Across the U.S., thousands of kids live locked inside residential treatment centers. They vary in age, but can be as young as 5 years old.
They arrive through foster care, court orders, or parents pushed to the brink who were promised their children would finally get help. Instead, many get shipped hundreds of miles across state lines, away from everyone they know.
In this episode of Inside Story, host Lawrence Bartley sits down with Marshall Project reporter Brittany Hailer and former resident Isabella Ramirez to look at what really happens behind those closed doors. The focus: Fox Run in St. Clairsville, Ohio, owned by Universal Health Services, a Fortune 500 healthcare giant.
The problems aren’t isolated to one facility. In 2024, a U.S. Senate Finance Committee investigation into UHS and three competitors exposed systemic, pervasive abuse nationwide.
Local police records obtained by The Marshall Project show kids at Fox Run routinely making desperate breaks for freedom: bolting into frozen cornfields, darting across active highways, and trying to hitch rides from strangers. Former staff members say unaddressed trauma and constant neglect pushed residents past their breaking point.
When their behavior escalated, many said they didn’t get the help they needed. Instead, they ended up in juvenile detention.
To them, a cell was an upgrade.
In a statement to The Marshall Project, Fox Run said they reject the allegations made against them.
“Inside Story” is a video series designed to reach audiences both inside and outside of prison walls, establishing facts, exposing failures and examining solutions for a criminal justice system in crisis.
