For years, these youth transport services have enjoyed neither regulation nor accountability, while forcibly removing minors from their homes—often at night—to take them to psychiatric and behavioral treatment facilities. There’s even a term for the atrocity: “gooning.”
The tactics used in gooning involve brutal chemical and physical restraints—violence, blindfolding and forced sedation. Once the child is delivered, he or she often goes from the frying pan to the fire. “The trauma endured during forced transport is often compounded by the treatment received at behavioral health and psychiatric facilities. Numerous reports have documented widespread abuse, neglect and sexual misconduct in these institutions,” writes Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) International President Jan Eastgate.
“The trauma of that night has left permanent scars.”
Who orders these abductions anyway, and why? Let’s see if the youth transport industry can answer that. According to a promotional article addressing parents, we find: “Perhaps you’ve found a treatment program to provide the help your troubled teen desperately needs, but your teen refuses to go and threatens to run away if you try to force them. Or perhaps you have fears your teen may try to physically harm themselves or someone else if you transport them to the program, especially if it’s far away. In these situations, hiring teen transport or escort service provides a possible solution.”
So the youth is “resisting,” and the concerned parent orders services to have the youth transported.
So who says it’s OK to kidnap kids in the dead of night and traumatize them with restraints and brutality?
The article says: “Interventionists or agents are trained to treat teens with respect, to verbally de-escalate aggressive and resistant behavior and to keep your teen safe through verbal means, resorting to physical restraint only when absolutely necessary.”
In other words, it has no answer to that one.
But hopefully, the Maryland state legislature does.
The Preventing Abduction in Youth Transport Act (HB 497), introduced by State Delegate Vaughn Stewart—who partnered with Paris Hilton (herself a victim of youth transport and psychiatric abuse)—aims to outlaw certain restraint practices and establish legal safeguards.
Following the lead of other states like Oregon and Illinois seeking to bring the transport industry under control, Maryland’s HB 497 would introduce reforms to stop the inhumane treatment of children. The measure would, among other things, prohibit physical restraints such as blindfolds and hoods, bar removals between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., and establish legal accountability, allowing individuals and the Attorney General to pursue civil action against violators of the new law.
CCHR first brought the legal crime of kidnapping children and teens to public attention in the 1990s. The since-defunct National Medical Enterprises (NME) had offered up to $2,000 in “bounty hunter” fees for referrals to its psychiatric facilities. One, a 14-year-old, was abducted from his parents’ Texas home without their consent and sent to an NME hospital to be forcibly “treated” based on the false claims of his 12-year-old brother. The scandal attracted national attention and, thanks to CCHR’s efforts, laws were passed banning psychiatric bounty hunting.
This year, on February 13, CCHR International presented written and oral testimony in support of HB 497 to the Maryland House Judiciary Committee, detailing the severe risks associated with unregulated youth transport.
Ms. Hilton appeared via video conferencing and testified about her experience. “When I was 16, I was ripped from my bed in the middle of the night by two large men I had never seen before,” she told the Judiciary Committee. “They gave me a choice: to go the easy way or the hard way. But there was no choice. They handcuffed me and carried me out of my room as I screamed for help. I was shoved into the backseat of a car and taken to an airport. I asked to speak to my parents. I asked what was happening and where I was going. They told me to shut up and grew agitated with each question.”
Other survivors of youth transport also testified. One, who was kidnapped at 3 a.m. and wouldn’t see her parents for another 18 months, said, holding back tears, “That night … permanently changed me in ways that I don’t think will ever be fixed.”
Another, kidnapped at 4 a.m., said, “The trauma of that night has left permanent scars. I often wake up at 4 a.m., staring at my ceiling, unable to sleep.”
Nightmares and continuous trauma were also among the lasting impacts included in the testimony.
Maryland State Delegate Laren Arikan thanked Stewart for presenting the bill and thanked the witnesses. She remembered a close high school friend who was forcibly transported and abused.
“He’s no longer here today,” she said.
No one testified against the bill.
Nor should they.
