Elijah, eight, from Los Angeles, is tired. He's also in tears thanks to the weight of the heavy plank he's been asked to carry but Keith 'Sarge' Gibbs has no sympathy. 'You feel that pain son?' he thunders. 'That's what your mother feels when you decide to disrespect her!' Like thousands of other American children, Elijah has been enrolled in what has been dubbed an 'extreme brat camp' because of his poor behaviour. Scroll down for video . Tough love: Keith 'Sarge' Gibbs (centre) with two of his young charges during one of his Drill Weekends . Designed to tackle bad attitudes, defiance and what Sarge describes as 'deviant behaviour' (think lying and cheating), the camps are based on harsh military discipline and tough physical exercise. At Sarge's 'Drill Weekends', children aged between five and 14 are put through a series of military drills, often running late into the night, followed by lengthy hikes conducted to a marching beat of 'Dis-cip-line, Res-pect'. Harsh though it might sound, Sarge's camps, the majority of which involve children from Los Angeles' poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods, do get results. And with endorsements from the LA Sheriff's Office, local councillors and California's Child and Family Department ringing in his ears, Sarge is proud of what his boot camps achieve. 'When we first started the programme, we dealt with 14 to 18 year old kids,' he explains. 'But then we realised that 16 and 17 year old kids... they've already dropped out of school and got gang tattoos. 'They're doing drugs and turning around more money in a month than I do in a year. It was then that I realised that I needed to start them at an earlier age and we dropped our age from five to 14. You've got to catch these kids young.' Discipline: According to Sarge, many of his young charges are at risk of joining one of LA's notorious gangs . No messing around: Sarge says discipline is missing from many of his young charge's lives . The majority of his recruits come, like Elijah, from single parent families and are frequently without a male role model - Elijah's father is in prison. This, says Sarge, is one of the key causes of bad behaviour. 'In today's society, when the male parent is absent, kids lean towards that gang member, who has that authority, who has that strength, who has that lifestyle.' It's a lifestyle that once mirrored Sarge's own. The part-time security guard and former Marine grew up in the Bronx, a tough part of New York, before finding salvation in the military. Now he hopes to replicate that success with the 17 new recruits that arrive at his camps each weekend, while also providing them with the male authority figure that they lack. 'Discipline, that's something these kids are missing,' he explains. 'If I was the President of the United States of America, every kid would go through boot camp. Tough stuff: Sarge leads a drill during one of his weekend boot camp courses in Pasadena . Hard work: Along with military drills and long hikes, a weekend with Sarge involves a spot of hard labour . What's more, he adds, satisfied, 'of the 10,000 kids that have come through my life, I'm blessed to say that many now want to be like me'. So popular have boot camps like the one run by Sarge become, the 'child intervention' industry is now worth in excess of $2bn a year and has spawned an offshoot in the form of companies that specialise in collecting unwilling children and carting them off to camp. 'Families hire me who have out of control teenagers to extract them and transport them to a treatment facility or boarding school that the families have chosen for their child,' explains LA-based Evan 'Bullet' James. 'Between 500 and 1000 families contact us a month. Our operation is nationwide across the USA.' One such destination is the institution run by former Marine Glenn Ellison, Camp Consequence in Jacksonville, Florida. Like Sarge, he operates a regime that is high on the discipline and exercise and low on the creature comforts and sympathy. His programmes last for up to 30 days, with children cared for by Ellison and his team of crack instructors, although for shorter weekend stints, the youngsters involved must be accompanied by their parents. Tough love: Evan 'Bullet' James specialises in carting unwilling children off to the camp of their parents' choice . Harsh: According to Mr James, between 500 and 1000 families contact him in desperation each month . A weekend at Camp Consequence starts with what Ellison dubs 'shock and awe' and involves a series of military style drills in order to tire the children out so 'I can see what their personality is really like'. That completed, the children are put to bed in military style tents in a field surrounded by razor wire that butts up against the local prison. Any whisper of dissent and the boys - and Ellison's camps do attract an overwhelmingly male clientèle - are put to work shovelling piles of dirt. 'We laughingly call these kids Al Kidda,' he says, smiling. 'When the enemy is in your house, it's a scary place to be and that's what I deal with every single day. 'The behaviours we deal with are mostly rebellion. They just don't want to be told what to do. My kids are good kids making bad choices,' he continues. 'But they will be treated like juvenile delinquents. That's kind of scary but that's what we want.' Among them is Bryce, 10, from Florida, whose mother Jennifer has reached the end of her tether with his recalcitrant behaviour and constant swearing. 'The main issues with Bryce are disrespect and defiance,' she says. 'It got to a point where I was getting calls from his school, he was being suspended, and I didn't want it to progress. 'We recently went on vacation and he was yelling F-words from across the pool and we were kicked out of the hotel.' Does she think Ellison's military methods are too much? 'I think it's extreme that a 10-year-old rules my house,' she says, firmly. 'That's extreme. These people are not touching my children, they have not said anything demeaning to them and they have not physically harmed them at all.' These are sentiments with which Ellison wholeheartedly agrees. 'I'm not about punishment at all,' he explains. 'What I'm about is making kids understand that in every society, if there's no rules, there is chaos. And that's just about where we are today in the world. The kids are running the world. Not parents.' Children might be running the world outside of Camp Consequence but inside, Ellison is most definitely in charge. Listen up! Both Sarge and Ellison are fond of motivational pep talks, although discipline comes top of the list . Plaudits: Both Sarge's and Ellison's camps have won plaudits from local councils and law enforcement . Give me twenty! Sarge's Drill Weekends and Camp Consequence involve plenty of physical exercise . During the 30 day course, children spend their days picking up spent cartridges on the local sheriff's gun range, picking up litter on the highway and mowing the grass verges. Privileges have to be earned, among them hot suppers, while any infractions are punished with a trip to the dirt pile or the threat of an extension of your time at Camp Consequence. 'Just because your mum signed a contract for 30 days, it doesn't mean you're going home in 30 days,' thunders Ellison. 'I can pull that plug in a heartbeat and I will. I will tell them [parents] that he doesn't deserve it and he hasn't earned it.' Parents also have to commit to Ellison's boot camps and attend parenting classes both before and after Camp Consequence. Ellison says this is key to getting results and says it stops people from giving up on their delinquent children without at least attempting to help them. 'I truly believe that the kids are worth saving,' he adds. 'A lot of people give up on kids way too soon.' For her part, Jennifer is thrilled with the changes the camp has wrought on her son Bryce. 'Oh, him and 10 of his friends, heck yeah,' she exclaims when asked whether she would consider sending her child back to Camp Consequence. 'Even if I have to get a dirt pile delivered to my house, I'll do it.'
Camps such as Camp Consequence in Florida specialise in tough discipline .
Others, among them Sarge's Community Base in LA,  tackle delinquency .
Children as young as five years old can be enrolled in the camps .
'Extreme brat camps' are hugely popular in the U.S and worth $2bn a year .
True Stories: Extreme Brat Camp, tonight at 10pm on Channel 4 .
Elijah, eight, from Los Angeles, is tired. He's also in tears thanks to the weight of the heavy plank he's been asked to carry but Keith 'Sarge' Gibbs has no sympathy. 'You feel that pain son?' he thunders. 'That's what your mother feels when you decide to disrespect her!' Like thousands of other American children, Elijah has been enrolled in what has been dubbed an 'extreme brat camp' because of his poor behaviour. Scroll down for video . Tough love: Keith 'Sarge' Gibbs (centre) with two of his young charges during one of his Drill Weekends . Designed to tackle bad attitudes, defiance and what Sarge describes as 'deviant behaviour' (think lying and cheating), the camps are based on harsh military discipline and tough physical exercise. At Sarge's 'Drill Weekends', children aged between five and 14 are put through a series of military drills, often running late into the night, followed by lengthy hikes conducted to a marching beat of 'Dis-cip-line, Res-pect'. Harsh though it might sound, Sarge's camps, the majority of which involve children from Los Angeles' poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods, do get results. And with endorsements from the LA Sheriff's Office, local councillors and California's Child and Family Department ringing in his ears, Sarge is proud of what his boot camps achieve. 'When we first started the programme, we dealt with 14 to 18 year old kids,' he explains. 'But then we realised that 16 and 17 year old kids... they've already dropped out of school and got gang tattoos. 'They're doing drugs and turning around more money in a month than I do in a year. It was then that I realised that I needed to start them at an earlier age and we dropped our age from five to 14. You've got to catch these kids young.' Discipline: According to Sarge, many of his young charges are at risk of joining one of LA's notorious gangs . No messing around: Sarge says discipline is missing from many of his young charge's lives . The majority of his recruits come, like Elijah, from single parent families and are frequently without a male role model - Elijah's father is in prison. This, says Sarge, is one of the key causes of bad behaviour. 'In today's society, when the male parent is absent, kids lean towards that gang member, who has that authority, who has that strength, who has that lifestyle.' It's a lifestyle that once mirrored Sarge's own. The part-time security guard and former Marine grew up in the Bronx, a tough part of New York, before finding salvation in the military. Now he hopes to replicate that success with the 17 new recruits that arrive at his camps each weekend, while also providing them with the male authority figure that they lack. 'Discipline, that's something these kids are missing,' he explains. 'If I was the President of the United States of America, every kid would go through boot camp. Tough stuff: Sarge leads a drill during one of his weekend boot camp courses in Pasadena . Hard work: Along with military drills and long hikes, a weekend with Sarge involves a spot of hard labour . What's more, he adds, satisfied, 'of the 10,000 kids that have come through my life, I'm blessed to say that many now want to be like me'. So popular have boot camps like the one run by Sarge become, the 'child intervention' industry is now worth in excess of $2bn a year and has spawned an offshoot in the form of companies that specialise in collecting unwilling children and carting them off to camp. 'Families hire me who have out of control teenagers to extract them and transport them to a treatment facility or boarding school that the families have chosen for their child,' explains LA-based Evan 'Bullet' James. 'Between 500 and 1000 families contact us a month. Our operation is nationwide across the USA.' One such destination is the institution run by former Marine Glenn Ellison, Camp Consequence in Jacksonville, Florida. Like Sarge, he operates a regime that is high on the discipline and exercise and low on the creature comforts and sympathy. His programmes last for up to 30 days, with children cared for by Ellison and his team of crack instructors, although for shorter weekend stints, the youngsters involved must be accompanied by their parents. Tough love: Evan 'Bullet' James specialises in carting unwilling children off to the camp of their parents' choice . Harsh: According to Mr James, between 500 and 1000 families contact him in desperation each month . A weekend at Camp Consequence starts with what Ellison dubs 'shock and awe' and involves a series of military style drills in order to tire the children out so 'I can see what their personality is really like'. That completed, the children are put to bed in military style tents in a field surrounded by razor wire that butts up against the local prison. Any whisper of dissent and the boys - and Ellison's camps do attract an overwhelmingly male clientèle - are put to work shovelling piles of dirt. 'We laughingly call these kids Al Kidda,' he says, smiling. 'When the enemy is in your house, it's a scary place to be and that's what I deal with every single day. 'The behaviours we deal with are mostly rebellion. They just don't want to be told what to do. My kids are good kids making bad choices,' he continues. 'But they will be treated like juvenile delinquents. That's kind of scary but that's what we want.' Among them is Bryce, 10, from Florida, whose mother Jennifer has reached the end of her tether with his recalcitrant behaviour and constant swearing. 'The main issues with Bryce are disrespect and defiance,' she says. 'It got to a point where I was getting calls from his school, he was being suspended, and I didn't want it to progress. 'We recently went on vacation and he was yelling F-words from across the pool and we were kicked out of the hotel.' Does she think Ellison's military methods are too much? 'I think it's extreme that a 10-year-old rules my house,' she says, firmly. 'That's extreme. These people are not touching my children, they have not said anything demeaning to them and they have not physically harmed them at all.' These are sentiments with which Ellison wholeheartedly agrees. 'I'm not about punishment at all,' he explains. 'What I'm about is making kids understand that in every society, if there's no rules, there is chaos. And that's just about where we are today in the world. The kids are running the world. Not parents.' Children might be running the world outside of Camp Consequence but inside, Ellison is most definitely in charge. Listen up! Both Sarge and Ellison are fond of motivational pep talks, although discipline comes top of the list . Plaudits: Both Sarge's and Ellison's camps have won plaudits from local councils and law enforcement . Give me twenty! Sarge's Drill Weekends and Camp Consequence involve plenty of physical exercise . During the 30 day course, children spend their days picking up spent cartridges on the local sheriff's gun range, picking up litter on the highway and mowing the grass verges. Privileges have to be earned, among them hot suppers, while any infractions are punished with a trip to the dirt pile or the threat of an extension of your time at Camp Consequence. 'Just because your mum signed a contract for 30 days, it doesn't mean you're going home in 30 days,' thunders Ellison. 'I can pull that plug in a heartbeat and I will. I will tell them [parents] that he doesn't deserve it and he hasn't earned it.' Parents also have to commit to Ellison's boot camps and attend parenting classes both before and after Camp Consequence. Ellison says this is key to getting results and says it stops people from giving up on their delinquent children without at least attempting to help them. 'I truly believe that the kids are worth saving,' he adds. 'A lot of people give up on kids way too soon.' For her part, Jennifer is thrilled with the changes the camp has wrought on her son Bryce. 'Oh, him and 10 of his friends, heck yeah,' she exclaims when asked whether she would consider sending her child back to Camp Consequence. 'Even if I have to get a dirt pile delivered to my house, I'll do it.'
the camps are based on harsh military discipline and tough physical exercise. At Sarge's 'Drill excess of $2bn a year and has spawned an offshoot in the form of companies that specialise in Marine Glenn Ellison, Camp Consequence in earned, among them hot suppers, while any