambridge.

32:49

David Farrington and colleagues published a review

32:51

of the effectiveness of 12 types of interventions

32:54

for reducing juvenile offending and antisocial

32:56

behavior. So these are the kids who have

32:58

come in contact with the law typically. And

33:00

now the question is, what do we do with them? And there are 12 types

33:03

of intervention. Well, there's 12 types that he reviewed.

33:06

Okay. And the team found that the most

33:08

effective intervention is parent training,

33:11

which resulted in a 34 to 44%

33:14

decrease in child behavior problems across the different

33:16

studies. So that's a big difference.

33:19

According to Farrington in quotes, parent

33:22

training programs aim to train parents to

33:24

notice what a child is doing, monitor

33:26

the child's behavior over long periods, clearly

33:28

state house rules and make positive

33:30

and negative reinforcement consistent,

33:33

which is another really big piece of parenting, right? Consistency

33:36

and contingent on the child's behavior. Could we

33:38

not do this before

33:39

parents become parents? Like

33:41

if you had to

33:43

complete like parent school before

33:45

you're allowed to give birth. Allowed

33:47

to give birth is a tough one. I know that's

33:50

eugenics, but something something make

33:52

parent pay parents

33:55

to attend school. Yes, but make it

33:58

mandatory. But Can

34:00

you not make it mandatory? I mean, yes, ideally

34:03

all parents have parent training, but

34:05

at the very least by the time you have a kid

34:08

who's engaging in bad behavior, parent

34:10

training seems to work. Cool.

34:11

And dear Sophie, of the 12

34:14

interventions he measured, which was the

34:16

least effective? Was it by any chance

34:18

wilderness camps? Said more broadly,

34:20

boot camps. Yeah. Correct.

34:23

Specifically those with military style drills.

34:26

Which just so happened to be the kind of camp

34:28

that Anthony was in. One review found that recidivism,

34:31

so re-offending, was three to

34:33

five percent higher for

34:35

kids who attended boot camps and others

34:38

found no effects. So

34:40

this is where it gets back to that, not all of these

34:42

things are created equal.

34:45

Farringdon and colleagues also found huge differences,

34:47

much like the research we talked about earlier where they found moderate

34:49

effects. And those boot camps

34:51

which focused on counseling were significantly

34:53

more effective than those that didn't. Making

34:56

the wild claim that therapy is

34:58

better for children than letting

35:00

them sit in a desert eating

35:02

dirt

35:03

until they die. Yes. And

35:05

skills training and therapy

35:07

is better than tough love. So

35:10

called tough love. So overall,

35:13

what do you think?

35:14

I think there's something true

35:17

about nature being really good. And I say

35:19

this because I was in

35:21

nature about a year ago and it was

35:23

real nice. And I was like, oh, actually

35:25

my whole life I thought I hated nature. And

35:28

I think a big reason for that was because so

35:30

many adults were like, no, you have to go outside

35:32

and you have to be outside. And I was just like, oh. But

35:35

when I went there

35:36

with love and support and it was nice,

35:39

there's something about being in nature and like hiking

35:42

and stuff like that. It feels really lovely. So I

35:44

do think there's something in it, right? But

35:46

that is

35:47

absolutely not what we're talking

35:49

about here. No, I also

35:52

possibly to do with certain

35:55

generations living through wars and going

35:57

to the military.

36:00

being a more normal part of life for

36:02

a lot of human history, that you are in some

36:04

war-like situations. I feel like those drills

36:06

make more sense within that context. But

36:08

in the world that we live in now,

36:10

they feel so jarring and they

36:12

are counter to what most developmental psychologists

36:15

would advise works with making kids

36:17

behave and feel better. I have a

36:20

lot of sympathy for parents, also because of the contradictory

36:22

advice that parents are getting all the time about what it

36:24

means to be a good parent. And it may be even changing

36:27

from the time

36:28

you did the parenting and then new advice coming

36:30

out and you'd be like, that's not what I did. That's

36:32

not what, yeah. There must be a tremendous amount of guilt

36:35

around that as well, where you're like, oh no, we didn't

36:37

know. Yeah.

36:39

But I think with these guys, with

36:41

these specific kinds of military-style

36:43

wilderness camps, the evidence is pretty

36:46

clear that it's unlikely

36:48

to be the best course of action for problem. Regulation

36:51

is needed. Yeah, regulation is needed,

36:53

correct. And that's the biggest thing, is that there's these wild differences

36:55

between them. So what positive

36:57

thing would you like to end on?

36:59

Closing down wilderness

37:01

camps, that's so hot. Is

37:06

that Paris Hilton? Are you being Paris Hilton?

37:09

Do not know Paris Hilton. That's so hot. That's so

37:11

hot.

37:14

This episode of Bad People was produced by Hannah

37:16

Ward. Our editor is Anna Lacy, music

37:18

by Matt Chandler. The commissioning executive is Dylan

37:20

Haskins with additional support from Adam Eland. If

37:23

you like this podcast, then do check out other BBC sounds

37:25

content. That's

37:28

hot, that's hot. That's hot.

37:32

Oh, that's almost too horny. Nope.

37:34

That's hot. No, that's hot. Oh

37:37

yeah. Yeah, I'm all bored. That's

37:39

hot. That's not

37:42

hot. Hashtag living my best

37:44

life. That's hot.

37:52

Why is it called a smart speaker? Because

37:54

it's smart. You ask it to do something

37:56

and it'll be done. Just say smart speaker,

37:59

ask BBC.

37:59

to play your favourite music mix. Oh,

38:02

that's nice. Or you can say, Ask

38:04

BBC Sounds to play that brand new podcast.

38:07

Ooh! And you

38:09

can even ask BBC Sounds to pause,

38:11

rewind and restart live radio on your

38:13

smart speaker. If only everything in life is that

38:15

simple. For music, radio and podcasts, on

38:18

most smart speakers, just

38:20

say, Smart Speaker, ask BBC

38:22

Sounds. In 2012,

38:24

a new charity bursts onto the scene.

38:32

It's called Believe in Magic and

38:35

it grants wishes to seriously ill children. It's

38:38

run by an inspirational 16-year-old girl

38:41

called Megan Barrie.

38:43

Just wanted to give them the magical experiences

38:45

back. It has the support

38:48

of the biggest boy band in the world. One

38:51

Direction. Believe

38:54

in Magic quickly

38:54

becomes a household name in the

38:56

child cancer community, putting

38:59

on parties, sending thoughtful gifts, even

39:02

organising trips to Disney.

39:04

Every single child there felt

39:06

like they were so important and they

39:09

weren't poorly, they weren't in a hospital. It

39:11

was out of this world.

39:12

Megan is adored by all

39:14

those she helps. She had more

39:17

sympathy and love for people

39:20

than I'd ever met anybody before. Because

39:22

she herself is extremely unwell

39:25

with a life-threatening brain tumour.

39:28

Her handbag

39:29

was so heavy, none of us could ever carry it

39:32

and it was full of medicine.

39:34

When something doesn't add up about Megan's

39:36

story, a small group

39:39

of parents start to question whether

39:41

Meg is really ill. I'd call

39:43

it a witch hunt kind of thing. Asking

39:45

questions like, which hospital

39:48

are you in? They know that they're not being

39:50

honest about her illnesses. We

39:52

collectively said, we won't let it drop, we'll

39:55

find out this time.

39:58

But is Megan actually facing... a

40:00

very different danger. So

40:03

awful. It's really not nice

40:05

listening to that, was it? What

40:08

is this girl going

40:09

through?

40:10

I'm Jamie Bartlett, a journalist and

40:13

author, and together with the producer Ruth,

40:15

we've spent the last year trying to get to

40:17

the bottom of what really happened to Megan

40:20

Barrie and her charity Believe

40:22

in Magic.

40:23

I cannot for the life of me understand

40:26

why you've done what you've done to us. It

40:28

takes us on a journey far stranger.

40:31

I just saw a Mercedes, I thought it was it.

40:34

It's not her car. It's not her car, is it? And

40:36

far darker than we ever expected.

40:39

I know what the truth is, I've read the records

40:42

and they just come in and lie

40:44

to me. It wasn't supposed to end like this. Listen

40:48

to Believe in Magic.