Does it make sense to treat teenagers the same way you treat addicts?
To some parents, an out-of-control 15-year-old is every bit as frustrating to deal with as a chronic drunk. Only the drunk is probably more pleasant.
“Teen Trouble”— a gritty new docu-series from the creator of “Intervention” — is out to save a few untethered teens with a taste of jail, a night among the homeless and a mingle with some prostitutes.
“I think that some people could misinterpret my extreme measures,” says host and teen behavior specialist Josh Shipp.
“It is not about scaring them straight. It is about bringing them face to face with both options” — a glimpse of their future.
“The intent is to give the kid a genuine wake-up call.”
The series has already caught the attention of law enforcement officials in Bartholomew County, Ind.
In the premiere episode, airing Dec. 28 on Lifetime, a 17-year-old girl named Samm is shown smoking marijuana from a pipe before speeding off in her father’s pickup truck.
“I feel like I am a good driver when I am high,” the teen tells the camera. “My parents would be pissed if they knew.”
“It’s contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” County prosecutor Bill Nash tells The Post.
“When you look at the ridiculous things people do to get on TV, putting a camera on her while she is smoking pot . . . That in itself could be enough to induce her to behave recklessly,” he says.
But executive producer Bryn Freedman, a former investigative reporter for ABC News, argues that the kids on her show would likely be engaging in dangerous or illegal behavior whether the cameras were there or not.
“We never ask them to do anything,” Freedman says. “We simply follow them.
“The producer and anybody that is following knows that, if anything gets out of hand, they are immediately to call the cops to force her to stop.
“Anything where somebody’s life is in danger, life comes first.”
Samm (the show does not give her last name) approached the show herself, Shipp says. (Most of the kids on the show appear to have ended up there thanks to parents at their wits end.)
The teen reveals in the episode that her life began to unravel when she e-mailed nude pictures of herself to classmates at age 13.
“The through line in all of these [situations] is that there are no consequences,” Shipp says of all the cases. “A lot of threatening, but no follow- through. No tough love. Parents are just delaying the inevitable.”
To bring his point home, Shipp arranges for Samm to be arrested and hauled to a juvenile detention center for several days.
In another episode he forces a runaway from Eugene, Ore. to spend the night sleeping on the street.
“We had an police officer standing by watching her,” Shipp says. “But the kid didn’t know that. I need the kid to feel as though they are not safe.”
Shipp — who was abandoned at birth and raised in the foster-care system — has had his own battles with abuse and addiction.
“I had my wake up call when I went to jail for a night because of some stupid stuff I had done,” he admits.
With no formal licenses or training, Shipp gets clearance from a team of doctors and therapists before placing any kids in extreme circumstances.
“I am not prescribing medications,” he notes. “My role is more of a consultant. My credentials are that I lived that life and I overcame it.”