Secret Prisons for teens

The fifth death in 2011

2012-01-18T12:50:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately we learned that 16 year old Dyskeha Streeter died at the Divine Guidance group home in North Carolina.

She had complained of chest pains for some days and died as result of blood clots in her lungs. Her condition could properly have been cured if she had been allowed to see a hospital in time, but as it often is teenagers in residential programs are seen as manipulators and very often they are not allowed to receive medical attention.

The authorities decided to shut the group home down - Unfortunately only after the conditions had claimed a life.

In order to prevent such incidents, tougher regulations must be put in place. The employees should be order to call rescue workers or send the child to a hospital when they complain. In some cases the effort or the trip could be proved wasted but once a child dies responsible authorities would shut the entire workplace down and people would be without a job. So what is there to lose with a single visit to the hospital from time to time?

Dyskeha Streeter was robbed of her life. May she rest in peace.

Source:
Victims list (Fornits Wiki)

Documentary project is asking for money

2012-01-17T00:14:00.000-08:00

Kidnapped for Christ Trailer from Kidnapped For Christ on Vimeo.

A group are working to create a documentary about Escuela Caribe which is a feared Christian boarding school located in the Dominican Republic.

In the past they used corporal punishment. Due to lack of regulation they had at a point hired a child offender as employee.

There are many stories to be told about this place. Some of them you can read in the book called Jesus Land.

However the boarding school have more stories to be told and you can help them with some money so the documentary can be finished.

Below you can find various sources with more information about the school and the documentary project.

Sources:

Escuela Caribe datasheet (Fornits Wiki)
Jesus Land: A Memoir (Alex Awards (Awards)) (Amazon)
About the project (documentary.org)
Kidnapped For Christ - Info (Facebook page about the project)

The 4 2011 deaths on the Fornits Wiki database covered

2012-01-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

So far 4 minors are listed on Fornits Wiki list of minors who have lost their lives in residential programs in the United States in 2011. It is fewer than 2011 but experience has told us that there could be a number of cases which are not public yet, so we can only pray.

Roger Eugene Benson – 15 years of age

The first one to die in 2011 was Roger Eugene Benson. He was a poor boy that went into the foster system ending up as the ball in a pinball machine living numerous places before he couldn't take it anymore. This death became more noticed by the society than his entire life because he disturbed the rush hour traffic when he jumped off a bridge to kill himself.

People became angered because they were delayed while the authorities cleaned the road for his remains but they really should be angry at the way the foster system is put together. The system is not free of charge for the taxpayers, it does cost a lot of money and it was established to be there for the minors who are supposed to be neglected by their families. It was supposed to give boys like young Mr. Benson a second life, not inflict emotional torment to a point that the minors who are placed in the system choose not to live anymore.

Caitlin A. Lee – 15 years of age

Sometime a teenager can be sent to a group home or residential treatment center which are not equipped to deal with the problems the teenager arrives with. It is a mismatch. I don’t know the numbers in the United States but in Denmark 26 percent of the teenagers who are sent to residential solutions in foster families, group homes or treatment facilities have to be removed because the solution offered cannot be a success under any circumstances. Who are to blame? We do know that money involved do make a difference.

In Denmark the newspaper BT did reveal that the psychologist working for the social services recommended the placement of two children from the so-called Bronderslev case to a certain group home she also worked for. The two children have escaped a number of times since and it is clear for all except the social services that it would never be a success. In the United States it normal for educational consultants to receive money from both families and the treatment programs they recommend.

It seems to be very difficult to put the interest of the child first once money becomes involved. In this case none did anything to pull her from the residential program before it was too late. She needed treatment but she didn’t get any and it did cost her young life.

Daniel Huerta – 17 year of age

Daniel Huerta had broken the law. The court issued a punishment which was that he had to live at a wilderness based treatment center named Big Cypress Wilderness Institute. While he was at the wilderness program he was transported to various outings. The driver who took him and some of the other residents to one of these outings had more than 15 traffic violations on his record. Still he was allowed to drive residents in the program. The day young Mr. Huerta died the driver lost control of the car and they ended up in the water where the driver and Mr. Huerta died.

Safety should be an issue. It is not the first time residents in programs have lost their lives during transport. In 2010 two teenage girls lost their lives in a traffic accident in Utah. However safety doesn’t seem to be an issue in Florida and for Mr. Huerta this lack of interest did cost him his life.

Anthony Parker – 16 years of age

One Way Farm Children’s Home‎ was well known by the local police department before they were called to the ranch in relationship with the death of young Mr. Parker. 92 times the police was called to the farm. But one this very day they could only note that he was dead. Of course now the focus is on whether the boy who hid young Mr. Parker hours before he became ill and fell down on the ground should be charged as a minor or an adult. However the focus should be on how obvious lack of staffing prevented the conflict between the boys to escalate into a physical confrontation.

The right number of employees per resident is vital. Understaffing is dangerous. Not in a million years can tough programs with thousand of house rules replace presence by the employees. Conflicts will occur at some point when you have more than one person present but they can be talked down before the first fist is thrown if you have an adult with ability to mediate between the residents.

A good defense lawyer would talk this death down to an accident and that a simple conflict between two boys could end as a tragedy certainly was not something which could be planned but the number of employees per child is not an accident. It is economy. Once again money means the difference between life and death.

The fifth unnamed victim – 4 days old

You will not find this victim in Fornits Database because the child wasn’t placed in a residential program. However his mother was and she became so caught up in the program that she returned as a staff member. She lived as a counselor among so-called troubled girls who were taught that sex before marriage is a sin in the eyes of God.

We don’t know how or by whom she became pregnant. We don’t know how she became so traumatized that she saw the child as something evil. We do know that she gave birth to a boy and didn’t know how to care for the child. The child died after 4 days. She hid the child on the remote campus but the body was discovered by her co-workers and word spread to the local police which arrested her.

Life is prison could be the result for her. It is up to the court to decide. However we must ask what led her parents to send her to Julian Youth Academy. How did they evaluate her stay? Why did they allow her to go back and why did the program let a graduate work at their program in a trusted position.

There are so many questions to ask and so few answers given.

Now we are entering 2012. For a long time 2011 seemed to be the first year where teenagers didn’t lose their lives in residential programs – it didn’t end up so.

Shouldn’t we pray that 2012 will be the first year in decade where all the residents in residential programs return home alive.

Sources:

Fornits Victims list
The boy who killed himself on I-5 (My NorthWest blog)
Girl’s Suicide Raises Question About Home For Troubled Youth (CBS Chicago)
Family sues wilderness camp over son's death (ABC 7 news)
Teen's assault worst incident in One Way Farm history, founder says (Dayton Daily News)
Mother arraigned in death of newborn; baby starved to death in Whitmore, report says (The Redding Searchlight)

Wilderness therapy: Shouldn't 2012 be the end of this

2011-12-31T10:24:00.000-08:00

Kurt Hahn developed the early basic for so-called outward bound education before the second world. These ideas were picked up by several schools.

In the 1970's the first wilderness therapy programs began to emerge. However they took only volunteers in and while the survival gear was somewhat primitive compared to the equipment at hand here in 2011, most teenagers who entered these programs made it home.

This all changed when the Reagan and Bush administration in the 1980's declared war on drugs and raise the age of alcohol consumption to 21 in the United States. Such a war demanded strict punishment and when the parents discovered that even minor violations of the law could put their children in jail for decades - in some cases even life, a market for alternative private punishment marketed as therapy was pushed in business based on parental fear for the future of their children.

The first wilderness programs where teenagers were forced into entering the program appeared. Then deaths of such teenagers in the wilderness became headlines in such a number that they eventually were something you could read about on page 34. It was an accepted risk because the alternative was claimed to be a life on drugs and as result deaths or life in prison.

One of the first programs of this new type was named Challenger. It was as almost every modern wilderness programs outdoor adventure combined with boot camp mentality. In closed a few years after it opened because a young girl named Kristin Chase died during the program.

One of our volunteers looked the program up on Facebook and found a group of survivors of the program. While some praise the program despite its harshness there are also those who to this day recent all what did take and basically blame their experience for all the suffering they have experienced in life since. What is true? Is it just something you should get over with or should you speaks up against the lack of fairness?

Life goes on but just as people have to endure scars and injuries from traffic accidents it does meant that you should forget all what was wrong. A girl died in the program and only pure luck prevented others from joining her.

Second those who praise the program forget one thing. It is a basic function in the brain which enables them to select the good things and make them forget the bad elements in the program just as rape victims often are able to hide the ordeal and function relatively normal.

But what about the deaths? Wasn't something learned from Challenger?

No, nothing was learned from her tragic death. In the years since the program closed not a single year has been without deaths in residential treatment programs for children. Several of the deaths in wilderness programs have been exactly copies of her unfortunately death - Deaths which for sure could have been avoided if just the tiniest piece of teaching had been learned from her ordeal.

Wilderness therapy is not safe. It doesn't matter what kind of regulations which are introduced. Records show that there will always be the next set of parents who will receive a coffin instead of a cured child.

Taking teenagers out of their comfort zone should be controversial and the very last resort.

2011 brought awareness of the risk and the suffering among teenagers who are being removed from their homes.

2012 should be the year where the use of wilderness therapy for children who are not willingly entering the program should stop.

That is our simple New Year wish.

An article about the Kids-for-Cash scandal

2011-11-25T14:02:00.000-08:00

In the Morning News John Davidson ran a personal essay about his brief involvement in what later would be known as the Kids-for-Cash scandal.

It is basically a story about his problems dealing with a criminal case which involved so much unjust against a teenage rape victim.

It would be unfair for me to tell you about the contents of the article. Basically you would read it instead.

Source:
The Demands of Cold Blood

California group home: Psyc evaluations of employees needed

2011-11-13T21:36:00.000-08:00

The recent discovery of a mummified baby left by one of the employees of a Christian residential treatment facility leaves the question why there is no rules about a mandatory psychological evaluation of people who want to work with vulnerable teenagers.

The Julian Youth Academy has been controversial for some years. An article in LA Times resulted in a massive debate.

The facility took private paid clients and the job consisted in preventing the teenagers from leaving and inform the authorities until the teenagers surrendered to the special Christian belief they taught at the facility.

It is time to demand stricter rules for facilities like Julian Youth Academy. Mandatory background checks and evaluation of the mental conditions should introduced at once.

Otherwise it is only a question of time before the next case hit the frontpages.

Sources:

UPDATE: Shasta County Woman Arrested For Killing Secret Baby; Infant Found Mummified KRCR TV

Datasheet of the facility on Fornits Wiki

Julian Youth Academy employee arrested for killing baby (A thread on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)

Pasadena Boot Camp illness about to be investigated

2011-10-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

The down of Pasedena has received national attention due to a number of private boot camps for at-risk children operating in the area.

Rather disturbing videos have reached the Internet and it has sparked a Police investigation.

The manager of one of the Boot Camps was charged with kidnapping earlier this year. This case is still pending.

Source:
Boot camp abuses cited - Pasadena Star-News

CNN Report about your local faith based boarding school around the corner

2011-09-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

For some parents the question of choosing a religious boarding school for their sons and daughters is to obvious that they overlook the possible warning signs that something is very wrong.

CNN Anderson Copper 360 reports about a branch of religious boarding schools in the United States which are built on the teachings of Lester Roloff who ran several boarding schools and shelthers in Texas until he died in the 1970s.

It was boarding schools where discipine was upheld with the paddle combined with isolation and forced prayers.

Once Roloff died in a plane crash several of his leading staff member left and created their own boarding school based on the same strategies and they continue to be in operation today.

The worst about this not that they try to exist as they see it as their mission the have to put their lives on the line for just as suicide bomber want to die for his God. What is actually worse is that a lot of states will not supervise these faith based boarding schools.

We are talking teenagers being imprisoned at these boarding schools and none want to do just a little to secure their well-being.

It shouldn't be so when we are talking 2011 but fact is that it is so.

It is shameful for any society to fail to protect the safety of children. We must all demand that we will not accept it.

Testimonies from a lot of students telling about abuse keep coming

2011-09-06T11:48:00.000-07:00

Our Swedish partners over at Minors in residential placement research center told that more than 600 people did view their boarding school blog last month. Hopefully some of the viewers were parents so they will learn about signs of warning before they entrust their children to various programs or boarding schools.

So far 5 blogs have been made. They are:

Tales from the black school (Boarding school stories)

Just another hike (Stories from former participents in wilderness programs)

Asylum horrible (How a stay in a modern residential treatment facility felt like)

Being Transported (Stories about being picked up by Youth Transport firms)

Today a child died (Memorial blog about those who didn't make it home from treatment)

If you have a comment or even your own testimony to give, please visit the blogs.

Horror stories from religious schools in Misouri continues

2011-08-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

The July / August edition of Mother Jones features another story from the religious boarding schools in Missouri which are being run beyond any supervision from the authorities.

We are talking 2011 and an entire area has basically been given up by the authorities. We are not talking of non-working supervision as it is the case in many countries like Denmark, Sweden and most of the U. S. States. We are talking no supervision at all.

It is not surprising that the teenagers suffer at those places.

Because there seems to be no will to solve this problem and save the teenagers from their ordeal it is important re-publish these stories again and again until it is so common knowledge that there is other option for the state of Missouri so secure the safety of the incarcerated teenagers, so please comment the stories on your blog and the message boards you participate in.

In advance thank you very much.

Source:
Horror Stories From Tough-Love Teen Homes, Mother Jones

Solving London riots: The answer has been found in Denmark

2011-08-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

This month London and other cities in the United Kingdom were targeted by a large number of riots.

Behind the riots you find teenagers. It is a new generation of teenagers who have little respect for both society and parents. They have created their own sub-societies with their own set of laws, standards and codes.

Thousand of business are closed, people cannot even go out to buy food for their children, they cannot go to work. The society is basically coming to a stop.

How do you solve this?

The short-term option is to incarcerate them, but as they have discovered in the United States removing people from the society into various residential options is both costly and do not lower crime in the society in the long run.

Denmark have towns where they saw the same kind of problems on smaller scales. In Farum they hired the trouble makers to run a firm which rent boats out to tourists in a nearby lake. The result was an all time low in vandalism and other related crimes.

In the county of Egedal they gave wood to youths so they didn't destroy property well knowning that the youth then would sit down around the fire drinking beer. Then it was easy for the social workers to mingle among the youth and talk to them about future and education.

In Greve they had massive problems with fires. Youth set fire to waste putting people in the nearby houses in Denmark. Today they have a cadet corps where drop-outs and other youth with too much free time at hand can join the fire brigades as volunteers and be sent to various training exercises where they can get the adrenalin kick by trying to put out fires in a controlled environment. Vandalism has stopped.

Idleness is the root of all evil

For the population in the United Kingdom it is now the time to both demand action but also to put in some work in the local community.

Look around: Are there some activities in your local community you need manpower to solve? Can you get the fonds to get it fixed by hired the youth to do this manual labor? Can you get the local fire brigade to take teenagers to training fields for some weekends to teach them basic techniques to put out fires?

Can national services in a more civil form be brought back as a voluntary options where youth who have been given up by the present education system could be given a second chance to excel.

You cannot let teenagers drop out of school and engage in gang activities without suffering some kind of consequnces. We has as Danes learned it the hard way. Our prisons are on the verge of collapse after a gang war, which cost the lives of several persons - some not even involved in the war at all - bystanders who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

But the answer is not increased punishment. The answer is social work and jobs on the long haul.

Sources:

Bådudlejningen har skabt optur, Helene Stolle, Lokalavisen - Farum, August 8, 2011 (The article is in Danish)

Lysdal: Brænde til unge kan gøre os klogere, by Michael Harsvik, Lokalavisen - Egedal, August 4, 2011 (The article is in Danish)

Brandkadetter gør Greve til årets 112-kommune, Hvidovre Avis, February 12, 2011 (The article is in Danish)

London riots: 'A generation who don't respect their parents or police', by Esther Addley, The Guardian, August 9, 2011

Munchausen syndrome by proxy - nightmare for children

2011-08-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

Recently Danish teachers have been under pressure by parents because they demand special care for their child among 25 other students.

They bring in lawyers to school meetings and expect the teacher to be able to teach reading and math so the child is Niels Bohr within months.

Also among 25 percent of the public schools budget is utilized to special education, which is all time high.

Never has so many children been diagnosed with all kind of mental illnesses.

Something is wrong. Why does the society not allow a child to be a quiet child who is doing the work and then choosing to go home instead of hanging out with friends?

Why do we have a society where everyone should be forced to socialize instead of reading books, concentrate on arts at home and just enjoy pets and family at home?

Every parent does worry about their child. They do want their child to outlive the child’s potential. Of course they ask for advice by professionals, but are they given the right advices?

In some countries the parents ask private educational consultants. In other countries they ask social workers and psychologists paid by the schools. Can they expect to receive a real answer which serves the child best or will they receive an answer which would suit the system or whatever party who is paying most of the salary for the person they ask?

In the United States parents often learn the hard way that whatever they pay the educational consultant the real salary is paid by schools and programs which the educational consultants refer the children to. There are no ways they can ensure if the recommendation of a specific solution will be in the best interest of their child.

In systems where the payment is done over the taxes there are no insurance also. There are no way the parents can check if the caseworker is referring their child to a specific school due to the political interest of the city council, the case worker has a colleague which is corrupt or the psychologists is basing the recommendation on her possible other job as psychologists for the school or group home, which is recommended.

Parents are often confused by all those who want allot of things for their children and mixed with possible ambitions they have, some of them can get sick. In extreme cases the parents can be suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

One such case is the case of 13 year old Ben Barnhard who was gunned down by his own mother.

From the very start of his life, his mother had ambitions on behalf of him. Ambitions he might had achieved if she hadn't been hammering on the doors of various experts all his life.

A divorce court filing lists 18 specialists involved in Ben's care, and Jensvold's own suicide note hints at some of the child's difficulties: "writing problems, migraines, hearing things" - and "a bit paranoid."

He was overweight. It is well-known that a lot of medication causes weight gain. Instead of implementing a diet and start exercising with her child the mother instead send him to a special boarding school - Wellspring Academies - which treat such things for the sum of $50,000.

It is not known who the mother consulted. Did some of them even suggest that the mother sought treatment herself instead? She had a history of lawsuits even before she got her child which had no basis.

Because the mother wasn't examined before this tragedy happened it is not possible for me to claim that she suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy or her constant search for treatment options was pushed by the advices she got.

We must urge the parents to seek second opinions when it comes to the recommendations they receive from case workers and educational consultants.

Based on the fact that residential treatment includes increased risk of sexual molestation, crime and increased difficulties becoming integrated with the normal life outside, this option should always be the very last used.

As relatives we must also enforce ourselves on family members which tend to isolate themselves with their children. Check in on them in a soft way where you don't impose your ideas of how they should live their lives but state that you are ready to listen.

Maybe a combination of such second guessing of external advices and tighter bonds in the family could have saved the life of 13 year old Ben Barnhard. It is not to know but can we let the next child slip too? Should we at least not make the try?

Sources:

»Du hører fra min advokat, hvis Emilie ikke snart kan læse«, by Christian Kloster, 24 timer (Article in Danish language)

Hver fjerde krone går til specialundervisning, by Jesper Kappel, Lokal-avisen, August 9, 2011 (Article in Danish language)

Md. mom who killed son agonized over school costs, by Eric Tucker, NBC 29 news, August 9, 2011

Münchausen syndrome by proxy, Wikipedia article

Last Chapter of Hidden Lake Academy / Ridge Creek School?

2011-08-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

We have just learned that Ridge Creek School in Dahlonega has closed its doors. Any plans to let the school open under a new name seem not to be emerging any time soon.

Hidden Lake Academy did open its doors back in 1994. Very soon it became one of the most well-known therapeutic boarding schools in Georgia.

They opened a wilderness program which they used for evaluation of coming boarding school students. Maybe too many were "diagnosed" as suiting for the regime the school wanted to use in order to treat the students.

It didn't take many years before the first complaints became public. After the internet became widespread it was no longer possible to keep former unsatisfied students from communicating with each other.

Lawsuits were in the making. Change of staff and management over the time did not improve the situation. The rather isolated environment which the school had established itself in made it rather difficult to attract employees with the right type of education. Sometime the employees who had to deal with the students on daily basis were only just out of high school.

Were there power trips executed by the employees? According to various testimonies it was very often the case. Inexperienced and uneducated staff given too much power in such an environment is an explosive combination no management should allow but what does the management do when the shareholders demand profit?

As result suicide or suicide attempts is an all too common thing happening to the alumni’s.

The news station FOX5 did cover the last months of the timeline up to the closure. 10 to 15 years too late after many opinions. It is not a pretty sight.

What do the future hold for the local community in now where one of their larger workplaces is closing down? It doesn't look good. All too many group homes and therapeutic boarding schools are establishing themselves out in the countryside where they force the local communities to become dependent of them.

Was there something overlooked by the local authorities due to this marriage of pure need between the school and the local authorities? Did the political establishment and law-enforcing agencies try to play some of their more extreme occurrences at the school down in order to save jobs for the local community?

Many things indicate that it was the case.

And when it comes to cover-ups in scandals in group homes, foster care families and therapeutic boarding schools it is rather common. Even as far away as in Denmark we have learned that local teachers and other locals did complain about violence at a foster care family in the Danish hamlet named Mern. 20 years some knew that something was very, very wrong. Reports were made and they were lost - by whom? The police investigation by the local police is not targeted at other than the accused parents. None want to investigate such a cover-up. Everybody knows that thousand of DKK exchange hands between social services, foster care families and group homes.

Should Denmark be anything different than Pennsylvania known for the Kids-for-Cash scandal?

Should Denmark be anything different that just the next educational consultant which are paid both by parents to find the best treatment for their child and the various schools and programs for sending the child to their school?

It would be naive to believe so!

But back in Georgia everybody are now waiting to see whether the closure is the end of 17 years of suffering among teenagers or it will be the start of a new chapter under a different name.

Only the future will tell.

Sources:
Hidden Lake Academy on Fornits Wiki
I-Team: Ridge Creek School, Fox 5 news, July 8, 2011
I-Team: Ridge Creek School Closes, Fox 5 news, August 1, 2011
Children abused for 20 years, by Jes Højen Nielsen, Denmarks Radio, August 1, 2011

Minors in residential placement research center will feature the Swedish foster care system

2011-07-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

Over the next 6 month on their main blog we will see a number of posts covering the defunct Swedish foster care system.

World over the Swedish system has been admired. The Danish minister of social services once asked the Danish social workers to look at what is working in Sweden and try to incoporate into the Danish system.

In reality it is very difficult to achieve that because the Swedish system is to place youth far out in remote places in their numerous forests isolated at foster families without the proper skills to deal with the problems the youth may suffer from. It does work because the youth become too demoralized to act out when there are none to act out in front and they cover their problems up until they are adults where they then can start earning money enough until they can afford treatment for themselves unless they have committed suicide before or fallen victim to some kind of substance abuse they have started to get away from their painful memories.

Here is the link to the blog of Minors in residential placement research center

Marketing traps is the basis of the industry

2011-07-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

I-Team: Ridge Creek School: MyFoxATLANTA.com

Fox has investigated Ridge Creek School - formerly known as Hidden Lake Academy.

It is by far the first care where parents have been fooled by deceptive marketing to enroll their children in residential programs only to find out that nothing they saw on the homepage had anything to do with the reality.

It doesn't help to visit the schools. The students parents may talk to are students chosen by the school and offered the favor of promoting the schools in return for advancement in the program or even early release.

If parents really want to protect their teenagers they should choose out-patient therapy where they can intervene if the situation gets out of hand. Secondly they should take the chances by the social services or even at the justice system. Then of course it would be a question if the foster care system protects the children well enough and there are flaws, but in the public system they have appeals and they can urge the media to go after the social workers who neglect their jobs.

Once you are up against a private company you as a parent has not the right to be given oversight about what is happening with your own child.

Parents should be very carefully not to grant custody of their own children to private firms obviously operating only for profit both inside the United States and outside.

What parents fear from the justice system

2011-05-22T00:02:00.000-07:00

In a time where politicians cannot expect to be elected if they try to explain how they will solve the financial crisis, they turn to selling very popular messages about fighting crime and increase punishment for those who are caught.

In a country like Denmark we have not yet a 3-strike rule but in the last years we have lowered the age of criminal responsibility and removed a youth discount so 14 year old child can be given life in theory where 8 years were the maximum penalty before.

Of course a crime should not go unpunished if it has been done by a person aged 17 years or younger, but at that age it should be possible to alter and mold this person into a responsible adult.

This work should be done by professionals. It is not about breaking the kids because they are broken when they come in. It is a long, hard move and there would be setbacks.

Unfortunately the general political message is not based on knowledge but rather on what do sell when it comes to the voters.

So in some places the juvenile detentions centers are hardly of a standard you want to see taking into consideration that we are talking year 2011.

In Denmark the staff at group homes has been given increased space to use restraints and lock children into their room. It could be worse.

In a place like Forrest County abuse have been neglected in their juvenile detention center. Southern Poverty Law Center has intervened into this matter.

The question is whether such horrible things take place in other youth facilities protected not only by incompetence by the superiors but also by the politicians because they want to sell a message about being tough on crime.

But parents do know. The private treatment sector lives of fear by parents that a wrong decision may put their children into the hands of such detention officers so in many cases the parents choose to lock their children up even before any law is broken to keep their children safe from such conditions. Also cases where there never would have been any risk of a law being broken.

So in order to keep children from unnecessary treatment we must bring awareness of the conditions at group homes and juvenile detention centers. Such abuse must stop. These kids may have broken the law but they should face consequences decided by the courts or the social services where civil rights is not granted to children instead of a punishment given by a random staff member.

Source:
SPLC Sues Mississippi County After 'Shocking' Video Shows Abuses at Juvenile Facility (Press-release)

Teen Challenge also present in Denmark

2011-05-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

The Danish market for alcohol and drug rehab are without any governmental control. The two Danish television stations have uncovered both religious influence and in some cases even fraud against public funds aimed at helping people in need.

One of the larger firms in the United States - Teen Challenge - is now confirmed to be operating inside Denmark.

We urge the authorities in Denmark to observe the nature of such religious treatment facilities very carefully.

Sources:
Behind the walls - Teen Challenge exposed
Teen Challenge category, Fornits Wiki
Global Teen Challenge - Starting with letter D
60 procent af narkobehandling er religiøst funderet (TV2 east, In Danish only)
Fik støtte på forkert grundlag, (TV2 Fyn, In Danish only)

Golden year of 2011

2011-04-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

Aspen Education Group in the United States has announced that they want to restructure.

In reality it means that they are closing down residential treatment facilities because years of critical coverage has questioned whether the residents would have been better served receiving counseling and therapy at their home for a fraction of the price residential care costs.

The following programs are annouced to close:

Bromley Brook School (Manchester Center, VT)
New Leaf Academy of Oregon
NorthStar Center (Bend, Oregon)
Aspen Ranch (Loa, Utah)
SunHawk Adolescent Recovery Center (St. George, Utah)

But also Elan School is about to close. They claim that the decision was made due to a campain against them on the Internet. Did they realize that once the former residents turned 18 they would start to talk openly about what did happen?

We are living in year 2011. The Internet enables the former students to find old classmates and for them to create community groups so they can work the trauma they experienced during their stay at residential programs.

Last but least we have published the story about yet another raid down in Costa Rica.

We hope that these closures are a start where focus on treatment of problems among minors are on treatment at home and in the local community so the minors can maintain their social network while they are cured.

Sources:
Elan School closing after Web campaign to shut it down (By Judith Meyer, Sun Journal, March 23, 2011)
Aspen Education Group To Restructure Programs (Strugglingteens.com - industry marketing firm, March 24, 2011)

Yet another raid of a boarding school in Costa Rica

2011-03-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Years ago the authorities in Costa Rica shut a boarding school named Academy at Dundee Ranch down. While the boarding school continues to be in operation under another name a new boarding school also located in Costa Rica became headline news when it was raided and the students rescued from possible abuse.

The school is called Mentor School. It is located in a former hotel.

The police was alerted by people in the neighborhood and the students are now safe.

For more information, please see the sources below:

PANI Rescues 20 Young Americans Who Suffered Various Attacks, Inside Costa Rica, March 22, 2011
Mentor School, Fornits Wiki Datasheet
Academy at Dundee Ranch, Fornits Wiki Datasheet

Residential treatment - not promising for any child

2011-01-10T01:47:00.000-08:00

In a long article the Washington City Paper does reveal how damaging intensive use of residential treatment can be.

When you remove minors from their home and their personal network, they feel it like a punishment. Humans are social beings and their emotional well-being is very depended of the resources in the local community.

Still some states and countries remove a higher number of children from the care of their families without exploring the full extent of these resources. They don't ask whether grandparents or the extended family could aid the parents in the process of parenting. They write their reports so they can create more work for their department and colleges.

The department of social services operates in many aspects just as private firm. They are looking for work and income.

It is hard for the local politicians to supervise this area as it is a specialized area demanding a high level of knowledge and education.

So often the department of social service is out of control where they demand a growing percentage of the limited budget the public sector can use for the good of the entire population.

Especially during these times where the economy is under pressure and the residential treatment facilies as well as group homes cuts in staff expenses the time has come for a dramatic review of the procedures used in the public sector both in the United States as well as in other countries using residential treatment options.

The money is better spent utilize the use of the network around the individual child. Just because some parts of the family dynamics are broken it should not end up in throwing the entire network away.

We can only urge the politicians to set up an analyse of the expenses in this sector. There are consultant firms which can improve the possibilities the politicians makes the decisions based upon but also the conditions for the children involved in the system.

Reference:
Outsourcing Troubled Kids, Washington City Paper, By Jason Cherkis, January 7, 2011

A very special Christmas greeting

2010-12-25T04:06:00.000-08:00

All over the world children are right now not together with their parents on Christmas Eve. Removed from their parents and placed in residential programs for so-called treatment, they are robbed off their freedom. Very often not because they have committed any crime, very often just because they live on terms with the youth culture of 2010 parented by parents who base their values on the values from their own childhood, which were between 1960 and 1980.

Back then there was no Internet. The cold war had a deep impact on how we lived our lives. In general we had little knowledge of how other people lived their lives.

Today every teenager knows that the very people who make their music, their movies have problems on their own. They learn of the arrests, the drug use even before it is published in the newspapers we as parents buy down at the shop. They also learn of earth quakes, hunger, war and other cruel events on humanity minutes, sometime even seconds after such news happen.

Are they allowed to be worried? Are they allowed to show their frustration – to hit the wall or shout out their grief, show their anger?

No, because we have made some new moral standards where life is not allowed to hurt!
Here is our message to our children:

If life becomes too hard for you then there is a pill for it. If that pill does not work, we have a secluded place for you with a simple version of the normal life you so obvious cannot cope with.

So these children suddenly find themselves isolated from family and friends and they are not even given a trial so they can step up and explain their behavior.

Is it odd that some of them try to run away? That they find themselves in a so awful situation that an escape seems to be the only answer?

Of course not!

But the awful about such a situation is that it very easy becomes a criminal act where people – staff, neighbors or police officers - risk being victim of actions occurring during their escape.

Many parents tend to choose to place their children at a correctional boarding school as a pre-emptive choice so they can prevent their children from a life in crime - a choice which is easy to understand if the law looks at crime done by minors in the same way as a crime done by adult. If a society chooses to punish every day activity as drinking a beer with friends, then parents get scared. They recognize a juvenile court system not targeting helping the teenagers. The stories about horrible juvenile prisons and group homes with abuse are known. Cases where judges are paid off by owners of juvenile prisons are also known.

So the parents often turn to professionals which they believe would do a better job. However they are not aware how a certain recommendation is given. It is given based on a referral fee. Thousands of dollars changes owner and then a child is removed from the home.

When the children are locked away in residential treatment centers where the mix of staff is 1-40 when it comes to professional treatment specials compared to people earning minimum salary with an experience a few months out of the high school, they are very fast to adapt a subculture based on negative peer group experiences. It doesn’t matter how strict the rules are or how friendly the names of the teams and dorms sound. Sub-cultures will always form and the children will learn how to navigate in this system. Basically they will try to survive as any human being placed in an unfamiliar and hostile environment.

So when the residential treatment center shuts down for the day and leave a lonely night staff to supervise dozen of teenagers all over the treatment center, some of the children could choose to run. If they are discovered then they could choose to fight. When they are discovered by neighbors or the police they could choose to steal cars and run.

It was what did happen in Lumpkin County in Georgia where two girls named Daniella Albegiani and Julieann Vaughn fought a single staff member, took a car and tried to drive away from the police. They are now in jail and will spend their Christmas away from their family. The bond is low, but still they have not been picked up by their family. Why the parents are not present in the lives of their daughters? We can only guess how the parental responsibility is non-existing in this case.

These girls choose to do the crime because they were already doing the time. We cannot know whether the conditions in the local jail is better than at the correctional boarding school they attended, but research done on the internet tell a story which seem to indicate that their situation is basically the same with the difference that they now will get a criminal record due to their escape.

We must remember that while teenagers like these girls may not worsen their situation by going to jail instead of living in a wilderness program, private boot camp or a correctional boarding school, they did risk the health of the neighbors and police officers.

That’s why we as owners of private properties always have to ask questions when a private so-called treatment center wants to establish themselves next door. The police should ask that laws order the residential treatment centers to report every single incident of restraint and runaways. Only when the full extent of the operation is known to the public then the local community can know what they need to handle every time some of the children try to run.

Georgia needs to make new legislation. The staff member was hurt but the management of this correctional boarding school had to intend to report this act of violence before the police began their investigation. It was only when the police entered the boarding school that they learned the full story. It is wrong!

What also is wrong is that some states allow children in residential care when a correctional boarding school chooses to name their place something else. In South Carolina a correctional boarding school named Carolina Springs Academy was shut after a similar escape took place. Now they are trying to reopen as a Christian boarding school which demands no regulation. Why we have to ask? The risk for the neighbors is the same despite the name of the school.

We can only send a plea to the government of South Carolina to update the laws so a residential solution for minors shall answer to the same minimum standards despite what they choose to call their facility.

As for Miss Albegiani and Miss Vaughn we can only urge their parents to act like parents instead of being such of name only.

It is impossible to understand why the parents did choose to break up their family, but please reunite it in the name of humanity.

We must hope that 2011 will prove that residential placement of minors is a thing of the past. Problems start in the local community. They need to be fixed in the local community. If you doubt this please ask Miss Albegiani and Miss Vaughn. They are not worse off in the local prison compared to the school, but they would properly prefer not to have chosen to commit a crime suiting them doing the time.

Dear Albegiani and Vaughn

Merry Christmas to you and anybody else in that awful situation. We don't support your actions, but understand how you came to taking them. May you find your way to freedom and home in the end.

Regards

References:
Inmate locator - Lumpkin County sheriff
Students charged with assault, robbery of teacher, The Dahlonega Nugget
Datasheet about Ridge Creek School on Fornits Wiki
School of Troubles: Another chance for abandoned boarding school, Independent Mail
Datasheet about Magnolia Hills Christian School

Why does children need to criminalize themselves before they can get a legal defence

2010-12-02T06:42:00.000-08:00

This week two girls ran from a correctional boarding school in Georgia. They assaulted a lonely night staff member and took the car. The police got involved and it resulted in damage to a lot of property.

Now the girls are resting at the Lumpkin County Detention Center waiting for a trial where they are charged with aggravated assault, armed robbery, second degree criminal damage to property and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and armed robbery.

It is first now where they have hurt another person, done damage to property that they get what most people consider a basic human right. The right to a legal defense based on their actions.

They saw no lawyer before they were forced from their home to this school or even worse to a wilderness program as a step before entering the school. Wilderness programs which have claimed the lives of teenagers both in 2009 and 2010.

They saw no lawyer before they was denied communication with their peers back home or maybe even parts of their extended family who may not have agreed with the detention their parents had decided on.

Why are we pushing these kids into a corner where they see no other alternative to react in such a violent nature that the society have to charge them and supply them with a criminal record?

It is far from the first incident. Turn-about Ranch recognized from the Dr. Phil show did experience two staff members being beat up by three teenagers in 1994.

A case which caught national attention was when 3 pregnant teenagers escaped New Hope Maternity Home beating up the wife of the director as they feared that they would have become a part of the many adoption schemes which had been operating in the United States the last 3 decades.

However many of these cases are never known for the public. In the case from Georgia the boarding school did not report the assault. Why? They had a hurt employee!

The answer are simple: The parents pay for a product. They fear that the lifestyle of their child would end up in a criminal record at one point. In a society where 1 percent of the entire population is locked up in prison, this is a real risk. The school did choose to put the product over the safety of their employee. One employee to guard an entire dorm in a school that can house hundred of teenagers. It is close to neglect by it self!

So they order a pre-emptive arrest of their own child. They order a private youth transportation firm to collect their child in their own home in handcuffs and legirons. Then the child is sent to a remotely located boarding school if they are so lucky that they can avoid the boarding school.

No lawyer - no right to a trial - no defence.

And the worst part is that the supreme court has given parents this right if they just see to one thing. Every restraint, every physical force used against their child has to be done by a hired person. First then it is legal. If parents put their own child in handcuffs and force them to go, the parents will go to prison.

But for the child the abuse must seem to be the same. It doesn't matter who is doing this to them.

All kind of advice given by the parents are lost:

"Do not walk with strangers." Well when they cuff you on command by us parents, it is OK.

"We will protect you against all evil". Then you like poor Aaron Bacon, Sergey Blashchishen, Shanice Nibbs and many others die out in the desert where is the truth in this statement?

We are forcing these kids to violence when we neglect them in such a way.

There is no other solution than to get the Supreme court to reconsider their ruling and demand that every child has a right to a hearing at their local social services before they are removed from their home and sent to a boarding school, boot camp or wilderness program.

Every person should be entitled to a legal defense before they are removed from our society. Also and especially a child.

References:
Students charged with assault, robbery of teacher, By Matt Aiken, The Dahlonega Nugget, December 1, 2010
3 teens sentenced for beating 2 counselors, Deseret News, Aug. 27, 1994
3 Pregnant Teens Attack Utah Group Home Director With Frying Pan, Flee in Stolen Van, FoxNews, January 19, 2007

Tell your boarding school story

2010-10-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

You are now a young adult. You know where you came from. You know what your story is. But can you tell it?

Minors in residential placement research center has started a blog where you can tell your story.

A stay in a residential setting has its positive and negative sides. You meet a lot of people you would never have met if you had remained at home. Being a part of a peer group 24/7 in a restricted environment means that there is a price to pay. You know that you in order to survive have to fit in. You have to remove some of the personality which makes you an individual.

Then there of course are the rules of residential facility. They can be tough, they can be relaxed. Some of the rules were hard to justify. The reason for them may have been impossible to live under. Some made sense now where you are able to look back at them.

How did the stay impact you? Did it open some doors or did it close some? Does your family understand what you went through?

The Swedish organization want to hear your story and they want you to write one of their representatives on this address: jonase(a)mail-online.dk

The blog itself can you read here:

Tales from the black school

Sweden has its problems of its own

2010-08-29T14:59:00.001-07:00

We have been in contact with a small Non-govermental organization called "Minors in residential placement research center".

The organization was founded by officials working in public positions around Sweden. They prefer not to show their names.

Some Danes might remember the name Sofie Lohede. The Danish magazine called Ude & Hjemme did print her story some years ago.

It is a rather tragic story about a teenager from Sweden who did suffer from some emotional problems which led her family to reach out to the authorities for help. The so-called help they got was to send young Miss Lohede to a group home which practiced a special kind of supervision.

The older and more street-wise girls at the group home lured the then 14 year old girl out in town and there she was molested by a middel aged man.

Her family discovered that something was wrong and took her home. She confessed that she had been raped and had to testify against the man. Unfortunately she was so afraid of him that she did choose to end her life instead of confronting him in court. He was convicted to only 3 years based on evidence and a similar treatment of another girl.

The website also include a story of another girl and some legal articles.

They have promised to help us making people aware of the existense of the Academy at Sisters where we are involved in keeping a young girl from Hillsboro home and in freedom.

We will pray that we can enable our combined resources in the future.

Reference:
Minors in residential placement research center

Sometime we don't know, sometimes we close our eyes

2010-07-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

Our attention was just called to a new Spanish movie called Tranquility Valley. It is a movie about a father and a son going through a difficult period in their relationship.

Feeling that the problems with the family dynamics has gotten out of hand, the father decide to enroll his son in an education center, where they teach the children to control themselves. The father doesn't know how it is done and as the movie continues we see some horror not very unlike what has happened in real life several places in even countries being a part of the modern western world.

You may as a parent ask. If I cannot control my child and he is outgrowing me in strength, then what would it take to control him. Can it be done without some violence? Can it be done preserving the dignity of the child?

We would like to believe so. Every parent loves their children but sometime we fool ourselves.

When the Danish Television channel DR sent a documentary about children placed at Schuberts Minde many viewers didn't like what they saw. They didn't like that the staff told a child that he had to give up earrings given as a very personal gift from one of his parents. They didn't like that the staff didn't allow the child to wear clothes seen on a normal street in Denmark. The poor child lost out both his history and the identity he had built for his entire life. What the viewers failed to realize was that removing personal items and clothes is a important step to break down the spirit of a person you are about to confine in a strict and very regulated environment. Some places they dont stop with the clothes and jewelries. They remove the hair also in order to erase the identity further.

The drama in the Danish facility is far from what is to be seen in the movie but the emotional suffering is not. The real question is what institutionalized children carry with them once they are returning to freedom. The experience we have learned so far is not promising.

Sometime the fight for human rights feels like a lost cause

2010-07-14T03:58:00.000-07:00

As it has happened so many times before, a teenager approached the U.S. message board Fornits for help. The parents of a teenage girl called Morgan had given up any chances for local counseling and looked into an enclosed boarding school which markets them as a treatment center. Let me state. I have not visited the boarding school. I will not doubt that the mother of the girl visited a nice campus with horses and well-kept buildings. The specific treatment center called Academy at Sisters has two campuses. A campus they can use as a kind of showroom and a campus where new clients are kept until they adapt the guidelines of the school.

But as with all residential centers there are well-kept secrets. In Denmark a TV-program followed four teenagers at a Danish residential treatment center called Schuberts Minde. We saw one restraint and we saw how the teenagers were forced to remove personal items like earrings given to them by a parent as a very personal gift, clothing which are generally accepted in the public to be worn by even adults at work and we saw how they and their luggage were searched as if they were entering a prison. At the Danish residential treatment centers the psychological break down of the teenager was done calmly over an entire day. They did use hours quietly stating what they want and in the end they were able to persuade the teenager to lose his identity. Now they had a teenager with no resistance they could shape into their little enclosed world.

But there is a problem with this method. The teenager will need time to adjust back to the society now where his identity is nowhere useful in a modern workplace. Some of us are old enough to remember what happened once the wall came down and the two Germany’s united. The western Germany took over entirely. The main reason was that you had a population in East German who was like the teenagers at Schuberts Minde. Not ready to engage into their own destiny, with no long-term plans for their future. They were able to follow rules only.

The answer the residential centers give is that it will take time. It is a good answer – for the residential treatment centers. Residential treatment is 5-10 times more costly that any outpatient treatment. Places like Schuberts Minde charge the Danish society around 8-14,000 dollars per month to the Danish society. It can be done cheaper even in Denmark but then you replace trained counselors with untrained employees. In Denmark everybody can start a residential treatment center if they unite themselves with a few trained professionals. The cheapest of the residential treatment facilities tend to locate themselves in areas with large unemployment. There is oversight by the local authorities but the real security for the children is the local department of social security back home. The most skilled visit their clients to ensure that they don’t end up more damaged after the treatment than before. Sadly there is a lot room for improvement. A manager for a prison on Zealand told the press that the children in many cases could do better with time in prison because there are no national minimum standard and the teenagers he receives are destroyed and unable to function properly in a normal community.

But the parents of Morgan faces even bigger trouble than the parents typically face in Denmark. While the children in Danish residential treatment centers have a watchdog in the local department of social security the teenagers in U.S. treatment has none to come and visit them. The parents are given this task but often are they involved too closely in the treatment so they are unable to step back and look at the process from the outside.

The persons who should ensure human standards for the child placed in the program by holding on the only thing a residential treatment center respects – the money – are suddenly also a patient.

It is not wrong to treat the parents. Very often the parents are raising their child based on 20 to 30 years old experiences. 20-30 years back we had no internet, no cell-phones, no twitter etc. We didn’t have to worry about an earthquake on the other side of the world being thrown into our face in real-time. I remember my 2 year old daughter asking me why the towers fell on 9/11. Is people jumping out of a building to their deaths something to let a two year old watch? No, of course not but she saw it at a supermarket while we were shopping as I as a parent failed to realize that televisions were sold next to the toys. I was not aiming to destroy my child’s world that was built on a Disney like morale. It wasn’t the time where I wanted to tell her that humans can be evil too. But I failed as a parent that day and I had to take the consequences and teach her a lesson I was spared for until later in my life when I was child.

As a parent I early realized that I had to learn to parent a child after the millennium. I could not use the methods from my childhood, only the values I was raised by. It is here that many parents go wrong. It is possible to keep your values as a family while the methods are changed. You don’t need to throw it all away. An example is destruction of property. It was not acceptable to destroy property just it was boring when I was a child. It is certainly not acceptable for my children to destroy property just they are boring today. When I was bored I had to figure out that I could take my fishing rod and use some hours to angle. If my children are bored they have to figure out that they can turn on their computer or game console and spend some hours using them.

We can agree upon that childhood ends too soon. In many residential treatment centers we often hear of 15-17 years old children who play like in the old days. The childhood is artificial extended and it can be done because they are locked out of the real world. It does keep them safe, but it does not make them citizens ready to face the challenges of the modern world. The risk that they will go out in the world and act their adolescence out, when they are aged 20 or more is huge. Statistically people in the 20’s are more at risk in a modern society than teenagers.

You may ask what is wrong by delaying the chemical process teenagers go through with 5 to 10 years and the main problem is that the brain of people at that age does not accept mortality. Once they are legally adults they fool themselves to believe that they have to make it without parental guidance. They have access to things that demand a brain which has been through the restructure of the brain a teenager undergoes. To operate a car demands a mature brain. It demands that the driver has cured the curiosity of experimenting with alcohol. Otherwise we risk experiments with driving under influence and tragedies when people are killed as result of these experiments.

Once a child reaches the age of 18 certain aspects of live has to have been experienced if we want to create a responsible adult. The task of a parent is to give guidance through this tough period of the entire family unit. Guidance is many things and it is not friendship. It is a mix of giving consequences, empathy, teaching and love. It is properly the toughest task any human can take on. You have no guidebook, you have no answer book.

Morgan’s parents are in the middle of it and they reached out. We must all praise the parents who accept that they have limitations and reach out for help. It must never be shameful to ask for help. We are talking of the most costly resource our society produce – our children. No effort can be too much to help a family unit to function. The optimal solution would have to be to look at the family unit at the very place where it should function – at the home. Only when we are talking of illness among the adult members of the family unit or the parents choose to opt out of the role as a parent the question should be asked whether it is the right place for the children to live. In any other situation the problem started in the family unit and it should be solved in the family unit.

The parents of Morgan reached out. They got poor counseling which recommended them that Morgan should be removed from the family unit. Morgan found out because her parents in general were among those who have good values which enables them to include Morgan about the advices the professionals gave them. It is important as a parent to be honest. If you are angry with something your child has done tell them why you are disappointed. Don’t shout it. It is not a good idea to teach your child how a good barrier of communication is constructed. There are parents who cannot engage in communication. In the United States parents with little or poor communication skills can hire a firm to remove a child from the home in handcuffs and shackles and send them to a residential treatment center of their choice.

Morgan also reached out by use of Yahoo Answers and Fornits. Morgan seems to be a teenage girl with plans for her future. She has plans for her career; she was plans for visiting foreign cultures. While she like most teenagers are challenged by the chemical changes in her brain, she has sent signs through her writings letting the readers know that she is doing more than just living in the present. She might make poor choices in the daily life but it is exact there where the guidance comes into the picture. It was clear for everyone that there was something to build upon; something which could excel over time.

Sadly she got far from good counseling. At Fornits you find many who have been sent to residential treatment centers when they were children. But it is not all. They were guinea pigs for treatment methods where many have since been banned and sadly also many treatment methods which were just refined but still included methods which would be a criminal offense in many countries. It did cause damage. Fornits does also include poster working for the industry trying to downplay the history of residential treatment. It is difficult to explain how frustrated the survivors are just because they don’t have physically evidence of the damage the so-called treatment has caused. Had they just received a lobotomy then it would be like clear evidence before the court of time.

The problem with Fornits is that the present of the lobbyists from the modern industry is like a red cloth before their faces. The most extreme of the survivors do hold their parents accountable because they pay for their torment. They fail to realize that their parents failed their jobs as parents because they were poorly guided by not only the professionals at the program but also by politicians using youth crime and so-called antisocial behavior to be re-elected. The last 30 years of experiments at residential programs will be something the society will have to pay for the next 50 years.

Some show Morgan’s parents as evil and they decide to create a page targeted against the parents. I have difficulties how to find words for this action. I cannot condemn it enough. While the parents have received poor guidance they don’t need to be attacked in this way.

Morgan came for help. She wanted to know what kind of boarding school the Academy at Sisters is. She wanted to know what to expect. Here is some basically guidelines:

Once you arrive at the residential facility the staff needs to ensure that you focus on the subculture they want you to live in. It is restricted compared to what you have been used to. Things like music, television, cell-phone and Internet you have been used to at home will not be present in the facility. It will be called contrabands regardless of how innocence your use of these items is. You have to understand that they want you to focus on their guidelines and it means that every kind of distraction must be removed. Because the student manual unlike normal boarding schools is missing on the homepage we cannot tell you if earrings and your own clothes will have to be removed also in order to ensure complete focus. We also don’t know if they believe that contraband can be hidden inside the body. At some residential treatment centers they check for it, at others not.

Your parents will be told that you need some time to adjust and the contact to them will be a distraction for you. At some treatment centers this time can turn out to be months or even close to a year, at some places this time may be a months. General guidelines from professionals here in Denmark are that no child can keep out their appearance for more than 14 days. At some point they will test the boundaries. It is this test the professionals wait for because they want to replace the structure of communication you have at home with the structure used at the treatment center.

The treatment center wants to secure that your parents also involves them in your treatment so the home you return to are changed to modeled after the subculture at the treatment center. The treatment center acknowledges that the wish for a change which led your parents to this decision was created by their own actions. They have to learn at least as many rules as you do. First they have to learn that the rules of the center always apply – even their home. The treatment center is the judge. If you complaint you parent will learn that they should not take your words for it. Only the treatment center! Once they have learned their lesson they can be allowed to speak to you in person. If you have family members who are critical towards the treatment they will be denied access to you. The peer group you may have known all your life will also be cut off.

You are sent to the treatment center for a problem may not acknowledge. It may not be real or diagnosed by a professional which treat people without financial involvement with the treatment center. It is quite normal for professionals to get referrals from treatment centers. But you have to learn how to deal with the imposed issue. It is a tough real life lesson. When you are adults you will be faced with decisions you have no influence on. We are talking economy where your work can be lost regardless of how good you are doing. You may be involved in a high jacking or car accident as passenger. You still have to deal with them and go on from there. While you may have some kind of agreement with your parents about how long you will be staying there is no upper limit beside your 18 years birthday. If your parents become too involved with the treatment they can be caught up at it.

It is hard to tell what you can take with you from such a stay. It might even restrict your present dreams about a future. A miss-diagnose are dangerous even when we are not talking surgical treatment. In general we can read from prison-statistics that once the problems at adolescents has reached the need for residential treatment the later life will be challenged by not only the original issues but also issues created during the residential treatment. Even at normal hospitals mind-based transfer of diseases are known. It is a huge risk at residential treatment centers because you live so close to the other residents.

Morgan. I can only once again deeply regret that both you and your parents didn’t get the help you should have gotten at Fornits.

I cannot tell you how to ease the burden and how you can get to talk to someone who can give you access a proper grievance protocol. There are no adult professional which can pull you if the treatment is not proper for your needs.

Sometime the fight for human treatment of children is a climb up of a steep road.

References:
Academy at Sisters, a thread on the Fornits message board
Looks like somebody posted Morgan's parents to ED, a thread on the Fornits message board
Academy at Sisters - Fornits Wiki

The first 14 year old charged with a crime in Denmark

2010-07-06T00:42:00.000-07:00

July 1 Denmark changed the age limit for criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 based on the success learned from the U.S. In order to create a safe society the lesson learned is that you need to lock 1 percent of the entire population up in prisons so the rest can live in peace. It is called “a new start” by the politicians.

A couple of hours later the first arrest was made.

It was a 14 year old boy who had stole a car and had gone for a joyride where he reached speeds around 110 miles per hour. The speed itself would have been of no concern if it had been done on high ways because experiences from Germany tells us that speed limits is not needed (They don't have any on most of their high ways). Second spending time on a race track is a mandatory part of the education of new drivers in civilized countries. The problem was that he drove his car on ordinary roads where he could have killed some or ended up as Porsche girl.

But what is known about this boy?

The local journalists found that he in fact was on a home visit from a residential program. He had been detained at this facility by the social services because he used to hang around older teenagers who didn't dare to shoplift or break into houses because they risked criminal consequences. Those older teenagers had made their own little crowd in the best Fagin style.

However criminal investigation is pricey and the social services decided to remove the younger teenagers to residential facilities instead of letting the police investigate. Fagin-boys as we have chosen to mention them is quite ordinary in Denmark and the penalty for playing Mr. Fagin himself is a joke. Now where the law has been changed the criminals have already adjusted so you in certain neighborhoods can find 12- or 13 years old committing crimes.

The crime wave in the little town of Svendborg was over. The police was happy that they had time for their donuts again. The social services could write a lot of reports and in this way tell the world that they benefitted the society.

Until Greece went down the road and had to be saved by the rest of Europe in order to avoid bankruptcy as a nation. Denmark had to pay their part and in exchange conduct massive cutbacks in our society.

Suddenly the social services were told that they had to save 12 million DKK (about 2,000,000 dollars). In order to save all that money they ordered 15 of the children in residential care back home for a mandatory home visit. They didn't care if the children were removed because the parents couldn't handle them due to own problems or they had been Fagin-children as the 14 year old boy.

So he returned home.

During his first week home he stole a boat and a gocart. He was arrested by the police and returned home. Then came his arrest on July 1. Now he was arrested, charged with a crime and returned home.

As I write this blog we have July 6. He has been arrested a total of 5 times. July 5 he was arrested in the morning for a breaking together with two girls also aged 14. Later in the afternoon he had stole a moped and despite the low speed he managed to crash into a car in slow motion. The police are tired. Juvenile detention in Denmark cost around 1,000 dollars per day. They are overcrowded during the summer time because crimes always occur when youth are not in high school where they can calm down in the Friday bars over a couple of beers, so youth have to conduct a lot of misdemeanors to risk detention. However he is closing in to meet the standards as they say it.

When will he be in court so he can face the consequences for his crime wave?

Properly sometime in winter!

What will properly be his fate?

More time in residential treatment, but this time court-ordered to the state can pay the bill!

I have to challenge our system. I have to challenge our motives to change the age limit of criminal responsibility. I have to challenge the use of residential treatment programs.

We are talking of a 14 year old boy. His brain is not fully developed. He cannot understand what is waiting around the corner due to his actions.

Teenagers at that age do not include past and future consequences when they decide what to do. They only operate in present time.

When a teenager made bad decisions the answer is not to punish them. The answer is to give them a consequence. We are talking of a huge consequence here.

I have been advocating for a total remodeling of our justice system for the minors.

When a child commits a crime I believe that first step is to ask the school if the child understands right from wrong. If the child is challenged with illness, then the child cannot be held responsible.

But if the school reports that the child functions similar to what is expected from a child aged 12 or above I believe that the police should ask the child or the parents if the child is ready to take responsibility for his actions and avoid any criminal record.

If the answer is yes then the teenager will have to appear before a court of his peers within a week. Based on the previous actions of the child the police may order that the child wears a GPS bracelet and observes a curfew during that week. Otherwise the child and the family should make themselves available for interviews 24/7 by the social services and the appointed teenagers who will be taking the roles of prosecution and defense.

At the trial date the teenager will have to appear before a peer court which will hear the case and sentence the child to write apologies to the victims, give a verbal apology to his parents, assign a number of community service hours and peer court jury duty services.

Once the consequences have been served the sheet is clean. However the family can be ordered to meet with a family coach. If the family fails to corporate with the coach, the parents can be fined until they comply. We have to focus on the family unit rather than the individual child.

Denmark is the country among the Nordic countries which make the most use of residential programs. In a time where we have to rely not only on our own economy but also on the economy of other European countries we have a vulnerable system. The decision to place a child in residential treatment is too often taken without a plan for the future.

While we criticize the teenagers for making bad decision based only on present facts, we have to acknowledge that the entire social system is function very much like teenagers. Where is the plan for the youth once they reach the age of 18 and fall out of the system?

We want a society without crime. There are other paths to choose in order to reach that goal than locking one percent of the population up.

Our system has not served this 14 year old boy very well.

But it has also not served his victims well. The boat had an owner, the cars had owners, the moped had owners and some people may not feel the safety of their own anymore because their personal items have been tampered with.

I must call for a real new start.

I must call for new criminal justice system for the minors which work for their minds. A system where punishment is replaced by consequences handed out not months after the crimes has been made but within a week.

As a taxpaying citizen I want a simple system where the money is used in the local community for the good of ordinary people. Whenever some take something from the local community, they shall pay back to local community.

The time for a change is now.

It can only be done too slow.

References:
14-årig svendborgenser fortsætter kriminel ferie, by Helge Rahbaek, Fyens StiftsTidende, July 5 - 2010 (Article in Danish)
Sparekniv sendte 14-årig retur, by Torsten Nielsen, Fyens StiftsTidende, July 2 - 2010 (Article in Danish)
Første 14-årige sigtes i Svendborg, by Michala Dieckman, Fyens StiftsTidende, July 1 - 2010 (Article in Danish)

Denmark has lowered the age of criminal responsibility

2010-06-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

Press-release posted on facebook:

Recently the Danish parliament voted to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 years of age. They did that while Denmark continues to fail to honor the conventions of the right of a child because they detain minors in the same prison as adults whenever the juvenile detentions are overbooked.

Now it turns out that they in fact did lower the age of criminal responsibility to 12 but the denied the children aged 12 and 13 to legal aid because they have made it an administrative decision whether a child of this age should wear an ankle monitor to ensure that the child will remain at home outside school.

We find it awful that a country like Denmark which in other situations work to spread the use of democracy would teach the future voters that they are not considered human enough to qualify for legal aid.

We are fully aware that the core of the Danish problem with juvenile crime is that residential treatment is an enormous burden for the budget in the social sector. It is so huge a burden that all minors know that they are more likely to avoid consequences of their crime if they commit it late in a budget year.

But the answer is not to use the courts to enforce treatment of what is basically a social problem. The bill will end up at the social sector regardless of who will take the decision.

The answer must come from the social sector itself. They must remove the standard approach which is to maintain a reluctant approach with the individual case until residential treatment cannot be avoided. A focus on local treatment options would lower the total costs.

An ankle monitor cannot provide counseling. An ankle monitor will not be a consequence for a child committing a crime if it is put on without letting the child go through the proper legal process where it is confronted with the victims of the crime so the child is given time to reflect on the actions which led to the legal process.

We must urge that Denmark revoke this decision and find a method to lower the cost in the social sector with other treatment methods and a strategy based on local and early intervention.

References:

Kriminel lavalder sænket til 12 år? - blog entry in Denmark by Birthe1951

China not ready to cancel the killings of teenagers

2010-06-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

It is with great regret that we learned today that a group of teenagers were returned to one of the so-called "Internet Addiction Boot Camp" where they were supposed to be treated for an addiction not even recognized as an illness yet.

Maybe it will be officially recognized in 2013 when the DSM-V will be released.

Teenagers are dying in China because their parents who wer raised in a totally different society don't understand that their career might be involve computers in a degree unknown by their heritage.

Based on fear rather than knowledge they choose a number of unproven treatment methods.

While the government in China has banned all the existing known treatment of this supposed uncharted illness, they have difficulties controlling the market based on fear.

We must urge the government of China to prevent further deaths by closing such camps.

References:
Police nab teens escaping Net boot camp, By Wang Xiang, Shanghai Daily News, June 7, 2010
China bans physical punishment for Internet addicts, Reuters, November 9, 2009
Ministry halts controversial electrotherapy program for Internet addicts, China Daily, July 14, 2009
Student beaten to death at boot camp, Global Times, August 4, 2009
Payout over teen's boot camp tragedy, China Daily, August 24, 2009

Do you know about the concept of a youth transport firm?

2010-06-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

Most teenagers in the United States may grow up to adulthood without ever knowing what such a firm does for a living.

However those who do never stop dreaming of them. There might be weeks between them, even months but then the nightmare resurface once more.

The place where you as a teenager should feel safe never became the same. This one night your parent woke you telling you that you are no longer a part of your family. That you have violated the house rules so severe that you have to be removed from your home.

You are sleepy and don’t quite understand what your father or mother is telling you, but suddenly you notice two goons in the room. You understand that there is no turning back. You are disposed of like the leftovers from yesterday’s meal.

Your parent disappears almost running out of the room. You don’t know it at that point but it is part of a well-rehearsed act. Your parent has a script to work from, which they have received from the transport firm.

Once your parent is away you are ordered out of the bed. Once dressed most firms have a policy that the transport good must be in some forms of restraint. Not entire woken and understanding what is going most teenagers find themselves driving away what was once their childhood.

When various message boards discussed what to do in order to avoid being taken to the car, it was the golden 30 seconds between the parent leaving the room and the transport good being order out the bed, where the transport good must use self-defense.

But is it possible to make teenagers aware that they in advance must arm themselves?

That their parents suddenly would reverse child protection rule number one that every single parent on this planet state: “Never walk with a stranger”?

It is hard to imaging.

References:
WANT YOUR KID TO DISAPPEAR?, by Nadya Labi, Legal Affairs, July 2004
Teen Escort Company, Secret prison for teens datasheet

Charges re-filed in Boot Camp dragging case

2010-05-28T23:23:00.001-07:00

We have just been notified that the DA has re-filed charges against the staff from a so-called Christian Boot Camp.

The incident at Love Demonstrated Ministries Christian Boot Camp took place in July 2007. The previous trial ended up in a mistrial because the jury could not come to a decision.

We will pray to that the court system will reach a fair decision which will not accept that dragging a boot camp participant behind a car can be an accepted form used in the process of behavior modification.

References:

New Charges Pending For Boot Camp Dragging Case,KRIS-TV, May 28, 2010

Love Demonstrated Ministries Christian Boot Camp, Secret Prisons for Teens Wiki Database

Checking the staff

2010-05-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

When you have minors in your care it is important to conduct background checks of the staff. Here in Denmark it is mandatory for even sport clubs to conduct such checks.

If you as manager for a facility or a program fail to have a policy about what kind of background checks employees must pass, tragedy might happen. One of our volunteers wrote a piece about recent findings at a boarding school in California:

A boarding school was infiltrated and children began to disappear

Outside Los Angeles there was once a boarding school for troubled teenagers.

It was founded by a person who worked with a cult.

He saw a market for toubled teenagers and he took advance of it. The methods used at the cult became the basis for modern so-called treatment of troubled kids across the United States.

The name of this school was CEDU.

Several of the cases we have on our Missing and wanted page in our Wiki Database are from the CEDU school in California.

Now we are talking of troubled teenagers. Most people would think that the children just ran off like it happened last week in Old Fort, North Carolina where two girls suddenly were missing from a camp.

But sometimes the truth is so much more awful.

Three kids officially disappeared from CEDU. They were:
John Christopher Inman, Blake Wade Pursley and Daniel Yuen

For many years people believed that they just ran away, but then the police started to investigate a certain James Lee Crummel. He had unrestricted access to the CEDU campus for decades. Based on evidence in another case he is now locked up, but will we ever learn whether the children made it off campus or their lives were cut short in the boarding school?

We must learn from this case. We must learn not to automaticly assume that a teenager missing is a teenager who has run away.

Background checks is almost impossible to do when you are a private business responsible for making profit to the shareholders. As a boss hiring staff you have to go with your feeling alone and they can trick you.

Karl Johanson's reply to a local article in a SUWS runaway case

2010-05-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

Karl Johanson wrote in response to this article:

Runaways located after 14-hour search, By Richelle Bailey, The Mcdowell News, May 09, 2010

I am happy that they were found safe.

But I am concerned because knowing the type of wilderness program they were detained in, they were not provided with legal representation as they would have if they had committed a crime.

Most of the so-called clients or detainees, which are a better term, are either tricked by their parents to such program or simply pulled out of their bed at night by private youth transport firms and transported to the wilderness camps in handcuffs and shackles on the orders of their parents.

How come that criminals are better protected that an ordinary teenagers, who may only have problems as little as an ordinary depression or being picky at the dinner table?

What kind of society are we, when we send a message to our kids that you have to commit a crime in order to secure legal protection for you?

As I stated above I volunteer for a NGO where we track records of possible abuse and deaths among minors in treatment. Every year we must acknowledge that we once again can observe how teenagers lost their lives in a treatment aimed to "treat" them. Every year we also most acknowledge that some cannot live on with the memories of the so-called treatment and choose to end their lives prematurely.

When will it stop? We hope that 2010 will be the turning point, but as this story show, it will most likely not happen.

My heart goes out for these girls. May they one day be able to return to their families safe and hopefully without so many scars from the "treatment".

References:

Deaths of minors in residential settings year 2005 - 2009

Chanel Mare - Victim of possible parent outsourcing?

2010-04-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

In Denmark our government has battled marooning children to foreign religious boarding schools for quote a while.

Many of these kids who were abandoned abroad return unable to be fully integrated into our culture because they were forced to live in a confined environment where they didn't receive skills to socialize as people do in our part of the world.

Sadly Denmark is in the front battling parental outsourcing to enclosed religous boarding schools.

In the United States a long tradition exist using religious boarding schools for behavior modification. The State of Texas battled the so-called Roloff homes for a long time forcing the schools to move to states with poor or none regulation and oversight.

In a state like Missouri there are no authorities to look out for the welfare of children placed in boarding schools if the boarding school choose to label itself as a religious boarding school. In other states the behavior modification business is so huge an industry that regulation will become a question about preserving jobs rather than looking out of the welfare of the children.

A federal law named HR 911 was supposed to apply just a little oversight and safety for the children, but this proposal is presently stuck in the Senate.

It is however important that something is done, because the authorities in several states have interfered several times but with harsh legal struggle lying in front of them.

Mississippi raided the Bethels Academies later known as Golf Coast Academy several times. This place was in existence as late as 2007. Missouri knows only too well what Mountain Park Academy stood for. While not being a religious program Thayer Learning Center made headlines when they were targeted by a federal investigation.

Just last year the authorities in Alabama raided Reclamation Ranch where they found shackles which were used on the kids. This case is still in the court system.

There are so many reasons that kids from Europe shouldn't be sent to the United States, if they are causing problems to their parents. Unfortunately there are no laws in Britain preventing parents from sending their child abroad for behavior modification. It doesn't matter if we are talking the Middle East or the United States. The dangers for the children are the same.

Now 17 year old Chanel Mare is on the run from a ranch in Missouri. A ranch where she had no other choice than taking part in religious activities regardless of her belief. We must ask ourselves how we would react if we were forced to partipate in worshiping a different God than the one we believe in back home.

She was denied contact with her peers back home. She could not attend a church of her own.

Where is the authorities in this matter?

The answer is that she properly will be jailed when she is caught because running away is considered a criminal offense regardless if she is running away from abuse.

This must stop.

It is time for the British authorities to get her back home so she can enjoy a life in freedom.

Please support HR. 911.

It is time for this madness to stop.

Confrontational therapy in Denmark

2009-10-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Today a Danish newspaper reported about a alcohol detox program in the city of Frederiksberg.

It states that the clients were humiliated as part of the detox process.

But people needs to understand that this process of humiliation is normal in detox programs. It is called confrontational therapy or attack therapy.

It was invented long ago by the detox program called Synanon. Synanon developed itself into a kind of church but not before the methods became mainstream in the detox process of alcoholics and drug users.

One of the financial supporters - Mel Wasserman - who used to sell funiture established a boarding school based on a combination of the ideas of Danish continuation schools ("Efterskoler") and a detox program. Beside normal activities in schooling and leisure, the students had to take part in a 12 step detox program.

There is no number of the students he hurt in the process of becoming a self-taught saviour of teenagers in so-called need. The most important point of criticism was that they took teenagers in with all kind of problems claiming to be able to fix them. While everybody know that you cannot be able to give real help before you specialize, it unfortunately became mainstream in the industry to let the marketing department decide how many you can enroll.

Denmark did abandon juvies in the 1970's. They were quick to adapt the Missouri model with a lot of small group homes and it worked well for two decades until a new problem became very clear. Denmark had failed to make people aware of our houserules. Visitors to Saud Arabia have to sign a letter stating what they think is the most obivious rules in their country. It is fair. While the rules about women not driving and the general ban on alcohol seem unfair or funny for people arriving from other countries, it is kind of fair to state what the laws is, so people can leave very fast if they don't like them.

We failed and people did not know how to adapt to our society, so the crime among juveniles boomed. The number of group homes exploded and we discovered that we had copied the United States in one vital area where we should have sought regulation from the very start.

Still on this very date of October 11 2009 everybody can start a detox program or a juvenile group home. Like with Wasserman it doesn't matter what kind of education you had before entering this business. Of course there are some oversight. Poorly managed group homes have to close when they don't get new clients, but the damage had been done. The children are put on a path toward adult prison. Every statistic support that fact.

Inside the established health care department run by our public system for tax-expenses there are rules about how to conduct group therapy. Attack therapy is not allowed for good reason. Such rules don't apply to private run group homes, boarding schools or detox programs.

That's why we can see one example after another about how people in need to get rid of an addiction in their life become victim of a program which are either run by people with poor skills or by people with hidden motives like trying to hire the former addiction to their cult or church.

I hope that the Danish government will see to that this area is regulated. Addicts and so-called troubled youth should be able to receive therapy in out-patient programs in their local community. It is at least 10 times cheaper and it makes it possible to regulate a program thorough. Regulation saves lives and it keep the most obvious scam-artists away.

I urge the Danish parliament to save people who are in their middle of the worst possible crisis in their lives from fall victims to either poor quality, religious movements or crooks.

A story about High Impact

2009-06-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

We got permission to publish Caroline Elise's story about her stay in a boot camp in Mexico known as High Impact. After she left the Mexican Police raided it in 2002 and shut it down. The police investigation did later mean that 4 additional so-called boarding schools and rehabilitation programs where shut down in 2004.

---

It was a Friday.

I remember because I was in my bathroom getting dressed to go to my friend Lorina’s house. I had just turned 15 two weeks before I was taken. My mom and grandmother picked my best friend Alyssa and I up at the bus stop and took us over to get frappuccinos from Starbuck’s. We window shopped at a near by boutique and shortly after went home. My grandmother was in from North Carolina for a visit, so I assumed it was just a nice, normal time with family. Little did I know it was to distract me so that a man and woman could hide in my house to kidnap me. Alyssa and I made plans to hang out later and we said our goodbyes; I had no idea, but it would be for years.

My mother was going through a divorce so our home in Texas was up for sale. While I was in my bathroom, on the phone, getting dressed my mother knocked on the door and told me there were some buyers that wanted to look at my bathroom. I walked out into my connecting bedroom and there stood a towering, muscular man with a long black pony tail. I thought he wanted to buy my house at first, but all of a sudden he very quickly rushed me and threw my phone against the wall. He tackled me on my bed and I started screaming for my mom, but no one came. He then started explaining to me that I was going with him to Mexico and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I was so confused, scared, and shocked so I tried to run. In came another woman I had never seen and they held me down and hand cuffed me on my bed. Crying and screaming they drug me out of my room and down the stairs. At some point my instinct told me to try to get away while we were going down the stairs. I started fumbling with the hand cuffs and realized that they were fake. I tried to time it just right so we could be at the bottom of the stairs so I could run. At this point my mother and grandmother were blocking me, but I managed to get out of the hand cuffs and throw a coffee pot. The big man tackled me and forced me into the back of a rental car. He told my mom to grab belts to hog tie me, because I was kicking and screaming and trying to get away. By this time I knew my mom was in on this and I was tied up. I saw Alyssa through the front window of the car crying with her mom. I think her mom had explained what was going to happen to me when we got home from Starbuck’s.

He then started explaining what was going to happen to me. He said that I was going to boot camp so that I can be good, that it was in Mexico, and we were going right then. He told me that we are driving there and unless I wanted to drive from Texas to Mexico this way that I need to stop trying to escape. Tired, scared, and coming to the realization that I was trapped, I agreed. I said my pleading goodbyes tearfully to my mother and grandmother, and we drove away. I immediately and not obviously started thinking of ways to escape from this child locked backseat. I am 15, I have no money or resources, and I’ve just been kidnapped by some greasy 6 plus foot, prison looking man whose name was Charlie. I don’t remember what they woman’s name was, but she was pregnant. I know because during the struggle I had kicked her several times in the car and remember actually feeling bad about it. I asked her why she would have this kind of job in her condition, and she just replied that she was bored and needed the money. Years later looking back at that statement I guess she liked doing it. For hours we drove and they asked me if I was hungry. I wasn’t but I wanted to get the car stopped so I could have some kind of chance to get help. When he got to the drive through I thought of screaming for help. They had trusted me enough at this point to let me have my window down and I started trying to eye ball the handle of the outside to escape. The woman saw my eyes or something because she rolled it up quickly and locked it. I didn’t eat that night… I just couldn’t. I was getting over the flu so we stopped and go some cold medicine and they let me use that bathroom. After I took the medicine I just passed out all night.

When I awoke all I could see where red mountain rocks, and sunshine. We were in the middle of no where, no cars, no buildings, just giant red mountains. Even though I was being kid napped I can still remember thinking how beautiful it was. We continued to drive for hours just talking; I don’t really remember what about except he told me that he knew it wasn’t all my fault. He said that my grandmother had told him that my mom was an alcoholic and just isn’t doing well with me. The more we talked the more I grew to like them; I think the more they grew to like me. Finally we arrived at the border and there was a payless shoe store with a pay phone outside. Charlie allowed me to call my mom and she picked up. I cried and begged her to let me come home but she told me it was the best thing for me and I was going. Apparently they weren’t supposed to let me call her because it was against the rules; I never asked why he let me but I think it’s because he understood better. We got back in the car and drove across; I don’t know how we got in seeing as though I never had a passport and still don’t to this day. I don’t remember how much farther we drove but we came to a long dusty road until we hit a giant, twenty foot, chain gate. The gate had to huge doors that opened up so we could drive inside, and I wasn’t allowed out until they were shut and locked.

Charlie and the woman had never taken anyone to this particular facility so they couldn’t give me any information on the program. They told me they would stay with me for a while and we were greeted by one Mexican named Papa Miguel and two Mexican women. It was a large dirt track covered in sand and little pebbles and on the side what seemed to be a broken down couch or back seat of a car. There was no roof over this huge chain gate facility and on one side there were two big chain doors that lead into the boy’s side and one to the girls. We opened the gate and I heard a loud, angry, Spanish voice scream “swaylo.” All around me I saw girls immediately hit the deck with their arms over their heads; Some girls were laying in the dirt so I was really confused. This part looked similar to the track part except it had a big, hunter green, cloth tent with a concrete slab in the middle. The sides of the tent were rolled up and inside was a bench table and suit cases lined up and down the sides. The girls were called out of “swaylo position” and lined up to get there mats out. They all sat down and just began staring at the floor. Along the sides out side the tent there were four of five dog cages with sand and rocks on the bottom. There was also a concrete outside bathroom out of a horror story. It had no door and had only cold water. The three showers were divided by small concrete walls and a big drain in the middle. Also there were two dirty sinks and three toilets with trash cans beside of them because it was not equipped to flush paper. Beside the bathroom was another fence to hang what I guessed to be was a clothing line and a hole cut out in the wall where the women stayed at night while we slept. Along the fence and tent were lines raked in different directions to show us where we shouldn’t be stepping, which we did as part of morning chores. The kidnapers and I sat down at the bench and Papa Miguel called one of the girls over to start explaining the rules to me. She was considered trusted to be able to help the workers because she was leaving in a few days. She was young, maybe 14, wearing purple sweats which I thought was strange because it was so hot. They make you wear them all day while running and at night when its freezing cold you must earn your warmth. She looked almost scared to look into my eyes and asked Papa Miguel for permission to roll up her sleeves. She was granted permission and began explaining the rules.

No talking to anyone for any reason
No looking anywhere but the floor at anyone, anywhere for any reason.
You can not burp, go to the bathroom, roll up your sleeves, stand up, or move without permission.
You will be marching (running laps on the track) for four hours a day, in sandals.
You must complete 2,000 laps to graduate this program and everything you do wrong will result in laps you have earned being taken away (thus being farther away from going home).
You will have chores, exercise, and six hours a day of Alcoholics anonymous tapes, accompanied by worksheets of each tape.
She explained to me when you are bad you will be sent to the dog cages until you comply and must remain in what they referred to as R.R position on your chin and not be able to count the laps you run for the day if you are lucky enough to get out.

When she finished Charlie and the women got up. They looked shocked too. They told me they felt bad about leaving me there and I started crying because I have grown to find what little comfort I had left with them. They hugged me goodbye and I was shown to my cut out piece of carpet mat.

The girls were still all sitting on their mats motionless staring at the floor as they started going through my bags. They took the bathing suit they told my mom to buy me and everything except for two sets of clothes, bras, underwear, socks, toothbrush and shampoo. I was immediately getting into trouble because I was no used to looking down all the time; it was a complete loss of freedom in every way possible. When you wake up every morning you hear a loud, angry, Spanish voice scream “Winnos dias chickas” and you have ten seconds to fold your blanket, roll up your mat, grab your tooth brush and be in line. If you don’t in time you must do one hundred push ups less than thirty seconds of waking up. If you can’t or refuse you are sent to the dog cages in R.R. Position all day. When you are in line you must perform the High Impact family head count, which consists of screaming that phrase and each girl individually calling out a number. We were allowed seconds to brush our teeth and a minute each to use the toilet. If you took to long for anything you were punished with push ups. We could not flush the toilet until all the girls were done and the person with bathroom duty that morning would fill a bucket over water and flush it all down. After bathroom time we put our toothbrushes away we lined up, heads down till all girls were done. We were then given chores ranging from picking up small rocks, racking lines, bathroom duty or sweeping the tent. We washed our clothes once a week with a bar on soap on a scrub board and hung them to dry.

Everyone was so scared we never formed bonds or even knew each others names. The workers were all Spanish speaking and really didn’t care if you understood them or not. Even though they spoke Spanish 90% of the time and I didn’t speak a word, it’s amazing what you will just understand because your well being depends on it. It made it even harder though because you can not look them in the face so you have to just react on gut instinct. They were angry and mean to us every second of everyday. There were two alternating teams of people who would switch staying in the tent and working every week. Every communication from them was frightening and abusive. After chores was an hour of exercise in sweats… in the Mexican desert. Sit ups, jumping jacks, and even crazy stuff they would make up. Next was breakfast which was a bowl of oatmeal and if you had a “good” morning you get an apple. After breakfast was marching which meant running on the track and every time you completed a lap yelling your number in Spanish. Even though I was never an in shape child this was one of my favorite times of the day. Maybe because you can move, its actually something that your doing to graduate, but mostly because it was my time to think. I remember thinking about my friends and family and what they were doing. I however don’t ever remember anything clicking about what was actually happening to me. I think when you are in survival mode your mind shuts of rational ways of thinking. Maybe because I was in shock, maybe because I was so young, who knows? One time after marching I was so thirty I saw white foam coming from my mouth and raised my hand to ask for water and was denied. Maybe out of desperation or just stupidity I asked another worker and they found out. I was put in the dog cage for manipulation and had laps taken away, I was not given water. In addition I was labeled manipulative and given a 30 pound book bag to wear for weeks from the time I woke up till the time I went to sleep; only to remove the bag to shower. That was one of the many times I was put in the dog cage.

After marching we were to stand in line and given minutes to take a shower. The shower was freezing cold and our parents sent us bathing suits to wear but we were made to shower naked while they watched us. There were no hair brushes, mirrors, and I can’t even remember thinking or caring about anything like that. You just can’t, there isn’t any room for those kinds of things in your mind when you are captive. Right after everyone was done showering we had to do more exercises in the dirt with wet hair. I think it was just to keep us dirty but I don’t know. After we were given lunch which was one small piece of chicken cooked on an open fire by on of my fellow captives. It was always bloody, slimy and gross and was accompanied by a bowl of rice without salt. The chicken was so bad I never wanted to eat it even though I was so hungry but they made us eat all our food because if you didn’t they viewed it as a suicide attempt. They said if you throw up you have to eat it but I never saw that happened. If you refused to eat the food you were put in the dog cage until you finished if it took all night long. I know because it happened to me; so I learned to put the rice along the bottom of my tongue so that I didn’t taste the chicken. Dinner was also the same meal everyday and night. After eating was more hours of marching, exercise, A.A worksheets all rotating all day long, and then bed. Everyday was the same. At night when we were allowed to go to sleep it was my favorite time of the day because I knew for a couple hours I didn’t at least mentally have to be there. When you are depressed or being held against your will sleep in the only escape you know, and it becomes something other than rest. It’s the most exciting part of the day just because you don’t have to be in this world. At that point even the scariest dream I ever had was nothing compared to my reality. We slept in the tent on the concrete slab on our cut outs of carpet and were allowed one small blanket but no pillow. The tent had electrical bright lights at the top and there was a radio for the woman who had to watch us while we slept. They always kept the lights on and played the radio with Spanish music but every once in a while I would hear a song I knew and it was comforting.

It was so cold at night I learned to sleep on my stomach on top on my arms for warmth and put my blanket over my head. I had the soundest sleeps. Maybe from exhaustion and the fact I have always been someone who sleeps through the night, but one night I didn’t. I opened my eyes and peered out of my blanket and saw the woman sleeping. I don’t know what it was but something told me to get up now. I didn’t have to go to the bathroom but in the corner of the tent there was a bucket they we had to use to go to the bathroom at night and I went toward it. I thought if I got caught I would at least have an explanation to why I was up. I didn’t even have a plan; actually I don’t know what I was thinking. When I saw she didn’t wake up I peered out of the cloth sides that are put down and tied to the ground at night so no one can slip out. I didn’t see anyone, it was cold, in the middle of the night, I had no shoes on, I was in Mexico and 15 but something told me to run and I did. I snuck out the sides and ran to the first gate leading out to the track and it was unlocked. I opened it and ran to the next gate where the car that took me originally drove in. It too was unlocked. Even if it wasn’t I think I would have still tried to climb the gate. I was ready to die rather than stay there anymore. I opened the gate and RAN! I ran as fast and as far as my legs would carry me and just screamed FUCK! FUCK YOU! Stupid, scared, and not knowing where I was; I found myself running along the dirt road I was brought in on. I remember being scared but feeling free and looking up at the sky because I hadn’t had control of my body in what felt like forever. Shorty, I don’t know how long, maybe 5, 10, 15 minutes I saw a yellow truck and it was coming for me. Two Mexican women jumped out, slammed me into the back of the truck, and drove back to hell. If I thought everything had been bad; I had no idea what was in store for me next. When we arrived I was immediately put in the dog cage on my chin.

Morning came in what seemed shortly after and they woke the girls and told them what I had done. He informed them that they would be running their laps today without shoes for my misbehavior. After all the girls were starting their day Papa Miguel came to my cage. He started off by telling me I was a stupid little girl and that my parents had signed away all guardian rights to them. He told me that we are not in my country and if I ever did anything like that again he would shoot me in my legs. When you are in the cage you must remain on your chin, spread eagle, palms up and legs bent upward. I stayed this way for seven days for seventeen hours a day. Papa Miguel then sat on my back and started ripping off all the blisters I had gotten on my feet from running with sandals. I screamed and tried to get up but he was too strong and only twisted and bent me harder when I tried to struggle. Because on the impact on my chin from the dirt and rocks it started building up around my face and when I was allowed to get out at the end of the night it would be stuck on my face. I was never allowed to remove this dirt and it started building up day by day until covering my chin. I still to this day have a scar from the scar tissue build up on my chin. After he was done punishing me, he left. Every morning I was immediately put in the cage in R.R. Position with my book bag on top. I had to wear sweat pants but they always rolled the bottom of my pant legs up. From the sun I got huge, bubble welts all over the back of my legs from sun poisoning. When we would get new girls they would bring them to the cage to show them my legs and show them what would have to them if they were bad like me. I was never given any medical treatment or exceptions and they looked at the blisters as if they were happy about it. When I was allowed to eat I had to eat with my hands at the bottom of my dirty cage. Looking back I guess I was lucky they fed me at all. I stayed in the cage for up for 17 hours a day; so long that I would be so dizzy every time I stood up. I was only allowed out of my cage to go to sleep at the end of the night after the girls were all asleep. At night I was allowed one five minute shower before bed. It was freezing cold and so was the water in the showers. When I awoke every morning I was sent back to my cage and continued for seven days. While in the cage I was not allowed to use the toilets and they made me dig holes to use and was not given toilet paper. They had to fire the woman who fell asleep when I escaped so I was treated even harsher but all the staff. One day I didn’t have to go to the cage and I started the same routine as all the other girls once again.

One day the women approached me and told me I had minutes to pack my belongs because I was being transferred to Jamaica. I was crushed; after my escape they threatened to send me to Jamaica which they had told me was much worse. Come to find out my boot camp was the behavioral modification program they send you to if you get kicked out of other WWASP programs. I had hoped though that Mexico would be the end and that I would go home after. Another girl that was graduating the program was also leaving that day. We both packed our belongings and started driving out down the same dirt road where this nightmare began. We drove to an airport in California where we were met by the other girl parents. She ran and hugged them; we still had never spoken but when she looked back at me it was an understood look between the two of us that we had made it out. Allie one of the directors of the program took me to a McDonalds in the food court and bought me some food and told me that I was going home. When we got up to order they had ran out of everything except, your guessed it… CHICKEN! But believe me that was the farthest thing from my mind. I was out! She was being super nice to me and when you are treated like an abused animal every second of everyday for almost two months; it really does confuse you. She hugged me goodbye and I let her. Maybe because I was so happy to be going home but if I could go back now I would have done something much different. I got on the plane and was sent to go live with my father in Florida. When I got on the plane I went into the bathroom and shut the door. It was the first time I had been alone other thank my brief escape. I ran my hands through the hot water and remember thinking how wonderful it felt. For the first time I looked in the mirror and I saw how thin my face had gotten. When I got home my grandparents and father didn’t even recognize me. My hair was all knotted up from never being brushed and I was a mess but I can’t think of any more reliving feeling than that moment.

I wish this story ended that I came home and called newspapers and told the cops or did something. But I didn’t, I didn’t do anything for those girls I left back in Mexico. I just came home and tried to have a normal life. I was so happy to be home and so freaked out and just not mentally the same. I mean I told every one of my friends, family or human that would listen to me. No one ever seemed to care of even believe me. After all the times that I told the story and got the same response I started feeling like maybe I was crazy. Maybe it didn’t happen to me; maybe it’s not as big of a deal as I am making it out to be. I tried to start barring all these emotions and eventually they started to fade, at least until one day I goggled high impact and I found all this information on the WWASP programs. I found that my program and many other WWASP programs have been shut down due to child abuse and neglect. I found message boards with other survivors of the programs and since have been researching information on the programs. I was so relived to find all this information because I finally had proof to show all of my family and friends who I assumed believed me to be crazy. I also showed my parents and my mother looked at all the materials I found including videos and photos. She told me that high impact unlike other programs was only 28 days so it was much cheaper than the year long programs. They were also misinformed, lied to, given broachers, and of course my family did not properly look into where they were sending me.

When I got home at 15 I saw the website for high impact with kids hanging out wearing book bags…they were smiling. It’s been eight years now since I left Mexico but the rage remains the same. I have no trust for anyone and always feel like someone is trying to fool me. I have been afraid to be alone for a long time now and afraid to trust anyone. I hope that someday I can use my experience to help others. I believe that is the only way any good can come from this happening to me.

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Caroline Elise's story took place year 2001. The boot camp was raided in 2002. But it wasn't the first facility run by the World Wide Association of Special schools and Programs (WWASP), which was closed down by the authorities in the countries they were located.

Already in 1996 the first school - Sunrise Beach in Punta Sam, Cancun, Mexico was closed
In 1998 the Czech republic closed Morava Academy down, because their laws forbit use of isolation room for teens due to their strained past.
Caroline Elise did not enter the WWASP system the normal way as most teenagers did during those year. They had an intake hospital - Brightway Adolescent Hospital - where all the teenagers were diagnosed with the same problems before being sent to the other programs. The state of Utah stopped this method in 1998.
Their largest program at the time - Paradise Cove in Samoa - was forced to close in 1998. As an odd twist one of the participants in the 2008 version of American Idol claimed that the director - her father - moved back to the United States for her to have a career.

Since 2002 a number of their schools have been raided or put under political pressure to close in Costa Rica, Nevada and Jamaica. The State of New York fined one of their schools for issuing High School Diplomas without local permission.

As of June 2009 we have knowledge of at least one program in operation located in Rosarito, but we recognize that we are far from being fully informed, so maybe there are still such programs existing. The staff from High Impact were never punished. What they are doing today, we don't know.

However, one question Caroline Elise properly would have asked herself is why her parents did not research the program better. To their defense there was not much information out on the internet or elsewhere back then where they could find independent information. They had to rely on the marketing material which was misleading with a mild word.

Also we have to remember that around year 2000 the fashion in the behavior modification and correctional industry did also favor the use of boot camps. Teenagers like Martin Lee Anderson, Anthony Hayes, Gina Score and other victims who's names never reached the headlines but who's cases were settled out of court were not dead at the time. Research that showed that Boot Camps don't work to rehabilitate youth had not been conducted at the time. So even if Caroline Elise's parents had guessed that it was a boot camp with intense exercise none at the time would have critisized them for choosing that solution for their daughter.

Third even today in our modern society with all the stress where less time is being spent with our families and the entire pupulation still demands tough sentences for crimes comitted, we don't really care about the conditions troubled youth are living under when they are removed from our homes. Even here in Denmark we can read one horror story after another about teenager being sexual abused or being punished in a way which would have put parents in jail if they had done it themselves.

There is only one answer. Regulation and even tougher regulation!

Troubled teenagers are humans. There is no child born evil. It is a myth. They really don't want to fail. We fail them! We spoil them, we lie to them, we do those things we forbid them and forget that they have ears and eyes, we promise them things and forget about it.

Of course the laws of our society must always be obeyed. We want structure. But we should be able to treat human decent in the process and involve our children in our court system, so they know why we need to punish them for a crime committed but also give them opputunity to re-enter our society when time is done.

We need to learn from Caroline Elise's story. She suffers from her experience even today but have chosen to tell her story to the public in order to start a healing process.

Let us stop such programs!

Welcome to the English blog

2009-06-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

We are proud to present out English blog.

Right now the staff of Secret Prisons for Teens are involved in a number of projects.

First we want to give the website a major overhaul.

Second we are involved in finding solution for our present problems in Denmark where a gang war means suffering and casulties among civilians in Denmark.

Third the wiki engine needs to be updated so we are very busy.

The website will now support automatic tools for booking our pages so it becomes easier for readers to find back to our website.

We will also see to that our updates will be broadcasted on twitter.

We hope you will find out webpage useful.