Editing Deprogramming (section)

==Controversy and related issues==

In the United States, from the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s [[Brainwashing|mind control]] was a widely accepted theory in public opinion, and the vast majority of newspaper and magazine accounts of deprogrammings assumed that recruits' relatives were well justified to seek [[conservatorship]]s and to hire deprogrammers.<ref name="Rusher">{{cite news |last=Rusher |first=William A. |date=28 May 1983 |title=Deprogramming A Disgrace To Free Society |page=A4 |newspaper=[[Gadsden Times]] |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1891&dat=19830528&id=0KQfAAAAIBAJ&pg=4176,5893764 |access-date=14 November 2013}}</ref>

One disturbing aspect from a [[Civil and political rights|civil rights]] point of view, was that people hiring deprogrammers would use deception or other ethically questionable methods—including [[kidnapping]]—to get their relative into deprogrammers' hands, without allowing them any recourse to a lawyer or psychiatrist of their own choosing. Previously, there would be a sanity hearing first, and only then a commitment to an [[Lunatic asylum|asylum]] or involuntary therapy. But with deprogramming, judges routinely granted parents legal authority over their adult children without a hearing.<ref name="washingtonpost.com">{{cite news |last1=Hyer |first1=Marjorie |title=Court Rules Rights Laws Protect Against Religious Discrimination |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1981/08/14/court-rules-rights-laws-protect-against-religious-discrimination/caba88e2-4477-464a-9147-b7276acbc774/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=3 October 2023}}</ref>

Critics contend that deprogramming and exit counseling begin with a [[false premise]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bromley |first1=David G. |title=Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare |last2=Shupe |first2=Anson D. |publisher=[[Beacon Press]] |year=1981 |isbn=0807032565 |location=Boston |pages=198–204}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Robbins |first1=Thomas |last2=Anthony |first2=Dick |date=February 1982 |title=Deprogramming, Brainwashing and the Medicalization of Deviant Religious Groups |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/800160 |journal=[[Social Problems]] |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=283–97 |doi=10.2307/800160 |jstor=800160 }}</ref> Lawyers for some groups who have lost members due to deprogramming, as well as some civil liberties advocates, sociologists and psychologists, argue that it is not the religious groups but rather the deprogrammers who are the ones who deceive and manipulate people.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Anthony |first1=Dick |last2=Robbins |first2=Thomas |date=Winter 1992 |title=Law, social science and the "brainwashing" exception to the first amendment |journal=[[Behavioral Sciences and the Law]] |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=5–29 |doi=10.1002/bsl.2370100103}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Coleman |first=Lee |date=1984 |title=New Religions and the Myth of Mind Control |journal=[[American Journal of Orthopsychiatry]] |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=322–5 |doi=10.1111/j.1939-0025.1984.tb01499.x|pmid=6731597 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Blau |first=Eleanor |date=1977-02-06 |title=A.C.L.U. AIDE WARNS ON SEIZING CULTISTS |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/06/archives/aclu-aide-warns-on-seizing-cultists-a-danger-is-seen-in-actions-by.html |access-date=2022-09-05 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

During the 1990s, deprogrammer [[Rick Ross (consultant)|Rick Ross]] was sued by [[Jason Scott case|Jason Scott]], a former member of a [[Pentecostalism|Pentecostal]] group called the Life Tabernacle Church, after an unsuccessful deprogramming attempt. In 1995, the jury awarded Scott [[United States dollar|US$]]875,000 in [[compensatory damages]] and US$2,500,000 in [[punitive damages]] against Ross, which were later settled for US$5,000 and 200 hours of services. More significantly, the jury also found that the leading [[Anti-cult movement|anti-cult]] group known as the [[Cult Awareness Network]] (CAN) was a co-conspirator in the crime and fined CAN around US$1,000,000 in punitive damages, forcing the group into [[bankruptcy]].<ref>Chryssides, ''Exploring New Religions'', 348.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=14–21 August 1996 |title=Cult Awareness Network bankrupt |pages=777 |work=[[Christian Century]]}}</ref> This case is often seen as effectively closing the door on the practice of involuntary deprogramming in the United States.<ref name="holywars" />