Committee on Education and Labor
Washington, DC

Cong Miller Asks
Inspector General To Investigate

U.S. Reps. George Miller (D-CA) and Nick Rahall (D-WV) today asked the Inspectors General at the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Agriculture to launch investigations into private residential treatment programs for children that operate on federal land. The request comes one day after the release of a government report that documented cases of fatal child abuse and neglect in such programs, including deaths that occurred on federal property.

In testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee yesterday, investigators for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which prepared the report, testified that an unknown number of private residential treatment programs – often called boot camps, wilderness camps, or behavior modification facilities – actually operate on federal land.

In one case discussed yesterday, a 14-year-old boy with clinical depression killed himself in February 2001 while enrolled at Alldredge Academy, a wilderness program in West Virginia that continues to operate as the Ayne Institute. The facility uses U.S. Forest Service land, but because it has not filed all required usage reports nor paid required permit fees, it is in violation of the terms of its Forest Service permit, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Miller is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. He requested the GAO report in 2005 and he convened yesterday’s hearing. Rahall is the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. The chairmen made their request to the Inspectors General in a letter delivered today.

For more information on yesterday’s hearing on boot camps, click here. The full text of the letter from Miller and Rahall is below.

We write with grave concerns about the safety and well-being of children attending residential treatment programs – sometimes called wilderness camps, boot camps, or behavior modification programs – on federal lands. In a hearing yesterday, the Education and Labor Committee heard extensive testimony about the mental, physical, and sexual abuse of children at such programs, which in some cases resulted in death. While not all residential programs are the same, and many undoubtedly provide positive experiences for children that improve their lives, the evidence we heard yesterday nevertheless demonstrates the urgent need for action.

Through evidence presented at the hearing by the Government Accountability Office, we have learned that many of these programs operate on federal land. Some of the cases of abuse of which we have learned occurred on federal land. In light of these revelations, we believe that it is incumbent upon those tasked with managing our nation’s lands to implement policies and safeguards to ensure that our public lands are not used in the abuse of troubled children.

Accordingly, we ask that you investigate the extent to which residential treatment programs operate on federal land overseen by agencies within your Departments, including the permitting, licensing, and leasing processes governing such use and the extent to which these programs have complied with these processes. We additionally request that you investigate the role that each of your Departments and their agencies have played in investigating and preventing such child abuse and neglect on federal land.

This matter is of great concern to our Committees. We look forward to your office assisting us to better understand of the scope of the problem and the extent to which the Departments have dealt with the problem.