PANGUITCH, Utah - What gnaws at Sally Bacon is that she never hugged
her son good-bye when he was pulled from his bed one March morning
two years ago and hauled off to a southern Utah wilderness program
for misbehaving teenagers.
Thirty days later, she got the chance. It came at a funeral home
in Page, Ariz., where Aaron Bacon lay on a stainless steel table, a
white sheet covering all but his face.
"I went into the room and his face was unrecognizable," the
Phoenix woman sobbed at a hearing in Utah last year. "He had these
sunken cheeks, and his eyes, he looked like a skeleton, his hands
were all bone. I ripped the sheet off." "'''He was literally
bruised, black and blue, from the tip of his toes to the top of his
head. He had sores between his legs, open sores. The bottoms of his
feet, I don't know how anyone could have walked or hiked on them.
"I began screaming, because something was terribly wrong."
Sally Bacon will retell those memories to a rural Utah jury this
fall, when the trial begins for seven employees of North Star, the
company that led Aaron Bacon's last trip. The employees are charged
with felony counts of neglecting and abusing Aaron, who apparently
died from acute peritonitis - an ulcerous meltdown that gradually
ate holes in his lower intestine. At issue is whether North Star
officials should have recognized the boy's deteriorating health and
could have prevented his death. It also has raised the question
whether a federal crackdown is needed on so-called "wilderness
therapy programs."
Critics call them "hell camps;" satisfied parents call them the
best thing that ever happened to their son or daughter. Companies
take rebellious kids aged 12 to 18 into the backcountry for several
weeks, teach them how to live off the land, and overcome their bad
habits and bad attitudes. The assumption is, they then go home to
Mom and Dad as responsible young adults.
Aaron Bacon's journey to North Star began in Phoenix, where his
parents had watched him spiral downward into regular drug use, with
slipping grades, conflicts with gang members and bouts of
depression. He smoked marijuana daily, and experimented with LSD,
speed and hallucinogenic mushrooms. Aaron promised to quit drugs if
he would be allowed to switch from private to public school, and his
parents agreed. But when his grades and attitude continued to
plummet, his parents showed him a brochure for a wilderness camp run
by North Star. He tore it up in their faces.
"I knew it would be rigorous, but he loved the outdoors, and I
pictured him sitting around a campfire discussing issues with a
therapist," Sally Bacon says. At wit's end, she and her husband
decided to sign the enrollment contract, pay the $13,900 fee and
send Aaron to North Star.
Most wilderness camps for troubled teens cost $13,000 to $20,000
for an average nine-week stay in the sticks, with most of the fee
payable by health insurance. In the West, the camps tend to be
short, adventure-based programs, says Archie Buie, director of the
National Association of Therapeutic Wilderness Camps. But if the
youth reverts to his or her defiant ways after returning home, many
programs offer a "parental satisfaction guarantee" that allows
return visits to the program at no additional cost.
Buie estimates there are 115 organizations around the country
offering outdoor education experiences to troubled youths, either as
private ventures, adjuncts to hospitals or as nonprofit foundations.
Licensed and monitored by regulations that vary greatly from state
to state - if they exist at all - the programs use a variety of
treatment methods, from military boot-camp-style discipline to
laissez-faire supervision.
Teens enrolled in these programs are frequently taught basic
outdoor survival skills, such as starting a fire without matches or
making snares to capture small animals. Several companies adopt an
American Indian theme, erecting "tipi camps' and teaching students
to make pseudo Native American crafts. Employees of North Star
Expeditions, for example, were only to be referred to by "Indian
names' such as Two Crows, Horsehair and Wall Walker.
Marketing their services in upscale magazines such as Southern
Living and Sunset, programs like North Star cater to "troubled,
defiant teenagers on a self-destructive path." They are known as
non-adjudicated programs, to distinguish them from other private
companies that are authorized to accept teen criminal offenders.
Most minors in state-run programs are juvenile delinquents, whose
care is paid for by taxpayers.
For desperate parents whose teens seem out of control and "in
with the wrong crowd," the concept of wilderness therapy sounds like
a miracle cure, worth any price. The companies claim thousands of
success stories of teens in turmoil whose lives and outlooks were
dramatically altered by spending weeks trekking and soul-searching
in rugged country, cut off from TV, telephone, family and friends
who are "a bad influence."
Critics say there is little evidence to show that wilderness
therapy works. They cite one study in the mid-1980s, where the city
of San Diego tracked the first 100 delinquent boys it sent through
the VisionQuest program. After one year, 55 percent had been
arrested again. After three years, 92 percent had been arrested
again.
Still, industry leaders like Buie insist that the concept works.
"The job is to make sure it's done right," he says. Now, an
increasing chorus of parents, civil rights attorneys and prosecutors
say too many companies are doing it wrong, and that for some,
results have proved deadly.
The recently formed California activist group, Voices Forever
Silenced, contends that more than a dozen youths have died
nationwide since 1980 in various outdoor treatment or adventure
camps. Three teens, including Aaron Bacon, died at teen camps in
Utah between 1990 and 1994. The most recent death occurred last
June, when 18-year-old Dawnne Takeuchi was thrown from a semi-truck
near Pagosa Springs, Colo. Kimberly Stafford, the VisionQuest
counselor driving the supply vehicle, was convicted of careless
driving and was ordered to pay $270 in restitution.
"How many more lives are going to be lost before we see the
necessary changes needed?" asks Voices Forever Silenced co-founder
Cathy Sutton of Ripon, Calif. One of the group's main fights has
been to pressure Congress for federal regulation. Sutton's
15-year-old daughter Michelle died of dehydration six years ago
while enrolled in the now-defunct Summit Quest program in Utah.
So far, the group has had little success in convincing Congress
to impose national standards on wilderness treatment programs. Buie
and others in the industry continue to resist federal regulation,
arguing instead that self-regulation is adequate. As one gesture
toward that goal, Buie's association recently pledged never to use
force to treat teens.
But as scandals continue to hound the industry, some programs are
disappearing. In Utah, for example, the number of wilderness therapy
schools has shrunk from 13 in 1990, to three today.
Even some wilderness therapy companies held up as model programs
after Aaron Bacon's death have had their troubles. In January, six
youths enrolled in Utah's nationally praised Aspen Achievement
Academy bolted from their camp in Garfield County after some teens
allegedly beat a counselor. They stole a walkie-talkie, which they
used to fool authorities into believing they had taken hostages.
Deputies later found the youths, but Garfield County Attorney
Wallace Lee subsequently determined there was not enough information
or evidence to charge the teens with any crime.
The incident has raised concerns that future renegade youths from
the Aspen Achievement Academy may assault tourists, hikers and
recreationists who also frequent the public lands around Capitol
Reef National Park.
"There have been some concerns expressed to us by folks who want
to know what areas Aspen kids are using," says Gary Hall of the
Bureau of Land Management. The BLM is now considering whether to
renew the academy's permit to use public lands for the therapy and
survival programs for at-risk teens. "They are now on a six-month
permit that runs through June, so we are doing an environmental
assessment on the program and presenting that to the public for
comment."
Despite the number of deaths and mishaps, there has yet to be a
criminal conviction against any operator of a teen wilderness
therapy program. But if prosecutors can prove neglect and abuse of
Aaron Bacon in a state district court this fall, employees of
now-defunct North Star could well be the first to be convicted.
The prosecution's evidence is stark: Aaron Bacon, a
5-foot-11-inch teen, began the course weighing 131 pounds. When he
died 30 days later, he weighed 108 pounds. Investigators from the
Garfield County Sheriff's Department and the Utah attorney general's
office have found that during the last 20 days of his life, Aaron
went without food for at least 11 days. He also went without a
sleeping bag for 14 nights when the average overnight temperature
was 32 degrees.
Aaron's worsening condition is chronicled in his journal as well
as the journals of other campers. He wrote about how his counselors
laughed at him for losing control of his bowel movements. Another
teen wrote that Aaron was starting to look "like a Jewish person in
the concentration camps."
Defense attorneys will argue in court that what while their
clients may have shown poor judgment, they were not responsible for
the death of Aaron Bacon. Most of the counselors say they believed
Aaron was faking his illness to manipulate the group.
"This was a tragedy," says defense attorney Floyd Holm. "Based on
what we know now, it should not have happened. But for every
tragedy, it does not follow there was a crime."
The real crime, says Aaron's father, Bob Bacon, is that so many
young people are dead. And no one will take responsibility.
"The ignorance, arrogance, incompetence, callousness and greed of
the people running these programs is proving repeatedly to be
dangerous, abusive and even fatal," says Bacon. "The lessons are not
being learned."
Christopher Smith reports for the Salt Lake Tribune.
