WASHINGTON (CN) — Nearly a year to the day after Paris Hilton lent her star power to a bill aimed at cracking down on largely underregulated youth care facilities, she is again pushing lawmakers to bring the measure up for a vote.
Hilton has for years worked alongside members of Congress to establish stronger federal guardrails for institutional care facilities, such as foster care and mental health programs. The Hilton Hotels heiress has called on her own experience at the Provo Canyon School — a mental health facility where she was sent at age 17 — as inspiration for her advocacy.
There’s been a marked lack of public oversight of youth institutions, which largely bill themselves as programs designed to rehabilitate minors with mental health issues or behavioral issues. These facilities receive billions of dollars in federal funds each year despite mounting reports of abuse and neglect.
Lawmakers’ most recent effort to clamp down on what has become known as the “troubled teen industry” came last year with the bipartisan Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, headlined by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and Texas Senator John Cornyn.
If made law, the legislation would follow through on recommendations from the federal Government Accountability Office and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, who advised that the government help minimize the abuse of minors at institutional care facilities by developing an interstate information sharing system.
The bill would also stand up a federal study group on the issue and would direct the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to study the use of “restrictive interventions,” such as restraints, on minors in residential institutions.
Hilton traveled to Washington last April to lend her support for the measure. On Monday, she again called on Congress to move it along.
“I’m calling on every member of Congress to support SICAA,” she said in a prerecorded video message posted to X, formerly Twitter. “Youth are still dying in the name of treatment, as recently as February of this year.”
Hilton’s comments appeared to allude to the February death of a 12-year-old boy at a North Carolina wilderness camp for troubled youth.
In a written statement accompanying her video, Hilton also urged Washington Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, to bring the measure up for a vote before her panel as soon as possible.
“Every day that no action is taken, another child is abused, neglected or dies in the name of ‘treatment,’” she wrote.
Hilton closed out her statement by pointing out that Tuesday is the last day of National Child Abuse Prevention Month and argued that there should be no better time to press ahead with the legislation.
“The kids in your state are counting on you,” she told lawmakers.
A spokesperson for the Energy and Commerce Committee did not immediately return a request for comment on whether the panel might bring the act up for debate.
The bill’s congressional supporters have long argued that U.S. youth institutions have gone largely unregulated.
“We have about 35,000 foster children who are sent into these institutional settings … with virtually no oversight whatsoever,” said Merkley during a press conference held last April. “This is not acceptable.”
The Oregon Democrat also pointed to Hilton’s leadership, thanking her for drawing attention to the issue.
Cornyn, meanwhile, argued that there was a place for such facilities amid what he framed as a youth mental health crisis, but contended that “if just one child was harmed in their care, it’s too many.”
Hilton, joined by other survivors of abuse at youth mental health facilities, told reporters that the fight to reform those institutions was personal.
“I’m determined to use my platform and resources to make a difference,” she said, “and the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act is where we need to start to address these issues.”
It’s not Hilton’s first effort at bringing legislative reforms to youth institutions. She last made a similar push in 2021.
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