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.