Iowa is closing a loophole. Is it not time for Missouri to do the same?

Midwest Academy used a loophole in state legislation to run a school under conditions which now have resulted in a guilty verdict against the manager of the school. Because the manager was no more than a franchisee, who used and enforced the structure of the franchisor - the money men behind what was in the old days called WWASP. new schools could be created in other states now where Iowa will close the loophole with new laws.

Fact is that it is possible.

If you run a religious boarding school in Missouri, none will look after how the business is set up.

It should not be so. Regardless if you call a facility which house minors a group home, a boarding school, a wildernes therapy program or a boot camp, the state should monitor the business activities by unannounced visits where they interview the children randomly outside the hearing area of the employees. Only then possible child abuse can be prevented.

We have to remember that the child abuse inside such facilities is not limited to bring suffering to the children. Random people outside can be hurt when the children try to run. Random employees who had nothing to do with the abuse can also become the victims. To put it short: Innocent people can be hurt.

If we look at a specific case, we could look at a place in Missouri called LUC Ranch. LUC stands for lives under Construction. A few years ago 2 boys ran from the ranch. They killed a couple down the road so they had something to drive in. A family lost relatives. It was a tragedy. Now some years later it turns out that rapes among the teenagers were not reported. The knowledge was kept within the ranch as a big secret because they wanted customers to remain referring their children to the ranch. It was not the right way to deal with such an issue but it was possible because religious based facilities can operate using a loophole where they are not required to tell anyone.

We do not know how many boys at LUC ranch who was abused. Now the escape attempt which ended with the loss of two innocent lives makes sense. I have to ask: Do you want to be raped? If not to which extend will you go in order to avoid that? Will you take a life? Will you take two?

Of course killing people regardless of what they faced back at the ranch is no excuse. I can say that because I sit thousand of miles from the place and never have been in a situation where I was in danger of being raped. In my mind the two boys who killed the couple must face the punishment the court decide they should suffer due to their crimes. I do not know if a rape victim will see it different. I have never been in that situation so how can I understand what it is like. Still I have to put faith into that the court system will find the right solution.

Regardless of the outcome of the trial, there is still work to be done. The loophole which allowed LUC ranch to operate without supervision of any kind must be stopped, just like Iowa is doing now. Because the relaxed legislation has resulted in the loss of lives before.

At Mountain Park Academy a boy was killed by two other boys. This facility which is now closed used extreme corporal punishment at it only kind of therapy in the name of Christ. The two boys were planning to run away and they felt that they had to silence the poor victim so he did not tell the employees about the escape plan. One of the murderers died in prison. The other boy is still locked up.

Supervision and monitoring will ensure that the risk of child abuse inside these facilities will be minimized. It will minimize the risk of further deaths. It will secure that the facilities will not hire employees who have criminal records or had been involved in child abuse cases before.

The state of Missouri needs to act now.

Sources:

• Boys ranch named in wrongful death lawsuit (Branson Tri Lakes News)
• Suit: Missouri ranch for troubled boys covered up sex abuse (Southeast Missourian)
• Man convicted as a teen of murder at Missouri boarding school dies (Missouri Net)

Extreme Brat Camp on Channel 4

I feel honored that Secret Prisons for teens was mentioned in the documentary "Extreme Brat Camp" about 22 minutes and 30 seconds into the program.

However some part of me feels that it is too much. I have done as founder of Secret Prisons for Teens is to care as a parent would and should care. Being a father myself to two children who have endured too much hardship in this world I constantly walk around feeling that I have not done enough.

My thoughts go out to the children in the program. Normally I mistrust the child protection services having seen firsthand how self-centered foster-parents can be. Foster parents who believe that they are smarter than doctors, nurses and counselors all together. But the children in this documentary could have benefitted if the system had interfered with the parents decision to hand custody over their own children over to shouting paramilitary people on power-trips.

In this documentary two programs should have center for investigations by the authorities if the social services in these town had cared. The transport service should have been outlawed and the Christian Boarding School, which was listed on Fornits Wiki really seemed as a warehouse for children of none caring parents left without any knowledge about modern teenage life. They cannot document progress but get children returned they have graduated from their program once before.

My children are not at my side right now due to illnesses. However due to the work pushing for reforms their cell phone and Internet contracts have been modified so they can call my all day without having their conversations monitored and cut if they happened to disagree to something at the place they live now. They have the right to complain and be heard. That doesn’t mean that I agree with them. I pay the rent. I make the food. I make the rules in my house and it is respected. Others make the rules where they live and because it is a package deal they have to take the rough with the smooth.

But the rough my children experience is no near what is seen in this documentary. Whenever home is no longer an option the replacement should not be a kind of prison but a place for healing. That is where my children are now. Unfortunately not all children get help. They get punishment instead as the documentary shows. So the fight against abusive residential placements for children continues so other children can get help also.

Once again: I am honored but there are a lot of work left.

When runaways kill - who is to blame

Two boys ran away from LUC Ranch near Lampe in Missouri. LUC which stands for "Lives under Construction" failed to make the public aware of the escape. Maybe they believed that they had screened the two boys from Detroit with their bible as only tool. It proved fatal for two pensioners living nearby. They were murdered by the two boys or at least that is what they are tried for.

It is not important what kind of punishment these two boys get if they are convicted in court because no kind of punishment will bring their victims back. There are family out there who will miss two of their loved ones forever.

If they are proven guilty and convicted it must result in a harsh punishment but the public must also learn how these two boys ended up on a ranch clearly not suited to deal with their emotional problems. Boys of that age being able to take lives must demand treatment of a totally other kind than a couple of hours reading the bible combined with hard work can do.

Who sent them there?

For a lot of parents desperate to seek the help their children want it often sounds like a miracle when their priest just happens to know a place where the child can live in harmony with God learning to face consequences and the joy of hard work paid with recommendation for a secure place in heaven when the life is over.

It sounds good but it is not the solution. We are living in year 2013. Hospitals exist. Diagnoses exist. It is possible to evaluate any child and find the right treatment approach if everyone allows the time for it. LUC ranch is not a place where they will take the diagnoses and instill an individual treatment approach for every each client. They simply don’t have the employees for it. It demands years of education and experience to be able to treat difficult issues.

When the child act out it is a question of involving the counselors at school, be ready to approach the DHS to learn what kind of experiences they have. For the individual family having to deal with a child suffering from emotional issues the search for solutions takes all the time. Sometime siblings are neglected because one child is sick. It is one of the worst tasks any parent can be forced to deal with. And there are no short-cuts!

It was a tragedy that these two boys ended up at the LUC ranch. I hope that there were no professionals involved. I hope that the authorities in Lampe do their best not only to solve this crime but also to investigate how the placement process was done. LUC ranch is far from the only Ranch of this type operating in Missouri. There are many and they are not properly supervised by the authorities because they cover behind fact that they are fate based which in this state requires no kind of license at all.

This tragedy and the murder of a resident at another ranch years ago prove that oversight and regulation should be in place. The neighbors are concerned and they should be. People without proper education are playing mind games with teenagers and young adults who need highly specialized care. It is not a question if a similar tragedy will happen. It is a question when it will happen.


Message boards where the LUC ranch murders are discussed:

• Shane Hicks-my name.LUC BOYS RANCH- joke (Topix)
• No discussion on the Trace Hollow/Lampe murders ? (1 Branson message board)
• About these boarding schools (Minors in residential placement research center)
• Trace Hollow homicides ? (HWY-13)
• A New List of Programee Scum from Prodigal Child Ministries(Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)

Local articles about the LUC Ranch murders:

• Stone County Sheriff to Meet with Neighbors in Lampe, Blue Eye (KRZK)
• Stone County slayings: Boys ranch that housed runaways offers statement (News Leader)

Horror stories from religious schools in Misouri continues

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

Chanel Mare - Victim of possible parent outsourcing?

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.