The Overrepresentation of Adoptees in the Troubled Teen Industry – Contributing Factors & Concerns

• In Event: Unpacking the Troubled Teen Industry—Part 1: Origins and Structure of Adolescent Behavior Modification

Abstract

The troubled teen industry (TTI) is a network of congregate care facilities including but not limited to therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centers, and wilderness programs that purport to treat teenage deviance and provide rehabilitative support. These facilities are private and for-profit, and placement is made at the discretion of parents of these teens. Despite accounting for only 2% of the general population, adoptees comprise 25 – 30% of the population in these facilities. This overrepresentation indicates a failing in the dynamic of households with adopted children, which may be exacerbated by biosocial differences in adoptive parents and children, particularly by racial differences. While transracial adoption makes up approximately 21 – 28% of adoptions, 79% of the adoptees recorded in this study were in a transracial household. The perception that these adoptees have towards their parents reflects how an attitude of discipline and rigid ideas about identity and conformity contribute to this overrepresentation. The nature of the transferal of custody that exists in both adoption and TTI placement points to another reason for this overrepresentation and indicates a difference in attitudes that an adoptive parent may have towards their responsibility to their child than a biological parent might have.

Author

• Sophia R. Manning, John Jay College of Criminal Justice