The "Troubled Teen" Industry
Some fairly fucking unpleasant stuff behind the cut. No images, but discussion of systematic physical and mental abuse. It's not one I've ever wheeled out before, but I dare say a Trigger Warning is appropriate here.
So, a bunch of people have been sharing the link to a story on Reddit - a first-person account of 'treatment' at the Cross Creek facility in Utah. There's a link to that at the bottom. It's rather shocking to be told that child-reprogramming facilities exist across the states, and that not only do they charge stupendous amounts (upwards of $40k a year - the same as ivy league tuition), they effectively imprison children, lie to parents and children about what goes on and claim they're doing no harm.
Oh, and they've got a hard-to-pin-down series of ownerships covering them, and work the law and the press. Anyone involved as a 'client' will be manipulated into discrediting anything said against the WWASP (world wide association of special programmes and schools).
So what exactly is WWASP? It claims to be an umbrella organisation for "independent institutions for education and treatment of troubled teenagers". In reality, through shuffling around ownership and partnership, WWASP and the folks who run it own the things they run or are as close to and involved with them as the peas in the most sinister, abusive pod on earth.
WWASP claims to no longer be in business, but to still exist due to ongoing litigation. What this means is that they're still doing the same thing, but like a conman who's drawing attention they've put on a new set of clothes and moved to another street, to play three-carde monte instead of the ball-and-cup game. It's a common practise for the 'schools' involved in this trade to do that, and many close, shuffle staff and reopen under a new name with a few months' turnaround.
There are other similar groups doing similar things. The recent viral spread of accounts seems to focus on those about WWASP facilities.
Semi-Offtopic: Before I get stuck into this, I'd like to point out that this is not a new problem, it is one that's ingrained itself over fifteen or more years, camouflaged itself as a solution and proceeded to quietly continue doing its thing. A little digging will unearth a wiki and multiple forums devoted to discussing, cataloging and addressing this industry. People have died and committed suicide in these places, survivors come out scarred for life and having nightmares of being sent back, and it's all efficiently covered up by dint of happening slowly and not being a brand new problem. The solution? Either something big happens and makes national news, or it's up to the faceless masses of the internet to spread news and try to get things done. Unfortunately, attempts to do the latter often end in facebook pages called "100,000 people against A Bad Thing" which, while a wonderful display of solidarity, don't really get anything done.
So, what's it like to be subjected to this reeducation? Let's break it down.
You're a "troubled" teen. This could be anything from fairly normal staying up late, being rude to your parents and showing basic signs of having a 'problem with authority', or you could be sneaking off to parties, drinking, having sex or doing genuinely destructive things with your life. What you're doing doesn't matter from here on in, all that does is that your parents are, for whatever reason, willing to throw large amounts of money at a magic black box that claims to solve their problems. Your parents are imbeciles.
Most parents don't want to take their children to such a facility themselves - of course, the parents don't know what's really going on, the websites I've found show lots of pictures of kids with animals, or looking happy, or in the case of boys, working hard (Yes, these things will also be reprogramming you to accept institutionalised gender-roles to that slightly scary mormon degree)
So, for an extra ~$1800 (in 2004, adjusted for inflation and real money that's £1250) you can hire a Teen Escort Service to help you move your problem child. No, I'm not talking about prostitution. These are mooks who escort children to wherever their parents are paying to send them. If you're being shipped off to a non-US facility, you won't be told that until you're underway. You won't know anything about what's going to happen until two or three men in security-style suits burst into your room at night (to confuse you and minimise chances you try to escape). They've got a patter and will try to make you come quietly, but almost always handcuff or otherwise restrain you anyway. Your questions will not be answered. Your parents may be with them at first, but usually are not - you have no fucking clue what's going on, and may well believe you're being genuinely kidnapped for unknown reasons - if someone burst into my room and claimed my parents were aware of what was happening I'd not be inclined to believe them. I'm not surprised people don't fight back, as they're relying on you being scared for your life if you do. The idea that they're probably willing or intending to kill, beat or rape you is one they're working with. If you're female, one of the mooks will be. This is purely to make things easier for the Escort company, legally and in advertising.
So you're in a car, handcuffed to one heavy while another drives. This may well be Rick Strawn or one of his employees. Not only is he guilty of having a truly hideous website (Flash, background music, ridiculous animated page transition, contact info in a non-highlightable box... enough to make me grind my teeth and mutter on its own) but he effectively started the Teen Escort Industry. Oh, and he quit the police force the day before he was due to be sacked for alcohol abuse. He went through rehab and came out a better person, as he'll tell everyone he transports as part of his carefully-rehearsed talk. (This he freely admits to in the interview linked below). He won't mention the allegation that he once molested his stepdaughter while he was drunk and she was asleep, the fallout of which is what put him down the road of heavy alcohol abuse. Funny, that.
So, you're arriving at one of these facilities. If it's off US soil, you're in for a worse time of it, because what goes on is limited by local law, not US law. This includes effectively stranding over-18 'students', who could walk out, but would have to pay for their own bloody plane ticket home. The place that's keeping you will, of course, be telling your parents the best thing to do is to refuse to take you back home until you 'graduate'. US facilities are more closely bound by law, but by the time you're 18 you've been there at least a year, and regardless of how much you're resisting they'll have tried to convince you that until you change, nobody will want you. Uncle and Aunt? Fuck no, they won't take you in. Friends? You'd only destroy their lives. The list would go on.
Now, your stay at the facility. While I don't have accounts of all of them, they all operate on the same set of WWASP or similar organisation "Guidelines", and so I assume use similar systems.
You'll start out as the lowest rank of inmate. You're not allowed to speak without permission. Need the toilet? Raise a hand with one or two fingers for a number one or number two. You earn points by being cooperative. Earn enough, you can speak. Speaking of speaking, no voice contact with parents for six months minimum - and that's if you're good. Writing may be allowed earlier but your letters will be screened at the bare minimum (of course they won't send letters that say bad things - knowing what I do now I'd go for the river tam school of 'write about things that never happened but seem totally normal', but these places cater for people from the ages of seven. Even at fourteen I'd probably not have thought of that, and going into it rationally is more than anyone is afforded. The number of ranks and numbering system used will vary, as with everything else - just enough change of wording to get away with not changing a thing.
So all these rules. There's scores of them. They're enforced by more heavies, who employ 'restraint' as a form of technically-not corporal punishment. Looking at a member of the opposite sex without permission will earn you being pinned to the floor with joint-locks, as will not eating 50% of your food. Any offense is ranked from level one to three, with students being conditioned to feel that even a level one offense is letting everyone around them down. Not reporting someone for an offense is a higher offense than their original offense. This is part of the climate of zero trust between inmates - the facilities intend to break you down entirely so that they can rebuild you. It's easier to do that if you can't turn to the other children, and so when you finally crack, the staff are the only people able to offer 'support'.
So, if the lightest offenses are punished by loss of privileges such as speaking, public harassment and an indoctrinated sense of shame (or that those of lower rank should be made to feel shame), what do they do if you do anything worse? Boot you down to level one again and place you in "observation placement" where you have "time to think". Lying face down in solitary confinement, with the legally required minimum amount of time to stretch before you're back down, for twenty-four hour periods. People have been kept like that for over a year before they finally broke and went along with the system. These are people under eighteen.
So, what happens if you reach the higher ranks of inmate? Becoming a part of the system is required to progress. In fact, let's take a look at the list of what's required to escape Sunset Bay Academy (located in Mexico). I'll let you read that for yourself without any spin, I feel that the website supposed to give a good impression of this place does enough of that itself. When you can't advertise to a skeptic without looking creept, you're doing something wrong.
Once you've reached those higher levels and begun to "accept" that you "deserved" being sent to such a place to be reprogrammed, you can "help others adapt" to life in a brainwashing camp.
For your parents to visit you, they must go through seminars that'll further indoctrinate them into the camp's way of thinking, and to prepare them for rejecting any 'manipulations' you may attempt to employ.
The seminars you as a student are put through require you to reveal everything - and of course, the things you say can and will be used against you. While the image they wish to stamp you into is depersonalised, the bombardment of "treatment" is carefully tuned to each individual, to achieve a stronger effect. During times you're not under directed reeducation, such as mealtimes or mandatory exercise, you'll instead be exposed to prerecorded brainwashing over a PA system. Watching "educational videos" is mandatory. Every moment of your time in these facilities will be aimed at destroying whoever you once were. I said earlier that what you did to get sent to these facilities didn't matter once you were in their custody - everyone is treated badly, regardless of what genuine or perceived troubles they had in their life.
People who come out of these programs have been crushed, stripped of freedoms and made to believe they deserved such treatment.
I'd write more, but I think I've covered the basics and writing this much has left me feeling a bit emotionally raw.
The links in this post and some google-fu will turn up more information, if you want that.
A few links on this topic.
The story on Reddit that's sparked this by doing the viral thing.
http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/hk0xy/a_gay_teen_describes_her_experience_at_a_utah/
An interview with Rick Strawn, founder of the small but profitable industry of Teen Escorting - that is, kidnapping with parental permission.
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2004/feature_labi_julaug04.msp
Guardian article on Tranquility Bay, a WWASP facility in Jamaica that was widely considered the worst of its kind until it closed in 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jun/29/schools.uk1
So, a bunch of people have been sharing the link to a story on Reddit - a first-person account of 'treatment' at the Cross Creek facility in Utah. There's a link to that at the bottom. It's rather shocking to be told that child-reprogramming facilities exist across the states, and that not only do they charge stupendous amounts (upwards of $40k a year - the same as ivy league tuition), they effectively imprison children, lie to parents and children about what goes on and claim they're doing no harm.
Oh, and they've got a hard-to-pin-down series of ownerships covering them, and work the law and the press. Anyone involved as a 'client' will be manipulated into discrediting anything said against the WWASP (world wide association of special programmes and schools).
So what exactly is WWASP? It claims to be an umbrella organisation for "independent institutions for education and treatment of troubled teenagers". In reality, through shuffling around ownership and partnership, WWASP and the folks who run it own the things they run or are as close to and involved with them as the peas in the most sinister, abusive pod on earth.
WWASP claims to no longer be in business, but to still exist due to ongoing litigation. What this means is that they're still doing the same thing, but like a conman who's drawing attention they've put on a new set of clothes and moved to another street, to play three-carde monte instead of the ball-and-cup game. It's a common practise for the 'schools' involved in this trade to do that, and many close, shuffle staff and reopen under a new name with a few months' turnaround.
There are other similar groups doing similar things. The recent viral spread of accounts seems to focus on those about WWASP facilities.
Semi-Offtopic: Before I get stuck into this, I'd like to point out that this is not a new problem, it is one that's ingrained itself over fifteen or more years, camouflaged itself as a solution and proceeded to quietly continue doing its thing. A little digging will unearth a wiki and multiple forums devoted to discussing, cataloging and addressing this industry. People have died and committed suicide in these places, survivors come out scarred for life and having nightmares of being sent back, and it's all efficiently covered up by dint of happening slowly and not being a brand new problem. The solution? Either something big happens and makes national news, or it's up to the faceless masses of the internet to spread news and try to get things done. Unfortunately, attempts to do the latter often end in facebook pages called "100,000 people against A Bad Thing" which, while a wonderful display of solidarity, don't really get anything done.
So, what's it like to be subjected to this reeducation? Let's break it down.
You're a "troubled" teen. This could be anything from fairly normal staying up late, being rude to your parents and showing basic signs of having a 'problem with authority', or you could be sneaking off to parties, drinking, having sex or doing genuinely destructive things with your life. What you're doing doesn't matter from here on in, all that does is that your parents are, for whatever reason, willing to throw large amounts of money at a magic black box that claims to solve their problems. Your parents are imbeciles.
Most parents don't want to take their children to such a facility themselves - of course, the parents don't know what's really going on, the websites I've found show lots of pictures of kids with animals, or looking happy, or in the case of boys, working hard (Yes, these things will also be reprogramming you to accept institutionalised gender-roles to that slightly scary mormon degree)
So, for an extra ~$1800 (in 2004, adjusted for inflation and real money that's £1250) you can hire a Teen Escort Service to help you move your problem child. No, I'm not talking about prostitution. These are mooks who escort children to wherever their parents are paying to send them. If you're being shipped off to a non-US facility, you won't be told that until you're underway. You won't know anything about what's going to happen until two or three men in security-style suits burst into your room at night (to confuse you and minimise chances you try to escape). They've got a patter and will try to make you come quietly, but almost always handcuff or otherwise restrain you anyway. Your questions will not be answered. Your parents may be with them at first, but usually are not - you have no fucking clue what's going on, and may well believe you're being genuinely kidnapped for unknown reasons - if someone burst into my room and claimed my parents were aware of what was happening I'd not be inclined to believe them. I'm not surprised people don't fight back, as they're relying on you being scared for your life if you do. The idea that they're probably willing or intending to kill, beat or rape you is one they're working with. If you're female, one of the mooks will be. This is purely to make things easier for the Escort company, legally and in advertising.
So you're in a car, handcuffed to one heavy while another drives. This may well be Rick Strawn or one of his employees. Not only is he guilty of having a truly hideous website (Flash, background music, ridiculous animated page transition, contact info in a non-highlightable box... enough to make me grind my teeth and mutter on its own) but he effectively started the Teen Escort Industry. Oh, and he quit the police force the day before he was due to be sacked for alcohol abuse. He went through rehab and came out a better person, as he'll tell everyone he transports as part of his carefully-rehearsed talk. (This he freely admits to in the interview linked below). He won't mention the allegation that he once molested his stepdaughter while he was drunk and she was asleep, the fallout of which is what put him down the road of heavy alcohol abuse. Funny, that.
So, you're arriving at one of these facilities. If it's off US soil, you're in for a worse time of it, because what goes on is limited by local law, not US law. This includes effectively stranding over-18 'students', who could walk out, but would have to pay for their own bloody plane ticket home. The place that's keeping you will, of course, be telling your parents the best thing to do is to refuse to take you back home until you 'graduate'. US facilities are more closely bound by law, but by the time you're 18 you've been there at least a year, and regardless of how much you're resisting they'll have tried to convince you that until you change, nobody will want you. Uncle and Aunt? Fuck no, they won't take you in. Friends? You'd only destroy their lives. The list would go on.
Now, your stay at the facility. While I don't have accounts of all of them, they all operate on the same set of WWASP or similar organisation "Guidelines", and so I assume use similar systems.
You'll start out as the lowest rank of inmate. You're not allowed to speak without permission. Need the toilet? Raise a hand with one or two fingers for a number one or number two. You earn points by being cooperative. Earn enough, you can speak. Speaking of speaking, no voice contact with parents for six months minimum - and that's if you're good. Writing may be allowed earlier but your letters will be screened at the bare minimum (of course they won't send letters that say bad things - knowing what I do now I'd go for the river tam school of 'write about things that never happened but seem totally normal', but these places cater for people from the ages of seven. Even at fourteen I'd probably not have thought of that, and going into it rationally is more than anyone is afforded. The number of ranks and numbering system used will vary, as with everything else - just enough change of wording to get away with not changing a thing.
So all these rules. There's scores of them. They're enforced by more heavies, who employ 'restraint' as a form of technically-not corporal punishment. Looking at a member of the opposite sex without permission will earn you being pinned to the floor with joint-locks, as will not eating 50% of your food. Any offense is ranked from level one to three, with students being conditioned to feel that even a level one offense is letting everyone around them down. Not reporting someone for an offense is a higher offense than their original offense. This is part of the climate of zero trust between inmates - the facilities intend to break you down entirely so that they can rebuild you. It's easier to do that if you can't turn to the other children, and so when you finally crack, the staff are the only people able to offer 'support'.
So, if the lightest offenses are punished by loss of privileges such as speaking, public harassment and an indoctrinated sense of shame (or that those of lower rank should be made to feel shame), what do they do if you do anything worse? Boot you down to level one again and place you in "observation placement" where you have "time to think". Lying face down in solitary confinement, with the legally required minimum amount of time to stretch before you're back down, for twenty-four hour periods. People have been kept like that for over a year before they finally broke and went along with the system. These are people under eighteen.
So, what happens if you reach the higher ranks of inmate? Becoming a part of the system is required to progress. In fact, let's take a look at the list of what's required to escape Sunset Bay Academy (located in Mexico). I'll let you read that for yourself without any spin, I feel that the website supposed to give a good impression of this place does enough of that itself. When you can't advertise to a skeptic without looking creept, you're doing something wrong.
Once you've reached those higher levels and begun to "accept" that you "deserved" being sent to such a place to be reprogrammed, you can "help others adapt" to life in a brainwashing camp.
For your parents to visit you, they must go through seminars that'll further indoctrinate them into the camp's way of thinking, and to prepare them for rejecting any 'manipulations' you may attempt to employ.
The seminars you as a student are put through require you to reveal everything - and of course, the things you say can and will be used against you. While the image they wish to stamp you into is depersonalised, the bombardment of "treatment" is carefully tuned to each individual, to achieve a stronger effect. During times you're not under directed reeducation, such as mealtimes or mandatory exercise, you'll instead be exposed to prerecorded brainwashing over a PA system. Watching "educational videos" is mandatory. Every moment of your time in these facilities will be aimed at destroying whoever you once were. I said earlier that what you did to get sent to these facilities didn't matter once you were in their custody - everyone is treated badly, regardless of what genuine or perceived troubles they had in their life.
People who come out of these programs have been crushed, stripped of freedoms and made to believe they deserved such treatment.
I'd write more, but I think I've covered the basics and writing this much has left me feeling a bit emotionally raw.
The links in this post and some google-fu will turn up more information, if you want that.
A few links on this topic.
The story on Reddit that's sparked this by doing the viral thing.
http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/hk0xy/a_gay_teen_describes_her_experience_at_a_utah/
An interview with Rick Strawn, founder of the small but profitable industry of Teen Escorting - that is, kidnapping with parental permission.
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2004/feature_labi_julaug04.msp
Guardian article on Tranquility Bay, a WWASP facility in Jamaica that was widely considered the worst of its kind until it closed in 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jun/29/schools.uk1