Disabled students at higher risk for arrests, dropping out: male detention worker walks a black juvenile offender down a hallway

Disabled students at higher risks for arrests, dropping out and being unready for adulthood

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Bullied at his Philadelphia high school, Earl Morris’ son started defying his teachers and his father and allegedly stole from a convenience store. Those charges against the then 15-year-old, who’d been diagnosed with disabilities including anxiety and depression, were dismissed when a witness failed to appear in court, his father said, recalling what happened five years ago.

Teen facilities: Young teen crouches in garden bed wearing heavy overcoat and garden gloves prepping soil.

Lawmakers, federal investigators target teen facilities billed as therapeutic but accused of abuse

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Separate investigations by the federal Government Accountability Office and Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general that were launched in 2021, are the first inquiries of their kind in more than a dozen years. Those probes target farms, boot camps and similar residential programs whose proprietors claim are therapeutic. Critics call many of those business owners profiteers, operating under the guise of treating teens with mental and/or behavioral disorders and those at-risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system.