Utah Behavioral School Loses License: CCHR Increases Calls for Closure of Abusive Psychiatric Hospital Chains

LOS ANGELES, CA, July 17, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ — The Utah Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has revoked the license of a Provo Canyon, Utah residential behavioral treatment facility for juveniles, prompting the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, to renew its call for the for-profit behavioral hospital chains to be closed and stripped of taxpayer funding when systemic patient abuse is found.[1] Regulators cited video evidence of a staff member striking a restrained client, along with repeated failures to protect girls from harm, violence, discrimination, and disrespectful treatment.[2]

Paris Hilton has acclaimed the decision as validation of her long-running campaign to close the behavioral school after exposing the abuse she endured there as a teenager. Hilton spent 11 months at the facility in 1999, where she said she was forced to take psychotropic drugs, placed in solitary confinement, and beaten—experiences with lasting long-term effects. In September 2020, she released her compelling account of her experiences in the documentary, This is Paris.

CCHR praised Hilton’s years of courageous advocacy and her work on legislative reforms to protect troubled youth from abuse in behavioral facilities.

The facility’s operators have claimed the abuses Hilton experienced occurred under previous ownership. Yet Hilton and CCHR have consistently argued that the pattern of abuses continued. Hilton posted: “They told me my abuse happened under different ownership and dismissed my story. They told me it was for my own good. They told me no one would believe me. Turns out they were wrong about all of it.”

CCHR International’s own exposure of the Utah behavioral school dates back to the 1990s when it was under a different ownership. Collaborating with 60 Minutes II in 2000, their show revealed patient abuse and fabricated chart entries to justify insurance payments. This contributed to the hospital chain subsequently filing for bankruptcy and selling some of its facilities to a new behavioral company.[3]

CCHR says the recent license revocation is a good start, but given the company’s history of reported patient abuse, it calls for further scrutiny and penalties of Medicare and Medicaid contract revocations.

In June 2015, CCHR began filing complaints about abuses in the behavioral sector with Members of Congress and state legislators, including in Utah. At the time, the U.S. Department of Justice and HHS Office of Inspector General investigated behavioral facilities for billing fraud across nine states. That case settled for $122 million.

As CCHR has documented, the Utah facility’s own record includes multiple violations: students injured during restraints in 2015; the 2019–2021 sexual abuse case involving an employee, who was convicted of sexual abuse of a 12-year-old and listed on the Utah Sex Offender Registry, and dozens of other documented incidents.[4] In October 2020, flanking the release of This is Paris, CCHR posted 32 cases of patient abuses at behavioral hospitals on its website, including in Utah.[5]

CCHR has supported Hilton’s efforts since 2020, which include the federal Stop Institutional Child Abuse law she helped get passed in 2024 and an expanded Utah law in 2025 establishing a Child Protection Ombudsman with authority to investigate psychiatric abuse of children. CCHR also helped secure a Maryland law in 2025 banning physical restraint during child transport to facilities and empowering the Attorney General to take action against violators.

A landmark 2024 Senate Finance Committee report, “Warehouses of Neglect,” indicted major chains for subjecting children to routine abuse, inappropriate restraints, unsafe conditions, and inadequate care. The report highlighted the Utah behavioral school, citing disproportionately high rates of sex crime investigations, staff assaults on students (including hitting and hair-pulling in restraints), chemical and physical restraints, overmedication, and trauma inflicted on children sent from other states:

• A Utah Department of Human Services document detailed multiple staff conduct violations.
• A former patient said that he “felt like a zombie” because he was so drugged.
• The Salt Lake Tribune’s coverage of a 14-year-old Oregonian’s harrowing out-of-state placement at the Utah school shed light on her experience being physically restrained and chemically sedated over 30 times over four months. This prompted Oregon officials to fly to Utah to investigate and ultimately return the child to Oregon. Oregon State Senator Sara Gelser Blouin described a child upon her return: “And, what they sent back to us was a broken, injured, frightened child with more trauma than she went there with.”[6]

Senate Committee Chair Senator Ron Wyden called for shutting off the “fire hose of federal funding” to facilities that abused—a recommendation CCHR International President Jan Eastgate says must be implemented. In 2025, Eastgate submitted testimony supporting Utah Senate Bill 297 to strengthen oversight of the troubled-teen industry, which Hilton had championed. Eastgate’s testimony detailed ongoing abuses in Utah’s facilities, including repeated restraints and high assault rates.

Despite these red flags, abuses persisted. CCHR reiterates that the behavioral sector reveals decades of documented abuses, lawsuits, federal settlements, licensing revocations, and preventable harm to vulnerable children demand full accountability. “Taxpayer money should not fund those facilities that warehouse and traumatize youth. Only the closure of these operations will ensure full protection from the psychiatric harm these facilities may cause,” Eastgate said.

About CCHR: CCHR was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and the late Professor of Psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz and has helped achieve hundreds of protections and reforms for mental health patients.

Sources:

[1] “DHHS revokes license of Provo Canyon School’s Springville campus amid lawsuit over misconduct, neglect,” ABC4 Utah, 6 July 2026

[2] “Utah Moves to Close Teen Treatment Center Accused of Abusing Girls,” The New York Times, 7 July 2026

[3] David Khon, “Unsafe Haven,” CBS News, 15 Apr. 1999, www.cbsnews.com/news/unsafe-haven/

[4] “Utah mental health facility employee facing felony charges after alleged abuse of former child patient,” Gephardt Daily, 6 Feb. 2020

[5] Jessica Miller, “Provo Canyon School’s history of abuse accusations spans decades, far beyond Paris Hilton,” The Salt Lake Tribune, 20 Sept. 2020, updated 12 Oct. 2020

[6] U.S. Senate Finance Committee, “Warehouses of Neglect: How Taxpayers Are Funding Systemic Abuse in Youth Residential Treatment Facilities,” pages 33-98, www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/rtf_report_warehouses_of_neglect.pdf

Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is an international mental health industry watchdog, established by the Church of Scientology, which had helped enact more than 190 worldwide reforms that protect the public from abuse.

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