California sent thousands of vulnerable children to out-of-state facilities run by a for-profit company. Reports of rampant abuse followed. Now, confronted with a Chronicle and Imprint investigation, the state is bringing every child home.
A private plane with dozens of shell-shocked teenagers aboard touched down in California’s Central Valley.
They were home now, evacuated from the chaos at Lakeside Academy.
Run by Sequel Youth & Family Services — a for-profit, $500 million company backed by Bay Area investors — Lakeside had promised to put the boys “on a pathway to lead healthy and successful lives.”
Instead, the teens, sent to the Michigan facility by California judges, quickly learned they had landed in a place where children said staff choked, hit and slammed them to the ground.
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