Romney meets with Paris Hilton to discuss the “troubled teen industry”

Paris Hilton and Senator Mitt Romney met this week to discuss abuse at youth facilities. Photo: @SenatorRomney | Twitter

WASHINGTON — In a Washington Post op-ed this week, media personality Paris Hilton called for reform in the “troubled teen industry” — which includes “therapeutic boarding schools, military-style boot camps, juvenile justice facilities, behavior modification programs and other facilities that generate roughly $50 billion annually in part by pitching “tough love” as the answer to problematic behavior.”

At Provo Canyon School in Utah, Hilton wrote she “was locked in solitary confinement in a room where the walls were covered in scratch marks and blood stains.”

“I was given clothes with a number on the tag. I was no longer me. I was only number 127,” Hilton told federal lawmakers this week about her time at Provo Canyon. “I was forced to stay indoors for 11 months straight, no sunlight, no fresh air.”

Hilton said the federal government hasn’t looked at the issue seriously since 2008, when the Government Accountability Office found that “ineffective management and operating practices, in addition to untrained staff, contributed to the death and abuse of youth” at the child residential programs.

A month after the Utah Legislature received a similar plea from Hilton earlier this year, SB127 was passed, which requires additional government oversight of youth residential treatment centers in the state.

The bill “requires centers to document instances of physical restraints and involuntary confinement and submit monthly reports to the Utah Office of Licensing. It also bans chemical sedation and mechanical restraints unless authorized,” according to the Deseret News.

The op-ed said an estimated 120,000 young people are housed in congregate-care facilities at any given time across the country.

Hilton met with Senator Mitt Romney to discuss the issue this week. “I’m grateful she’s now advocating at the federal level,” Romney said in a tweet.

Hilton is calling for:

• Congress and President Joe Biden implement a “bill of rights” for children in congregate care.
• Congress provide states funding to create reporting systems for abuse