Nonprofit is no stranger to scrutiny / AMI has drawn praise in Texas but has faced multiple lawsuits, lost contracts
Source: By JENNIFER LaFLEUR, The Dallas Morning News (TX), Sunday, July 29, 2007
Associated Marine Institutes has been cited as a model youth rehabilitation program, but the nonprofit has been hit with more than a dozen lawsuits nationwide and has lost contracts in two states. In Texas, AMI runs two very different programs for TYC.
Its Rio Grande Marine Institute in Los Fresnos in South Texas was designed for troubled youths to receive marine and wilderness training, and perform community service. In 1999, the Texas House of Representatives called AMI's work at the institute "of the utmost importance for the future of the youth of this state."
But the facility, which AMI opened in 1986, had the second highest rate of abuse allegations among private contractors in Texas in 2006. And reviews by TYC monitors from 2000 to early 2007 revealed multiple cases where the institute failed to live up to its promise of "structured and supervised activities" for at least 16 hours a day, seven days a week.