They shaved him bald that first morning in 2008, put him in an orange jumpsuit and made him exercise past dark. • Through the night, as he slept on the floor, they forced him awake for more. • The sun had not yet risen over the Christian military home when Samson Lehman collapsed for the sixth time. Still, he said, they made him run. • The screaming, the endless exercise, it was all in the name of God, a necessary step at the Gateway Christian Military Academy on the path to righteousness. • So when Samson vomited, they threw him a rag. When his urine turned red, they said that was normal. • By Day 3, the 15-year-old was on the verge of death, his dehydrated organs shutting down. • Slumped against a wall, cold and immobile, Lehman recalls men who recited Scripture calling him a wimp. And he thought: Maybe, if I die here, someone will shut this place down. • Not in Florida.
Also known as
Heritage Boys Academy
Bay County, serving boys
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
8
DCF verified cases
2
Truth Baptist Academy is a "semi-military" boarding school in Panama City for boys ages 13 to 17 advertising online to parents "interested in teaching their youth discipline from a Bible standpoint.
"Unlike the "accredited" schools," the web site says, "we don't water down these subjects by allowing them to be taught drugs, fornication, homosexuality and other perversion, and are not allowed to behave like a rebellious animal (results of the digressive theory of evolution)."
Baker County, serving boys & girls (13-17)
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
22
DCF verified cases
2
Police have been called to the facility more than 50 times in the past decade, most often to track down children who ran away. Some of them disappear for several weeks or show up on the other side of the state.
Also known as
Teen Challenge, Bonifay or West Florida Boys Ranch
Holmes County, serving boys (11-17)
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
24
DCF verified cases
7
This military school for troubled boys, connected with the international Teen Challenge network, was founded in 1998 by Dave Rutledge and accredited by FACCCA until 2006. Boys are initiated into the program with in-their-face directions from drill instructors and heavy doses of exercise. They must earn their way out of the orange jumpsuits they are given on Day 1.
Santa Rosa County, serving girls (11-18)
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
13
DCF verified cases
None
At this Christian reform school, teen girls are not allowed to wear pants and can be punished for looking someone in the eye at the wrong moment or for using words like "yeah" and "cool."
The state has investigated Lighthouse for abuse 13 times, most recently in 2011. It found evidence only once, of inadequate supervision.
Santa Rosa County, serving girls
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
3
DCF verified cases
None
New Beginnings was a fundamentalist Christian reform home for teen girls that operated for years in Florida but voluntarily moved away in 2007. Girls sent to the Florida campus say they were whipped with switches, made to hold others as they were whipped and made to stand in place for so long they urinated on themselves.
Santa Rosa County, serving girls up to 18 years old
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
1
DCF verified cases
None
On the old grounds of New Beginnings, Marvelous Grace Girls Academy is run by a street preacher once photographed outside a bar holding a sign about Sodom with a fellow protester who was dressed like Satan. Girls describe a program similar to New Beginnings, where teens are expected to strictly follow fundamentalist Christian ideals.
Marvelous Grace does not have a state license, does not have a religious exemption through FACCCA and is not accredited as a boarding school.
Also known as
Victory Forge
St. Lucie County, serving boys (11-17)
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
33
DCF verified cases
10
This boarding school for boys takes “recruits” as young as 11 and tries to teach them compliance by giving them rules down to details of how they crease their sheets and where their eyes land.
Consequences for infractions range from exercise to swats to a punishment food called “stuff,” made up of soggy vegetables, swimming in vinegar, designed not to go down easily.
The school's director, Alan Weierman, says he doesn't believe in "boot camps," isn't trying to build "robots" or break his kids down. His "mind, body and soul" approach is to instill discipline that will last.
Hillsborough County, serving girls (13-17)
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
3
DCF verified cases
2
Rehabilitation efforts revolve around hard work on the farm and grounds. The school does not practice corporal punishment or peer restraint.
However, girls who once attended the program said they were intimidated by school officials to overstate its success and downplay problems, including complaints of medical neglect.
Also known as
Anderson Academy, Vero Beach Ranch for Boys
Indian River County, serving boys (13-18)
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
20
DCF verified cases
2
This 15-month residential program for boys was founded in 2001 and is connected with the international Teen Challenge network. It is not licensed by the state and no longer has a religious exemption under FACCCA.
It has been investigated by state child care officials 20 times in the past 10 years, with credible evidence of abuse found in eight cases, the most recent in 2011.
The school’s director, Maynard Sweigard, denied the abuse, but said the school once used a more rigid format when it followed the model based on a Teen Challenge program in Bonifay (also known as Gateway Christian Military Academy).
In the name of religion, children have been bruised and bloodied and threatened with worse. They've been berated for being gay and subjected to racial slurs. They've been shackled for days and made to exercise until they got sick. A few barely escaped with their lives. Florida regulators say they are powerless to stop it. | Read the first story
Samson Lehman was a 15-year-old honors student when men put him in a choke hold, forced him into a truck and delivered him to a Christian military school for boys. Three days later, he was in the hospital on the verge of death.
In Florida, the oversight of children's homes can vary greatly depending on how a facility classifies itself.
Florida's fractured system of regulation makes it easy for troubled children's homes to keep operating. Even the "colonel" can run a home in Florida.
Child care workers have violated Florida law by sending foster children to unlicensed religious homes.
Former residents say six people would sit on a girl, crushing her for an hour or more as punishment. Some were kept in an isolation room nearly every waking moment for days.
Not all religious-exempt homes rely on old-fashioned forms of punishment or outdated methods of control.
In response to a Tampa Bay Times investigation, state officials have launched a wide-ranging review of unlicensed children's homes, some of which have been caring for kids for years with no oversight.
Alan Weierman, the self-titled colonel whose unaccredited military school in in Port St. Lucie has been allowed to house children for years despite abuse allegations, got an ultimatum from the state: Get a license or shut down.
A military-style facility that regularly used whippings as punishment for infractions closed in 2010, but the owner is again seeking students.
State officials ask a judge to shut down Southeastern Military Academy, an unlicensed Port St. Lucie children's home that had been allowed to operate despite evidence of child neglect and injury.
The Lighthouse of Northwest Florida, a group home for girls that was featured prominently in a Tampa Bay Times investigation last October about abuse at unlicensed Christian children's homes, is shutting down.
A judge allows Southeastern Military Academy to stay open despite reports of mistreatment. Alan Weierman has until June 30, 2014, to gain accreditation and avoid being shut down.
The Tampa Bay Times spent a year gathering thousands of pages of public records and interviewing dozens of young adults who passed through the unlicensed group homes that operate in Florida.
The newspaper focused its investigation primarily on homes and reform programs for teens that are exempt from state oversight for religious reasons. Under state law, the authority over those facilities is the Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies, a private, nonprofit group.
During its reporting, the newspaper also uncovered and included in its analysis several reform homes that had no state license or FACCCA accreditation. Some of those homes had previously been accredited by FACCCA. Others never had credentials.
For all the homes, the Times requested information on every abuse investigation prompted by calls to the Department of Children and Families’ abuse hotline. The newspaper also talked to dozens of former residents and gathered health inspection reports, 911 dispatch records, police reports and lawsuits related to the homes.
Alexandra Zayas is a general assignment reporter based in Tampa. She has been with the Times since 2005.
Kathleen Flynn is a photojournalist based in Tampa. She has been with the Times since 2002.
Last updated Feb. 22, 2013, 12:04 p.m.