GETTING TOUGH ON PRIVATE PRISONS FOR TEENS.

Members of Congress heard jarring testimony from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week about people who were denied medical care, starved, beaten, and "forced to eat vomit, lie in urine and feces, forced to use toothbrushes to clean toilets and then on their teeth."A latecomer to the proceedings might "think we were talking about human-rights abuses in Third World countries," said Rep. George Miller of California, who convened the hearing. In fact, Congress was for the first time discussing abuses in "tough love" residential programs for teenagers.These programs -- variously known as "boot camps," "emotional growth schools," "wilderness programs," and "therapeutic boarding schools" -- sell themselves to parents as a way of fighting teen drug use, behavioral problems, and various mental illnesses like depression, attention deficit disorder (ADD), even bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression). Some programs are public and are part of the juvenile justice system, others are run by private, for-profit organizations. Some are part of large networks of affiliates; others are independent. All lock up teens without contact from the outside world.