The Troubled Teen Industry: Troubling Efforts to Prevent Youth Crime
Thousands of American Teens Continue to Attend Such Centers
The Troubled Teen Industry (TTI) promises to help allegedly troubled teenagers and convert them into model young adults. These interventions are said to be both preventative (they stop teens from becoming troubled) and corrective (they fix troubled teens).
In the United States such centers continue to operate and proliferate. In 2020 there were about 137,000 American youths residing in some kind of treatment center; of which 57,000 were in troubled teen centers (Chatfield, 2019). These centers are largely unregulated and there are reports of ongoing abuse (GAO, 2007).
Since 1960 over 140 teens have died in such centers (Unsilenced). In 2024, the death of a teen at Diamond Ranch Academy resulted in that center being shut down (NBC) and another teen died the day they arrived at another facility (NBC).
Among the first centers to target allegedly troubled teens was The Seed, Inc. While The Seed, Inc. is not well known, it directly inspired Straight, Inc. and it spawned many such centers.
Many of which continue to use the techniques and approaches that the Seed employed. The analogy to a cult can be an apt one as in many ways these centers utilize similar strategies to modify the behavior of those under their care.
These centers use many techniques developed at cults and in some ways operate like cults. This comparison can help understand their operations and their “success.”
Where Did The Troubled Teen Industry Come From?
The underpinnings of the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI) remain largely unexplored despite the “rapid diffusion” of such programs since the 1960s (Chatfield, 2023).
Historians have skimmed the history of the TTI; however, doing so illuminates America’s troubled relationship with alcohol and drugs. The origins of this industry have been traced to Synanon (Reamer and Siegel, 2001; Janzen, 2001; Polonsky, 2005; Szalavitz, 2006).
This linkage is largely based on Synanon’s use of confrontational therapy which was developed to reform drug abusers. This included what they called the “game” in which radical honesty was allegedly fostered (Janzen, 2001; Kaye, 2019).
While there certainly are similarities between troubled teen centers and Synanon there are also significant differences (Chatfield, 2024). For example, Synanon members were supposed to stay within Synanon’s communities, whereas TTI centers allegedly transformed troubled youth into desirable citizens who leave these centers upon completing the program.
The origins of both Synanon and the troubled teen industry are much deeper (Chatfield, 2024). In many ways, TTI centers sought social solutions to society’s problems, and as such can be understood within a larger framework of prevention science.
We will, over a series of posts, argue that The Seed Inc., flourished because it credibly promised to offer a social solution to a social problem by employing technologies developed by mental health professionals.
Thus, we contend that the proliferation of the Seed and other treatment centers coincided with a belief in the power of mental health professionals and their arsenal of technologies to refashion individuals. We call these technologies because they involve techniques, approaches, and other interventions that were developed by professionals as purposeful tools with underlying scientific rationales.
Chatfield’s article concluded that “American professionals and politicians in the 1960’s were primed to endorse Synanon’s confrontational peer-counseling approach.” (Chatfield, 2024). We will explore this priming.
The impact of prevention science on the history of drugs and alcohol has been skewed by the professionalized and technocratic approach that gained prominence in the 1990’s (DiCastri, 2024: Scheier, 2010; Felker-Kantor, 2022) Thus, in terms of prevention, historians of alcohol and drugs have paid more attention to research on individuals’ brains rather than social solutions (Di Castri, 2024; Campbell, 2007).
This gaze has produced a historiographical record where social solutions are largely absent even if these efforts did exist. Recently, Theo Di Castri unveiled a richer history of prevention science which during the 1970s and 1980s sought to pre-empt the emergence of behavioral problems through social interventions that reduced risk factors and/or introduced mitigating strategies (DiCastri, 2024: Grob, 1991).
One of the ways in which this concern with preventing certain behaviors manifested itself was in the creation of institutions that treated teenagers who were deemed to be at risk; these centers sought to transform them into healthy citizens.
What is a Troubled Teen?
One of the challenges in studying the troubled teen industry is that there is no coherent and mutually agreed definition of what makes a teen troubled. The very same teen could be classified differently by different institutions.
Moreover as time passed there were also changing definitions about which behaviors were undesirable. During the time of the Seed, a troubled teen was a teen who was perceived to have the wrong attitude by their parents, teachers, school, staff, judges, or to have engaged in dangerous activities.
These activities could include the use of drugs or even hanging out with people who abused certain drugs. In some cases listening to certain artists or having posters of certain musical acts (like Alice Cooper) was deemed to be sufficient to categorize a teen as troubled.
Why Study The Seed, Inc?
The Seed Inc. was one of the first centers which utilized behavioral modification techniques to allegedly help troubled teens.
The Seed portrayed itself as a drug rehabilitation center which used behavior modification technologies to eliminate undesired behaviors such as drug use, and thus claimed to transform adults and troubled teens into healthy citizens. They used social models to supposedly prevent teenagers and young adults from developing lifelong addictions to drugs and/or antisocial behavior.
Examining the history of the Seed illuminates gaps in both the history of social prevention initiatives and the history of the troubled teen industry (Chatfield, 2024). We build on Chatfield’s research and provide further contextualization that helps understand the genealogy of the troubled teen industry and the real life applications of prevention science (Chatfield, 2024).
The Seed Inc., operated in Florida from 1970 until 1993. Even though The Seed flourished, withered, and then perished, it inspired a series of similar institutions, including Straight, Inc (Chatfield, 2024; Chatfield, 2019; Fager).
We will describe the history of the Seed and explore its program in detail in future posts. The TTI targeted teenagers and young adults who had or were perceived at risk of substance abuse and other anti-social behavior.
Both the use of such substances and antisocial behavior can be, in some places, considered criminal. Moreover, the development of the troubled teen industry has connections to programs, first developed, to reform prisoners and rehabilitate wayward soldiers.
