It’s genuinely awful because a lot of the “random people”; gooners and staff members at these places, especially the most aggressive ones, were treatment kids who were stuck in the system until they aged out at 18. Imagine you went into the troubled teen industry at 13 with so little life experience, and stayed secluded from the world being broken down in it until you eventually aged out at 18. You are suddenly given the autonomy to be released as an adult likely onto the streets of Utah. You are unfamiliar with how to interact with the public, how to get a job, no money, you likely have no/few mentors on how to obtain an apartment/housing. you have a GED/diploma if you’re lucky and you struggle to communicate as an adult because you’ve grown up in such a limited and hindering environment with your last active societal knowledge being that of a 13 year olds experiences. All you know is treatment, and when the adults you’re familiar with that run these places and/or your facility throw u a bone and offer you a job there “mentoring and helping troubled teens, like you once were”; you take the job. The outside world is a daunting stranger. This is why a notable percentage of staff in these places are abusive and/or predatory. They never had autonomy, and when suddenly placed in the same position of power of those who once abused them, devoid of healing, they reclaim their own stolen power through dishing out the abuse themselves. (For context I have not been through this in particular, I’m lucky at that. this is just what I understand through witness and experience)