I agree with the former "students" and psychologists interviewed that these places are torture - both psychologically and for a few unfortunately even physically - and the way they are should be totally illegal and bring on PTSD even years later. I've first heard of them when my older sister was sent to one for her bad behavior as a teen (drinking, smoking, violence) and I listened on audio Paris Hilton's book describing her experience of them so I was interested in this documentary to see if it's as bad as I heard before, and it's even worse! They were also falsely advertised to parents as being a real school and having some fun activities when that mostly wasn't the case.
However...some of the former students who said why they were sent there to begin with acted like the reasons were no big deal and "normal teen stuff." While the stuff they did to be sent there by their parents - underage drinking and smoking - isn't that uncommon, it's still illegal and unhealthy so I don't totally blame their parents to send them to a boarding school to make sure they get out of those bad habits. Of course these places just weren't where they should have been sent to and shouldn't be around at all, but they weren't sent away for nothing.
However...some of the former students who said why they were sent there to begin with acted like the reasons were no big deal and "normal teen stuff." While the stuff they did to be sent there by their parents - underage drinking and smoking - isn't that uncommon, it's still illegal and unhealthy so I don't totally blame their parents to send them to a boarding school to make sure they get out of those bad habits. Of course these places just weren't where they should have been sent to and shouldn't be around at all, but they weren't sent away for nothing.