Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry

Pani Issues Report Amid Chaos at Dundee Ranch

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Antigen:
Sister, do you really believe that drugs are that big a problem? Based on some of your friends who are having trouble? Well you have to balance that out with all of what you see and hear. Does that make sense? Well look around you. Ever since they started keeping track in the early 70's, illicit drug use rates among high school and college age kids has remaind about the same. About half of all high school kids and a little more than half of college kids use illicit drugs at some point.

Most of us, the vast majority, go on to live normal, productive and satisfactory lives. This includes your doctor and medical staff, your professors and faculty, the people who own and operate the businesses and government services you patronize every day... If you're in a room or elevator with 6 other people, usually 2 or 3 of them have used illicit drugs at some point (you?). Are half or more of the people you see every day skidrow junkies? Do anywhere near 1/10th of the people you went to high school with fit that description?

Our survival instinct is so much stronger than you're thinking about right now. Almost everyone grows up, learns responsibility and gives up habits that get in the way of their goals. Beating them up and brainwhashing them doesn't help them through the process. It just makes it more difficult and makes certain sadistic lunatics very wealthy and powerful.

You should go down and take in the atmosphere then do the math. 200 kids * 2 years * $30k = $12,000,000 income. Expenses include a run down, former hotel; no trained staff, medical, educational or psyche; no decent food or clothing; no air conditioning; no janitors or cooks or lawn crews (your brother is providing those services) and they get extra for chasing down and beating him if he tries to run.

Believe me, the authorities in Costa Rica are NOT known for medeling in the private affairs of businesses or individuals in that country. If they decided it was apropriate to intervene, it's not like a bogus CYS call in the States. They don't mess around with that sort of thing. They go after serious criminals only.

Narvin Lichfield is in some deep stuff! And I like to think that he's getting the oportunity to reacquaint himself with a few of his former 'students' who may have been able to run away, but couldn't get back home without their Visas, pasports or any sane family back here.


God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.
Anonymity Anonymous

Janet:
Sister, please listen to Antigen.  She knows what she is talking about.  Not all teens sent to a WWASP facility are in serious trouble.  One I read about just wasn't religious enough for his fundamentalist parents.  One just was talking back to his parents.  My ex-friend's daughter just was engaging in sex and not doing well in school.  Well she hadn't done well in school since she entered kindergarten.  I can't understand how the parents were so surprised. She wasn't intellectually slow, just that school didn't interest her.  As a former teacher and a lover of school, I can't understand this, but I know not everyone needs a college education.  As for sex, her older brother and two older sisters engaged in premarital sex too.  She was the one who was kicked in the teeth and roundly punished!She did need a good talking to about how to avoid pregnancy and STDs, and how to avoid being exploited by males.

Sister, I mention the above because I want you to understand many are sent to WWASP prisons for frivolous reasons.  There are also many, (some have written on the internet) who had sons and daughters with very serious problems with substance abuse and/or felonies. And their kids turned themselves around all by themselves, and perhaps, with the knowledge that their loving parents would be there to help them.
 
The only time I MIGHT consider a WWASP facility is if my minor child was convicted of a felony,and the stupid state in which we lived was going to incarcerate him in an adult prison!  One kid who testified at the Virginia trial was in that situation.

Your parents are spending a bundle on your brother's stay at Dundee.  Perhaps it would have been better spent seeking psychiatric help.  Maybe  he would have been the 1% who would have ODed or would have become  a vegetable from drug use.  If that was his destiny, Dundee probably won"t help.  Not everyone comes out of a WWASP "school" cured!  What makes WWASP such a "success" is that kids have a way of growing up all by themselves. WWASP takes the credit for something that would have happened anyway.

Carey:
"I would like to see my brother at home, drugfree, and achieving academic goals. Realistically this can't happen"

Please change your attitude about your brother.  That would help him more than you could ever imagine.  If he continues to be told by those he loves that he is a failure then you are making it that much harder for him to be anything but.  He needs you and your family to believe in him.  Give him what he needs.

He has been through a lot.  I don't know how long he was at Dundee but I know it does not take long for the psychological and physical abuse to begin.

"It seems to me that you have enough problems of your own to be consuming yourself with the problems of others"  

Others will always be important to me.  It hurts me terribly to think there are still kids in these programs who are being abused. I can't turn my back on them. Until all of these children are out of these abusive programs, I will continue to fight.  This has also helped my boys more than you will ever know. They have peace knowing that Dundee has been closed.  They have even a greater sense of peace knowing that Litchfield is going to be held accountable.

Angry sister, I hope you have opened your heart and your ears to what we are trying to help you understand.

Anonymous:
Yes I really believe that drugs are THAT big of a problem in our society. I you are wrong statistically on population drug use since the 70s. In all the criminology, psychology, and law classes I have taken at the university, they have all gone into great detail showing that drug use has steadily increased in our society. In addition, to increased number or users they are used more often and are about 5 times stronger than those used in the 70s. Yes it is a big problem, anyone who would drugs arent, is either uninformed, uneducated or strictly naive when it comes to drugs. Its a harsh reality when its someone you love.
   If our survival insticts as humans are so much stronger than I believe why has the war on drugs been ever increasing. Why does our government spend billions on the drug war, and billions on rehabiliation centers, which by the way have a small percentage of succesful results. Most addicts have relapsed within 3 years of a rehab center. People with a drug addiction at a young age have an 80% chance of having the same problem and worse as an adult. Statistically that doesnt give my brother or any other troubled kid that much of a chance.
    As far as giving my brother the love that he deserves. I think that awarness andunderstanding of his problem is the most love and support I can do for him. I support him with all my heart and would have done anything to help him quit. He has never been deprived of a loving and caring family. We are only 3 years apart and I was raised in the same family under the same conditions that he was. It is strictly a matter of character and responsibility that made us chose different paths in life. My parents didnt just send him to Dundee Ranch to get rid of him. After all other sources were exausted, changing schools and therapy along with other alternatives there his problem continued to get worse.
   Some kids may not need a facility like the WWASP programs, and that is each childs parents decision to send them. It is their child and their conscience that they have to live with. I do not agree with demoralizing people but how sure are we that these accusations are true. Most of these allegations come from students that were there for a short period of time and were unable to finish the program. In the same light, I would probably of said the same thing about someone who restricted me and given me the first set of rules I had seen in years. Most of these kids have had minimal discipline going into these programs. Change is rough.
Maybe it is just because I see these problems everyday, not just with my brother but with peers, I realize the horror and wrath of drugs. I dont disagree that it is possible for some people to only "experiment" with drugs. But for most of the kids in the WWASP programs, that isnt the case. For the ones that continue and have drug dependent lives, therapy becomes a joke. Great if it has worked for some people but Id love to hear a success story from a parent who had a heavily drug addicted child where THERAPY was the "cure".
  Anyway, Im not trying to change anyones opinion of these programs. They arent ideal but if it saves one kids life, isnt it worth it. My brother had the odds against him when it came to recovery. He was a bright kid with a good heart but drugs took that over. I know that he was given many opportunites to change with all sorts of professional help but when someone doesnt want to change, no therapists or doctor (which my father is) is going to do that for someone. It is a matter of will and only the individual can have that.
  Oh by the way, after being picked up from Dundee Ranch after 5 weeks, he spoke nothing of abuse. Yes, he wasnt fond of the food but other than that there was minimal expected complaints. He went completly willingly to Ivy Ridge. My brother is no quite one and would have been screaming his head off if he was terrified of another school. While this may not be the school for everyone it is right for others. Thats the parents decision. Im so proud of the success that he has made thus far and I support and love him completely. If these programs can help him, I support them also.
A suppportive sister

METALGOD8:
Well ma'am, you appear to me as having a bigger problem than drugs. Sure, drugs are more potent, your current PC is probably faster than a 8086 IBM from the late 70's, so what? Does this mean you should condone torturing and mindraping children? I doubt that reasoning would hold up in a US court. Just the act of sending your kid/sibling/etc... out of the country, where places like Dundee and all the other abusive treatment programs out there are, who can have their evil ways with kids and get paid big bucks for it, presents certain liabilities that I doubt you want to have.
Your only option, in my opinion, is to get him out of there now! And, demand a refund...at the very least.
You yourself said treatment doesn't work guaranteed, so why allow him to be abused and why do you pay money for that? That is simply unacceptable.

Please go to http://www.straightincorporated.com and do some reading. Check with the survivors that post on this site too. There are lots of reasons why you are just plain wrong by thinking that WWASP helps. Please, do yourself a favor and do some more research.

MG8 :smokin:

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