Thousands of American teenagers end up in correctional institutions aimed at dealing with behavioural problems and drug abuse
David Patterson was shaken from his sleep one night by two strange men who entered his bedroom and forced the 14-year-old out of bed.
It was shortly after 4am and the two men before him were holding up a pair of handcuffs.
“They said, ‘we could do this the easy way or the hard way’,” he later recalled.
He was soon bungled out of the Patterson family’s California home and into a taxi on the way to the airport. He was being “gooned” – forcibly transported to a place aimed at correcting naughty children’s behaviour.
