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

NY TIMES: Charges of Cruelty at a Jamaica Discipline Academy

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Anonymous:
I think the media is still going a little soft on these stories. I have spoken with or exchanged email with most everyone quoted, and the things they've related to me have been a good deal more brutal than anything I've seen printed yet.
But that doesn?t mean I'm not extremely happy with the coverage the issue is getting!
As for the Flag thing - I think in a situation where you have a facility from one country operating in another - the proper way to display the flags is side by side. Maybe we have a US marine who can verify this, or explain what is considered proper?

Anonymous:
For parents who send their kids to programs out of the U.S. for treatment, they should take a good hard look at which flag is flying over their kid's head because that's the country whose rules and regulations matter when it comes to the quality of their kids care and treatment.

Antigen:
I think the media has to be careful about their credibility. Not that the individual journalist who's writing the story doesn't believe the story. I think a lot of them who have done a little investigation really do. But that doesn't matter to the editor who has the final say. What matters to them is that they don't want any readers snickering and wondering if they've accidentally picked up a copy of the National Enquirer while reading the news.

Put yourself in their shoes. Actually, we're already in their shoes only without the deadline and millions in ad revenue at stake. People generally just plain out don't believe what we're saying because what we're saying is pretty god damned unbelievable. It's like when someone tells me a ghost story. Ok, I'll sincerely entertain the idea that it might be true and I won't call them a liar. But, when I retell the story, I'm not about to swear to it that this actually happened. I'll say a good and reliable friend told me this happened, he really wasn't kidding and I think it might actually be true, so here goes....

Give it time. For years and years, all these different people who've never met eachother are telling the same stories about the same people. It'll take the general public a little getting used to. But I think the cat is really out of the bag now. Journalists are descending like hungry flies on this one now. And those slow summer months are all before us. This is going to be a good year in a lot of ways.

Wicked men obey from fear, good men from love.
--Aristotle
--- End quote ---

FaceKhan:
I noticed that there are actually a few movies that relate to this issue a lot. I was channel surfing and I saw this weird movie called Lost Angels (1989)

Basically it dealt with the teen hospitalization craze that occured in the 70's and 80's where  overbuilt psychiatric hospitals became holding pens for teenagers in order to make money. Had Donald Sutherland in it. Can't say much for it as a movie, it was pretty bad but I definitely recognized some common cult program elements that were in there. Weird terms and levels and humiliating punishments, "feedback", and upper level enforcers. Almost seemed like it was made to be about the programs but ended up being about a hospital to tone it down a bit.

Basically perfectly sane kid has scrape with cops, stepfather gets him committed. Kids with no problems crammed in with those who can't function at all and even the head doctor (Sutherland) admits that they make a pretty good living off the kids and when their insurance runs out they are cured.  


The other thing that I think struck me recently is just how damaging all these programs are even when there is nothing that could be considered outright abuse. Just being held prisoner is damaging enough and thats why except for kids its only done when its been proven necesary to protect society from physical harm from that person.

Even when I spoke to people from wildnerness programs which are far shorter and less abusive overall than boot camps and gulag schools, there is definitely a feeling that it was wrong for them to be there. They often can't really put their finger on anything terrible but mostly that they were lied to and manipulated and held against their will and put in with kids with all kinds of problems worse than theirs.

I guess its just what price can you put on a a month or two or three of your life much less six months or two years. I mean some of these kids spend 3 or 4 years in these programs or going from one to another and hell that is more time than a lot of rapists ever actually serve in prison.

The whole thing is just such a mindblowing fraud.
I hate even having to try to help people find one that is not dangerous or abusive because it just makes me an accomplice in this fraud.

Are these parents so insane or stupid or desperate or selfish? Would they send their kid to a self-appointed surgeon? Of course not, than how to they send them to unproven and unlicensed therapy or treatment.

The reason, laziness and selfishness. They can't imagine any reason other than a disease that would cause their kid to act out or disagree with them or get bad grades. The shrinks tell them they are just unhappy or "thats what happens when you get a divorce" and that things take time to work themselves out. That answer is not good enough so they look for someone who not only claims to fix the problem but can diagnose the problem as well.  

_________________
No greater love hath a man, then he lay down his life for his brother, not for millions, not for glory, not for fame, for one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.

[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2003-06-18 20:20 ]

Anonymous:
facekhan, i dont feel i was lazy or selfish,that was the hardest decision i ever had to make,  i feel i was a mother trying to do her best in raising my daughter, when she started refusing to go to school, i started searching boarding schools(and guess who popped up time and time again) she was going to have to be held back, it was out of desperation i sent her to costa rica,they advertise 2yr of education to 1 U.S. year, i thought it was the perfect answer, i will now live with guilt over all this, my daughter was only in 2 months, and that was enough, i realized what was happening there when the chaos broke out and she left, the U.S embassy helped get me in touch with her.im thankful she is home, and my eyes are now open,  shannon :eek:

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