TheAgitator.com
More Boot Camp Bullshit
Tuesday, May 13th, 2003Eve points to a NY Times article on WWASP, a series of “behavior modification” teen bootcamps that employ uncanny Sembler-esque techniques (here’s a discussion board/support group for WWASP alumni).
Longtime readers of this site saw this coming. The Straight, Inc. lawsuits and the suits against boot camps that left a kid dead in the Arizona heat have caused propietors of these “tough love” camps to move them overseas, out of the reach of U.S. courts and regulators.
Still, I wonder: if the businessmen who run these gulags are based in Utah, aren’t they still subject to U.S. jurisdiction? Certainly they’d have assets in Utah, which could be accessed in a civil suit.
I’m a law school student who’s been assigned the task of writing a memo based on these schools; specifically Dundee Ranch, in a mock debate over becoming counsel for a parent of former students. There’s a lot of information out there but not a lot of cases to support the suit. I hope that the parents are able to prevail and prevent these kids from becoming psychos or suicides.
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yea umm i spent 18 months at DRA and it was the worst experience of my life. the way they treated me and my friends was in humane. i could go on and on about the things that went on but i wont. im trying to forget but i will never forgive. narvin is a scam artis. he always was cocerned about how thick his checkbook was, and didnt care about the well being of “students”. but thats all i have if you have any pictures of dundee please send them to me.
I completely agree that the US government must do something. My daughter was recently imprisoned at a school in Orem Utah, Provo Canyon School. She was restrained and drugged against her will. She was punished with seclusion, isolation, hours in a concrete closet called observation, drugged, provoked, ridiculed. All Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights were taken from her. She tried to escape and was jailed over the holidays, that is when we finally woke up and looked at other web sites. Ironically what she was telling us had happened to hundreds of other children in PCS and other mind control cult schools. We reported this all to the police – and they closed the case in one week. It was obvious that the local authorities, those who should be protecting children, aren’t for economic and political reasons. This is big business in UTAH. The parent companies of these hellish residential facilities are major contributers to political campaigns. So the Utah authorities turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to all the abuse. It is horrific. How can our government not intervene. How many children must die or loose their sanity? It’s hard to believe that this can occure in our advanced country. Forget about the abuse in Jamaica – it’s happening here in the USA. It does seem that the abuse is more grissly in the foreign countries. We have witnessed the very dark side of the psychological industry. This physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse of our youth must STOP – public awareness must be heightened. Thank you for this forum. Helen TAylor RN JD – California.
I completely agree that the US government must do something. My daughter was recently imprisoned at a school in Orem Utah, Provo Canyon School. She was restrained and drugged against her will. She was punished with seclusion, isolation, hours in a concrete closet called observation, drugged, provoked, ridiculed. All Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights were taken from her. She tried to escape and was jailed over the holidays, that is when we finally woke up and looked at other web sites. Ironically what she was telling us had happened to hundreds of other children in PCS and other mind control cult schools. We reported this all to the police – and they closed the case in one week. It was obvious that the local authorities, those who should be protecting children, aren’t for economic and political reasons. This is big business in UTAH. The parent companies of these hellish residential facilities are major contributers to political campaigns. So the Utah authorities turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to all the abuse. It is horrific. How can our government not intervene. How many children must die or loose their sanity? It’s hard to believe that this can occure in our advanced country. Forget about the abuse in Jamaica – it’s happening here in the USA. It does seem that the abuse is more grissly in the foreign countries. We have witnessed the very dark side of the psychological industry. This physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse of our youth must STOP – public awareness must be heightened. Thank you for this forum. Helen TAylor RN JD – California.
was at casa by the sea. affiliated with the wwasp program that owns the place in utah and the one in jamaica and the one in costa rica (dundee ranch) along with a few others.
You don’t know the half of it.
You think it looks bad from the outside, wait till you have to live through it?
Me, fifteen months, I was barely fourteen at the time. That constituted for a good percentage of my life I spent in that place.
Special ed now, too many fights, too many meds I snorted, I used to be in honors up till I got sent there?
Do you know what it feels like to know what you once were and you look at yourself now and all you see is a shell? Schitzophrenic tendencies, voices and noises that won’t let me sleep, doctors say its post traumatic stress disorder causing it. My father doesn’t believe anything that the doctors tell him, he’s indoctorinized in the program. I carried a switchblade on me because I told myself that I’d rather kill the escorts (they took me at 2:00am as I was reading in my room) then go back.
I really knew the knife was for me though, even through the fifteen months I knew I still was too Christian to go through with the act of harming anyone else. I knew that knife was for me, I carried around my means of sucide for weeks before my mom regained partial custody. Kinda depressing when you keep a means of ending your own life.
People try to commit suicide all the time, for stupid reasons like attention. Depressing though when you really want to live but you have a means of ending it to prevent something worse from happening. That would be being alive in a program. I don’t know what the hell to do with my life anymore. I remember when my teachers used to say how bright I was.
Now I’m barely a sophomore and I’m turning sixteen soon. I never even went to high school, never went to a high school class, I’m surprsied they let me stay a sophomore because accordingto the program I “went to schol” although I didn’t attend a single damn class. Algebra 1a this year, algebra 1b junior year, and by senior year I’ll be in geometry? I have to take my sats when I don’t even have geometry knowledge, I test on a ninth grade level because I was taken out of school in eigth grade.
The beatings were true. Restraining is true, although everyone always called it the more accurate name, slamming. Back then that is, all my friends are still there, its as if I never left. I have nightmares of people barging into my room and taking me like last time. My biggest fear is that I’ll wake up and be back in the program. And althogh I’ve been out for a few months, being out doesn’t feel anymore real. Its still not there.
I was never a bad person, I don’t remember what I did to do this. I was depressed, and tried to hurt myself. So they sent me there for fifteen months. I know if I kill myself now, while I’m still out, that I’ll never come back. And even if this is all a dream, if I end it all now, I won’t ever go back, ever. But then they say its just me being delusional again, I came in the program with depression. Left with a whole assortment of other things. I can’t sleep, but I gotta go to special ed tomorrow. I wake up late, because they don’t trust me on school campass before or after school because I’m not emotionally or mentally right of mind. My dad still loves the program, still wants to send me back, I can’t get imancipated either because I’m not right anymore.
And my dad knew, I told him what was happening. He just didn’t care. And I assume that’s what is up with the rest of the parents, they see us becoming less and less aware, and more and more indoctorinized and less independent. And the see us regress, mentally, till we’re like little children, and they cackle with joy.
I can’t sleep anymore.
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Provo Canyon School has a long history of abuse and deception. After rescuing my own child from that private prison I made a report of her abuse (covered with bruises from head to toe) and the abuse of others whose abuse was witnessed. It has been three months since I made this report to the top officials in the State of Utah – Ken Stettler the Director of the Department of Human Services (I did so because the police dropped it in a week) To date, none of the suspected abuse victims have been interviewed. How can this State investigate a report of child abuse without interviewing and or examining the suspected abuse victims? They can’t. It is obvioius to me now that the State of Utah ignors reports of abuse at the numerous problem teen programs operating in Utah. These children are sitting ducks for abuse because Utah allows these facilities to operate without governmental oversite or regulation. If you are a parent – think long and hard before sending your problem child to any youth program in Utah.
Provo Canyon School has a long history of abuse and deception. After rescuing my own child from that private prison I made a report of her abuse (covered with bruises from head to toe) and the abuse of others whose abuse was witnessed. It has been three months since I made this report to the top officials in the State of Utah – Ken Stettler the Director of the Department of Human Services (I did so because the police dropped it in a week) To date, none of the suspected abuse victims have been interviewed. How can this State investigate a report of child abuse without interviewing and or examining the suspected abuse victims? They can’t. It is obvioius to me now that the State of Utah ignors reports of abuse at the numerous problem teen programs operating in Utah. These children are sitting ducks for abuse because Utah allows these facilities to operate without governmental oversite or regulation. If you are a parent – think long and hard before sending your problem child to any youth program in Utah.
i attended tranquility bay for a year and a half, if u havent attended the school you dont understand what the students go through.
My son, 17, was taken to Casa by the Sea by his dad & stepmom (dad has custody) w/out telling me until the day after he was signed in there. I’m worried sick, and have read all these horror stories.
My son will be 18 in 7 months, but he’ll be stuck in Mexico (his dad is in San Diego, CA, but I’ll be in MA!)
during and past his b’day.
Is there anything I can do? I think his dad will buy into all the school’s propaganda. You should read the email he sent me informing me of where my son is and why. It sounds like memorized boilerplate material from a brochure. His dad & I can’t get along at all, never have, so I can’t talk to him about this.
Can anyone offer me suggestions on what to do in my position? Or is my son just stuck there with no help?
Anita
My granddaughter was taken to Casa (puke) by the Sea on May 24th of this year. I’ve worn myself out with worry, calling people, trying to get info on this place and wwasp (puke again) into the hands of my daughter her mother. Now all my children are mad at me. I used to do drugs so the reason I’m doing all this is because I must be still on them and I’m freaking out. I’ve been ostrasized from the family. What I think about the situation is that there are more of us then them. It’s time to protest and be heard. this is discrimination. Our kids have been raped of their Constitutional Rights and everything else. If you live in the Bakersfield Ca area please e-mail me Jo Williams address is autumn@gbncentral.com
thanx
When I read the testimonies of the parents and children in your article, I had flashbacks of a all female Texas Youth Commission that I used to work at. My motive to be employed there was to save the children mentally, show them motherly love.
These type of place are “infested” with employed sexual predators that prey upon these children. I was literally dismayed at all it took was someone to fill out an application, pass a criminal background check, drug test of course, and you’re hired. No feelings for the kids whatsoever. These type of places “youth programs for residential treatment” are a joke. I realized there I could not save the world, but did what I could in any loving way that I could. You would be surprised at the communication skills “none” that the majority of the employees have. Children that come from abusive homes act abusive and when an employee is verbally abusive for no reason, really shouldn’t for any reason, the girls would go crazy and think, why was I born to embrace such torment. Well, a riot would start if someone was being mistreated and got no fair justice from the supervisor. The caseworkers were lazy, if we could keep them. Also, at these type of facilities, job turnover was every month. The girls’ trust in anybody would go downhill. The girls would have their favorites, the very few employees that loved them. But also, the girls knew the “crooked” employees that they could use and when they turned on them, (in order to look like they were doing their job) the “crooks” would be reported.
I myself would get singled out, along with a few if we appeared “pure”, wanting to love on the kids. I witnessed several “and reported it”, instances where the employees, male and female would sexually harass the female inmates.
Well, it took me three interviews to get in. All the while, employees were being taken to emergency room and the girls. Did I really want to get into this? Yes, the Lord had commissioned me. I enjoyed the challenge. It’s made me number 1 parent in my household, because it kept me close to my children and a lot of open communication because I do not want them to wind up in one of those”preying hell holes!”
I also remember divorce rate for the employees,(if they weren’t lesbians)would increase. The wives had to stay overtime almost 4-5 days out of a week because of being “emergency-manned” because again of the job turnover and if you was a mother employed, sooner or later would be having trouble out of your kids at home.
Well, I got enough of this. I called up the Prayer Warriors and got this place closed down. They didn’t know what hit ‘em! The joy I got out of it all was I was able to introduce Jesus Christ, eventually voted the Volunteer Religious Coordinator, after a test trial by others to see that I was “REAL” and “For the Kids Welfare”.
Now, I’ve opened up a counseling center to minister, console and counsel ages seventeen and up to help women uproot their past “bad seeds” that Satan had strategically imbedded within their soul to cause them to fail. My mission is to help these young women break the generation curse so that their kids won’t wind up tormented.
I am a graduate of a WWASP program, and I have yet to hear a horror story about thesse places that is actually true. The program saved my life. I urge people who have no personal experience of these programs to take a step back and consider the people making these allegations. The majority of kids who get sent to these programs not only have drug problems, but also with a whol host of self destructive behaviors, including compulsive lying. I cannot say what went on in other programs, but I have read horror stories written by students who I knew, students who were there at the same time that I was. And I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that these accusations are false. Consider the sources.
Many supporters of WWASP programs (who often have financial gain) call students who claim there is abuse manipulative liars who are only trying to get out of the program. Well I have been out of the program for over 8 years now and I will still say it loud and clear WWASP FACILITIES ARE ABUSIVE!