The legislation for facilities that treat teens gained final approval in early March, less than a month after Hilton came to Utah’s Capitol Hill to give emotional and graphic testimony in front of a panel of state senators.
According to the new law, more government oversight of youth residential treatment centers will be required and it will also prohibit chemical sedation and mechanical restraints unless authorized, and requires at least four inspections each year, announced and unannounced.
Along with the new law, lawmakers also appropriated $638,400 to fund eight new full-time licensors to conduct those three additional inspections per year and enforce the new regulations.
The governor applauded lawmakers for working together “on this very significant issue.”
He also thanked Hilton for “sharing her own story very bravely and vulnerably and helping to shine a light on some of the bad actors and some of the bad things that have happened in the industry.”
Hilton testified she was abused mentally and physically at a Utah boarding school, where she said staff members would beat her, force her to take unknown pills, watch her shower and send her to solitary confinement without clothes as punishment.