Boot Camps: Children's Gulags
or
Child Abuse for Fun and Profit
by A. Orange
"Tough Love: Abuse of a type particularly gratifying to the abuser, in that it combines the pleasures of sadism with those of self-righteousness. Commonly employed and widely admired in 12-Step groups and treatment."
— Charles Bufe
"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."
— H. L. Mencken
John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", 1859:
The only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of the community , against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant... Each person is the proper guardian of his own health.
In 1869, John Stuart Mill published his essay on "The Subjugation of Women":
But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it? ... the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal... In the present day, power holds a smoother language, and whomsoever it oppresses, always pretends to do so for their own good...
The eminent theologian C. S. Lewis wrote:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult...
To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we 'ought to have known better', is to be treated as a human person made in God's image...
And when they are wicked the Humanitarian theory of punishment will put in their hands a finer instrument of tyranny than wickedness ever had before...
The new Nero will approach us with the silky manners of a doctor, and though all will be in fact as compulsory as the tunica molesta or Smithfield or Tyburn, all will go on within the unemotional therapeutic sphere where words like 'right' and 'wrong' or 'freedom' and 'slavery' are never heard...
Even if the treatment is painful, even if it is life-long, even if it is fatal, that will be only a regrettable accident; the intention was purely therapeutic...
But because they are 'treatment, not punishment, they can be criticized only by fellow-experts and on technical grounds, never by men as men and on grounds of justice...
But we ought long ago to have learned our lesson. We should be too old now to be deceived by those humane pretensions which have served to usher in every cruelty of the revolutionary period in which we live. These are the 'precious balms' which will 'break our heads'.
C. S. Lewis, "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment"
My enemies I can handle, but Lord save me from those who would do unto me for my own good.
— Agent Orange as a young hippie, 1968
Recently, the top-ranking staff members of a "troubled children's boot camp" in Arizona were arrested for killing one of the children, basically by abusing and torturing the child to death:
Arizona Boot Camp Director Arrested
By ALISA BLACKWOOD
Associated Press Writer
February 15, 2002, 6:14 PM EST
PHOENIX — The director of a boot camp for troubled youngsters was arrested on murder and child-abuse charges Friday in the death of a teen-age camper who collapsed in 111-degree heat last summer.
Charles Long II (left) and Ray Anderson are charged in the death of Tony Haynes.
Charles Long II, 56, was also charged with aggravated assault for allegedly pulling a knife on a camper, and marijuana possession, for a quarter-pound of the drug found in his bedroom closet.
The second-degree murder charge was filed over the death of 14-year-old Anthony Haynes. He died July 1 while attending a five-week boot camp operated by the America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-enactors Association.
The medical examiner's office said Haynes died of complications from dehydration and near-drowning — dehydration after being made to stand in the sun for up to five hours, the near-drowning from being left in a motel bathtub, where he had been taken to cool him off.
Two other boot camp staffers also were arrested Friday. Camp sergeant Ray Anderson, 39, was charged with child abuse for allegedly spanking, stomping, beating and whipping more than 14 children. He was also accused of denying them water or shade in the heat.
...
[The detail not mentioned in this article is that the other staffer, whose name the Sheriff did not release, was actually a 17-year-old boy. He was an assistant staffer, recruited from among the "old-comer" prisoners. He was the one who was in direct command of Anthony Haynes when he died. He was the slave-driver who forced Anthony to stand in the sun until he died. The camp sure trained those kids well, didn't it?]
...
The camp began operating in 2001 and was closed down by the sheriff's office July 2 after Haynes' death. Investigators said the camp's regimen included forced marches, black uniforms in triple-digit temperatures, harsh discipline and a daily diet limited to an apple, a carrot and a bowl of beans.
-- From the wires of The Associated Press. Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press
What the article doesn't say is that Anthony Haynes' death was actually worse than described — he was slowly tortured to death over a period of several days. Only when he was obviously dying did the staff take him to a motel and try to cool him off. And then, as if that weren't enough, when the bathtub full of cold water that he nearly drowned in didn't revive Anthony Haynes, Charles Long declared that Anthony was faking it and ordered that he be brought back to the camp, not taken to a hospital...
FYI: All of those temperatures that they tell you, like "111-degree heat", are measured in the shade. When you are hiking in the blazing desert summer sun, the temperature is much hotter.
And standing in the sun in a black uniform for hours is crazy, simply insane. That will cook you to death.
And then denying the kid drinking water guarantees death.
Earlier, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio had called what happened at Long's camp "organized torture towards children."
Some children in the summer program now say they were punched, kicked and forced to eat dirt for minor infractions such as failing to stand up straight. Campers say they had bruised ribs from an exercise in which they were ordered to lie on their backs while counselors ran across their chests in boots.
"We were thrashed around, kicked, punched," said David Mandraes, 17, of Peoria, even though "nobody had done anything wrong." In addition to closed-fist punches, he and other camp participants were "elbowed, kneed, anything you can think of, they did it," he said.
One 13-year-old girl camper says females faced additional harassment, and that counselors (who liked to be addressed as "sergeant") called her "whore" and "prostitute." "They asked me how much I charged," she said.
One participant in the camp near Buckeye, Justin Boe, 16, of Phoenix, said drill instructors sometimes forced campers to lie on their backs "in the cockroach position," with their arms and legs in the air at 90-degree angles. Boe said the instructors would then stomp the campers' chests and pour mud on them, forcing them to swallow it. "Every time I closed my mouth, he (one instructor) told me, 'Open it!'" Boe said. "He would start stomping harder. Even if I spit out dirt, he told me to swallow. After, I was coughing up rocks for about four hours."
Sheriff Arpaio called the allegations "horrific" and shut down the camp. He also launched parallel investigations, one into the death of Tony Haynes, which he described as "suspicious," and the other into allegations of abuse at the camp. "Why would you take somebody who may be sick to a hotel and then bring that person back?" Arpaio asked. "These are questions we have to find out."
Bill Lanford, who led paramedics to the camp in a futile attempt to save the life of Anthony Haynes, said that many of the children were crying when they arrived. He said: "It was very disturbing. We were working and the counselors were more interested in disciplining the kids."
In an editorial, July 7, 2001, The Arizona Republic newspaper commented:
You need not endure the horrific stories of kids being forced to eat dirt, of kids being beaten, kicked and shackled to each other through the night, to recognize that a bizarre madness reigned at the American Buffalo Soldier camp near Buckeye.
You wouldn't even have had to know that 14-year-old Tony Haynes died at the camp last Sunday, thrashing in agony in 112-degree heat, likely of dehydration and exposure.
Rather, the fact of the camp's very existence is evidence enough of unrestrained lunacy. Why were 45 kids ages 7 to 17 even out there in the blistering Arizona heat, scarcely supervised and with virtually no refuge from the elements and little nourishment?
The answer simply is that there was no oversight of this "tough love" abomination. There was no one to tell "Colonel" Chuck Long, the camp's operator, that he wasn't exercising "tough love." He was exercising sadistic brutality.
BOOT CAMP TALE A HORROR STORY / 14-YEAR-OLD DIED IN BIZARRE VERSION OF 'TOUGH LOVE', The Arizona Republic, 07-07-2001
Tony Haynes was definitely a troubled youth. His mother said that he took medication for depression, hyperactivity and anger. He had a history of acting out and being troublesome. Still, I can't help but wonder: Just what kind of a crime does a child have to commit to deserve to be made to eat dirt and then deprived of drinking water in the blazing desert summer sun until he drops dead?
Well, for Anthony Haynes, it was: He slashed the tires on his mother's car to keep from going back to the Buffalo Soldiers camp again.
Say what?
Well, it turns out that Tony Haynes had already been going to various Saturday programs and a couple of three-day weekends at the Buffalo Soldiers camp since March, 2001. So Anthony Haynes had already tasted Charles Long's torture and abuse — his "tough love" — and he obviously hated it, because he fought to keep from going back for more. When he slashed his mom's tires in June to avoid going to a Saturday camp, Charles Long suggested the five-week summer endurance program and offered a sponsorship to pay his way.
"He was going to take his punishment like a man," said Tony's father, Gettis Haynes Jr., of Hannibal, Mo., who last spoke to his son the night before he left for camp. "I didn't think dying was included in that."
Note the inadvertent admission that the camp was used for punishment, not rehabilitation. When parents send their kids to such prison camps, they usually rationalize their actions by saying that the camp is supposed to be "character-building", and "improve the kids' attitudes", and "give them a fresh start", or "give them a new lease on life". Not in this case. The boot camp was punishment that Tony was supposed to "take like a man."
Gettis Haynes said Monday that he "wholeheartedly" blames the camp for his son's death. And he blames himself for sending him. "At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. It was probably the biggest mistake I ever made in my whole life," Haynes said. "These are children. These aren't soldiers. They're not grown men. They don't have grown men stamina. They don't have grown men strength."
Mr. Haynes was confused about the issues involved there. It wasn't a matter of the victim being a man or a child. What was done to Anthony Haynes was blatantly illegal abuse and torture, and murder. It would have been illegal, immoral, unethical, and unconstitutional even if it had been done to an adult. Heck, it's even a violation of the Geneva Convention rules for the treatment of prisoners of war.
The Buffalo Soldiers' web site still (as of 11 Apr 2006) brags about their methods of rehabilitating children:
The mission of Fort Flipper, America's Buffalo Soldiers CAPSAG Encampment is to create a highly disciplined arena not designed to keep students entertained but to bring them back to reality where they can function like responsible young people. ABSRA helps students be accountable for their actions whether they like it or not.
"Fort Flipper", at
http://www.thebuffalosoldiers.com/. (Dead Link. Domain Name is now owned by sedoparking.com.)
ABSRA = "America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-enactors Association"
CAPSAG = "Caring Adults Providing Support And Guidance"
Not only was there no oversight, but nobody ever checked out "Colonel" Chuck Long's background, or asked about his qualifications to be a child counselor or run a "tough love" child rehabilitation camp.
It turns out that Charles Long had a history of criminal violence and shady dealings:
Charles "Chuck" Long II, the camp's operator, was investigated in the year 2000 over allegations of child abuse at a boot camp on the Fort Apache Reservation in Whiteriver.
In July 2000, some youths in Long's program claimed they had been kicked, choked and subjected to other cruelty by drill instructors. Fort Apache officials imposed stricter standards and Long responded by moving the camp off of the tribe's land.
Fort Apache's Tribal Council first ordered the boot camp closed while federal officials launched a criminal investigation. That order was rescinded after Long's backers rushed to the Buffalo Soldiers' defense. Still, council spokeswoman Chadeen Palmer said Long pulled up stakes because he could not accept conditions imposed by the tribe.
Ed Hall, a spokesman for the FBI, said the agency completed the investigation and forwarded it to the U.S. Attorney's Office, which declined to pursue the case. The Justice Department also declined to pursue possible civil rights violations.
In 1989, according to Phoenix police, Long was arrested after using a sledgehammer to break down the door of a residence occupied by his ex-girlfriend.
In 1991, Long was arrested again for punching the woman during a dispute over their 3-year-old son. According to court records, the woman told police Long had previously abused her and their child. He was fined and put on probation.
On 1992 resumes, Long claimed a political science degree from Wilberforce University in Ohio. A university spokeswoman said Long never earned a degree. Long also claimed to be a former director of the National Academy of Broadcasting. A letter from the academy says there is no record of his employment.
Long had originally founded the Buffalo Soldiers Re-Enactors Association to provide troops for a movie that he wanted to make, based on a screenplay titled Cry Vengeance, about Black cavalrymen who served as Indian fighters in the late 1800s. Long failed to produce the movie Cry Vengeance, leaving some investors crying foul.
Then, for a while, the Buffalo Soldiers Re-Enactors Association focused on education, appearing in parades and delivering school talks, and acting as honor guards for visiting politicians in Arizona.
Charles Long II (center) with a young politician from Texas named George. W. Bush
Then, Long added a new twist: programs for troubled kids. Long claimed that it was Gen. Colin Powell who suggested that he go into the children's boot camp business.
Charles Long II with Colin Powell
Again, the Buffalo Soldiers' web site brags:
After coming to Arizona, ABSRA's Colonel "Chuck" Long was asked by General Colin Powell to use America's Buffalo Soldiers' desire, dedication and discipline existing in its adult program to additionally give something back to the community by helping America's youth and adolescents with difficult and often times, violent histories; to redirect their considerable negative energy in a positive and productive manner — so was born and added the present America's Buffalo Soldiers CAPSAG Youth Programs for America's Promise. Because of Long's attendance and experience at Hall of Divine Child Military Academy (Monroe, Michigan), St. Thomas Military Academy (St. Paul, Minnesota) and the United States Marine Corps, ABSRA's Colonel Long believed that with a military style boot camp discipline program, these troubled youths could be taught and redirected to become positive members of society rather than lost souls, troubled teenagers and some future baby face criminals of America.
Colonel Long's philosophy, stemming from America's Buffalo Soldiers' history of adversity, was to teach these youth Sacrifice, Honor, Respect, Desire, Dedication and Discipline. Starting with honor and respect for themselves and a belief that if one respects himself or herself, he or she will then deal with and treat others with that same respect.
"Bulletin", at . (Dead Link. Domain Name is now owned by sedoparking.com)
Harlan Robinson, a 74-year-old veteran of World War II, who once served in the Buffalo Soldiers 9th and 10th cavalries, said most of the unit quit years ago out of disgust over Long's financial dealings and management style. "He's got a lot of B.S.," Robinson said. "...He always needed money for this, that and the other. ... To tell you the truth, I didn't like him very much."
On several occasions, creditors have accused Long of financial misconduct. In 1993, Pamela Abbott and Darryl Khalid of Phoenix sued Long, alleging that he failed to pay about $25,000 they invested in a failed attempt to produce Cry Vengeance, and for a Wild West show. Long denied owing the money and filed a countersuit. The Superior Court case was dismissed. But Abbott and Khalid won a partial judgment in small-claims court and began investigating Long's background. They encountered a trail of civil judgments and fraud claims, plus the dubious resume. Abbott and Khalid asked the state Attorney General's Office to investigate, but were informed that the case was not big enough.
"To me, that man doesn't have any integrity," Khalid said. "You can't have a leader like that."
Charles Franklin Long II identifies himself as a "Colonel" in the Buffalo Soldiers 10th Cavalry. He has claimed to be a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, a former police officer, and a stunt double.
Fact: Long may have given himself the rank of "Colonel" for the purpose of kicking children, but Newsweek magazine reported in their July 16, 2001, issue that his real rank while he was in the service was Lance Corporal.
On Aug 24, 2001, Charles Long II announced that he was recruiting new staff members and preparing to launch another camp the following month. Long maintained that the camps help to steer children in the right direction.
"We are coaches in helping young people get through life," Long said. "Trying to be the nice guy doesn't work with some."
Long said he has no regrets about incorporating "tough love" boot camps into the Buffalo Soldiers Re-Enactors Association, an organization that he says he founded to honor the contribution of African-American soldiers who served in the Spanish-American War and other military campaigns.
"I never have, and I never will," Long said. "No matter what happens, my goal is to die doing this. When I started this, it was about faith, not sight. It was in order to keep the history alive, and pass it along to our youth."
Sheriff Joe Arpaio said there was nothing he could do to stop Long. Well, actually, the Sheriff did find one thing: in February, 2002, he arrested Long for child abuse and murder, and put him in jail, where he still sits, in lieu of bail.
On February 21, 2002, camp counselor Troy A. Hutty pled guilty to negligent homicide in the death of Anthony Haynes in a plea arrangement that stipulates that Hutty will receive probation. Prosecutors explained the deal by saying that they wanted to get the truth in the case. It sounds like a deal for testimony against Charles Long II. At least, that's what Long said.
On March 5, 2002, Charles Long II announced that he was really angry about the unfairness of the situation. (See The Arizona Republic 03-05-2002.) He had been arrested in front of his children, he complained.
"My wife has suffered severely," he said. "Neighbors don't look at me the same way. ... (Deputies) arrested me in front of my 13-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. My son will see that the rest of his life."
Long didn't speak of the boy who died in his care, however, or of the effect that it had on the Haynes family, or of what Anthony Haynes saw for the rest of his short life.
UPDATE: Charles Long II was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 6 years in prison. His assistant Troy Hutty got off by testifying against Long. Long complained that it was unfair and Anthony's death wasn't his fault. Long's macho lectures to the children about "taking responsibility for your actions" were forgotten.
Note that convictions of such child-killers are very rare. Such child abusers are almost never held responsible for their actions. (It's the kids' fault for being "bad".)
At least three dozen deaths have occurred in such "wilderness camps" in the past decade. Recent children's deaths in "tough love" boot camps include:
Michelle Sutton, 15, Summit Quest, Utah, 1990. Died of dehydration.
Cathy and Bob Sutton of Ripon, Calif., sent their 16-year-old daughter Michelle to camp Summit Quest in the summer of 1990 because she had become depressed and dabbled with drugs after she was date-raped. The Suttons, who thought from a marketing director's pitch that the camp sounded challenging but kind, paid $14,000 for 63 days. But Michelle's counselors got lost on an exercise in which the campers had limited supplies of water. When Michelle ran out of water, a counselor told the other hikers not to share, and joked that Michelle's parched mouth was so white "it looks like you've been eating marshmallows." After complaining she couldn't see, Michelle collapsed and died of dehydration.
Is This A Camp Or Jail?, Adam Cohen, Time, January 26, 1998 Vol. 151 No. 3.
Note that dehydration is one of the most easily prevented causes of death in the desert. Just drink enough water, and you won't die. Taking a troop of children out into the desert with insufficient water is unforgivably stupid.
By the way, an adult needs at least 2 gallons of water per day to survive the blazing desert heat. That's not to be comfortable — that's 2 gallons just to prevent death. The unbelievably dry air and the scorching sun just suck the water right out of you. Children need only a little less water because their small bodies dehydrate faster. No way will one canteen make it. You need a whole backpack full of canteens and tankards. In a jam, you can live for several days without food or any other comforts, but you can't survive without the water. Someone who organizes "wilderness treks" for children in the desert should know such things.
The desert in the summer really is a life-threatening environment. There are very good reasons why the pioneers named the Southwestern deserts things like "The Bad Lands", and "Hell's Gate", and "Death Valley".
Gayle Palmer, the founder of Summit Quest, was not charged with any crime for the death of Michelle Sutton.
Although she was subsequently denied a license by the Utah Department of Human Services, Palmer brazenly resumed operations. In 1994, near Zion National Park, a scruffy, frightened, 14-year-old girl wandered into a remote archaeology camp begging for help. It turned out that she was fleeing from a course Palmer had been illegally running out of St. George, Utah, the same town where Gayle Palmer had based Summit Quest.
On June 27, 1990, six weeks after the death of Michelle Sutton, 16-year-old Kristin Chase died at the Challenger wilderness camp in Utah of hyperthermia and dehydration after a 5-mile forced march in 105-degree heat. Once again, her counselors said that she was faking when she complained.
The state of Utah charged Steve Cartisano and Lance Jaggar with negligent homicide and nine counts of child abuse involving Chase and other Challenger students. Lance Jaggar cut a deal, and got off by agreeing to testify against Cartisano. Steve Cartisano beat the charges because the judge bungled the trial and then the prosecutor succumbed to alcoholism, and the state's case fell apart.
Remember that Cartisano name, you'll see it again. Cartisano went on to set up more camps and abuse many more children.
And so did Lance Jaggar and the other Challenger employees. They simply morphed Challenger, minus Cartisano, into a new company called "North Star Expeditions", and went right on abusing children. Which leads to the next death.
Aaron Bacon, 16, North Star Expeditions, Utah, March 1994. Beaten and tortured, thirsted and starved to death, as well as denied medical treatment for a fatal condition. The autopsy report stated that he died from a perforated ulcer, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. The sicker he became, the more he was tormented and tortured by the staff. He was constantly accused of being a malingerer and faking it when he complained of being sick and unable to go on. When he begged to see a doctor, the staff sneered at him and called him "a faker" and asked him if he were "homosexual."
Dawnne Takeuchi, 18, was killed when she was thrown from a semi-truck near Pagosa Springs, Colorado, in June 1994. Kimberly Stafford, the VisionQuest counselor who was driving the supply vehicle, was convicted of careless driving and was ordered to pay $270 in restitution.
Nicholaus Contreraz, 16, died at the Arizona Boys Ranch near Oracle, Arizona, March 2, 1998, of cardiac arrest, after instructors continued to harass him and force him to exercise even though he told them he was sick. Saying the his death was caused by "cardiac arrest" is really sugar-coating the pill. He was tortured to death and also denied medical treatment. His death was particularly ugly. (See below.)
Gina Score, 14, at the state-run juvenile prison camp at Plankinton, South Dakota, 1999. Run to death.
That is, she was forced to run in the summer sun until she collapsed, and then she was left laying in the hot sun until she died.
The crime for which she was sentenced to death: petty theft.
Two staff members were acquitted on child abuse charges in the death and other problems, including making girls run in shackles until their ankles bled.
Finally, South Dakota abandoned the idea of boot camps for children, and shut the facility down.
Michael Wiltsie, 12, at Camp E-Kel-Etu, a private Florida facility, 2000. The 65-pound boy was suffocated to death by a 320-pound "counselor" who sat on him until he stopped breathing. A grand jury refused to indict the camp counselor in Mikey's death.
His death-sentence crimes: habitual misbehavior, vandalism and burglary.
Mikey was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder (meaning he was chronically disobedient). When Mikey violated the curfew that was a condition of his probation, a juvenile-court judge overruled mental-health specialists who recommended intensive psychiatric treatment, and the 12-year-old ended up being sentenced to a stay in a military-style wilderness boot camp.
William "Eddie" Lee, 15, Obsidian Trails, Oregon, Sept. 18, 2000.
Anthony Haynes, 14, Arizona, July 1, 2001. Died from physical abuse, heat stress, starvation, dehydration, and near drowning. Witnesses at the camp outside Buckeye, AZ, said he was forced to stand in the sun for four hours while wearing a black uniform in 111 degree temperatures (or 112, or 113, depending on which report you read), was deprived of water, and made to eat dirt. Haynes began hallucinating and at one point thought he saw a pond where he could get some refreshing water. The coroner found Anthony's mouth full of caked mud, and more mud in his intestines.
See the bottom of this web page for a much longer list of deaths:
http://www.nospank.net/n-o84r.htmThis author has a list of 38 children killed by such "helpful programs", including an astounding number of deaths at VisionQuest. How could the law enforcement authorities allow that place to continue operating for so long? What on earth was the matter with them?
News Flash:
Another Cruel, Vicious Murder by the So-Called "Law Enforcement Officials Helping Children"
Martin Lee Anderson
1992-2006
Fourteen-year-old Martin Lee Anderson was murdered by sadistic "drill sergeant" guards within 3 hours of his arrival at a Florida boot camp that was run by the local sheriff, Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen, on January 6, 2006. The local medical examiner, Dr. Charles Siebert, tried to cover up the murder, calling it a death from "sickle cell anemia". (Dr. Siebert is so incompetent that in 2004 he autopsied a woman, and found that her testicles and prostate gland were "unremarkable". Women don't have those things — men do.) But a second autopsy by a different examiner revealed that the child was suffocated by the guards. They covered his mouth with a hand and forced him to inhale ammonia, which caused "spasm of his vocal cords" and prevented him from being able to inhale.
When mixed with water, like the fluids in your lungs and your blood, ammonia forms ammonium hydroxide — household lye — which will eat your lungs out just as effectively as inhaling something like chlorine gas, which forms hydrochloric acid when it mixes with the water in your lungs. As you can imagine, your lungs will rebel and refuse to inhale any more of the stuff. So you suffocate.
What kind of sadistic monsters did they have working at that "boot camp"?
Who would even think of forcing children to inhale ammonia?
What kind of a sicko would think that forcing children to inhale poison gas was an appropriate way to manage children?
And who would hire such psychopaths as "drill sergeants" to "rehabilitate" children?
Shouldn't those murderers be in prison themselves, perhaps also getting kicked around by some "drill sergeants"?
Read the story here and see the videotape of the murder:
http://www.nospank.net/anderson.htm — the story
http://nospank.net/n-p83r.htm — the cover-up and incompetent medical examiner
http://nospank.net/n-q04r.htm — 2nd autopsy
http://nospank.net/7163793.200k.wmv — the videotape of the murder
The Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, has long been a strong supporter of the boot camp concept (for other people's children, but not for his own crack-smoking daughter Noelle). Now Jeb says that big changes will be made. Jeb says that the boot camps will be shut down, and will be replaced with new camps that will be run by the same sheriffs as ran the previous camps. The new camps will be called "the STAR program", an acronym for Sheriff's Training And Respect.
Isn't that just ducky? Like The Who sang,
Yeh, Meet the new boss.
Same as the old boss.
...and I'll get on my knees and pray,
We don't get fooled again.
16-year-old Aaron Bacon was another child who died a similar death at a similar boot camp, North Star Expeditions, in Utah in 1996. When his mother saw his body at the morgue, she said,
"I went into the room and his face was unrecognizable," the Phoenix woman sobbed at a hearing in Utah last year. "He had these sunken cheeks, and his eyes, he looked like a skeleton, his hands were all bone. I ripped the sheet off.
...
"He was literally bruised, black and blue, from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. He had sores between his legs, open sores. The bottoms of his feet, I don't know how anyone could have walked or hiked on them.
"I began screaming, because something was terribly wrong."
Tough love proves too tough, Christopher Smith, the Salt Lake Tribune, June 10, 1996.
Aaron's parents had paid $13,900 for a program that was supposed to convince their son to quit smoking pot and experimenting with LSD, speed and hallucinogenic mushrooms. "I knew it would be rigorous, but he loved the outdoors, and I pictured him out there with God and nature, hiking all day, discussing his issues with therapists around the campfire at night." Sally Bacon says. What gnaws at Sally Bacon is that she never hugged her son good-bye when he was pulled from his bed one March morning two years ago by two professional kidnappers who called themselves an "escort service" and hauled off to a southern Utah wilderness program for misbehaving teenagers. (That was the procedure that North Star recommended.)
A month later, she got the chance. It came at a funeral home in Page, Arizona, where Aaron Bacon lay on a stainless steel table with a white sheet covering all but his face. When she pulled the sheet from Aaron's body, Sally was confronted with a battered, emaciated corpse. She started screaming hysterically and had to cover her eyes.
"His legs were like toothpicks," Sally recalls, breaking into sobs. "His hipbones stuck way out, his ribs — he looked like a concentration-camp victim. There were bruises from the tip of his toes to the top of his head, open sores up and down the inside of his thighs. The only way we were even able to recognize him was a childhood scar above his right eye."
"Right then it became obvious that Aaron's death was not an accident," Bob Bacon says. "We knew that something horrible had been done to him."
Aaron Bacon, 16 years old, died March 31, 1994, while on a North Star expedition in Utah that began March 1. Aaron Bacon had been slowly tortured to death over a period of weeks. He had been beaten and frozen, thirsted and starved, as well as denied medical treatment for a fatal condition. The sicker he became, the more he was tormented and tortured by the staff. He was constantly accused of being a malingerer and faking it when he complained of being sick and unable to go on. Counselors and students taunted Bacon, asking if he were "homosexual." After a month of such "tough love", he died.
The coroner's autopsy report stated that Aaron died from a perforated ulcer, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.
When he was too sick to continue carrying his pack, and left it behind, counselors forced him to go without food or a sleeping bag, both of which were in the pack. He went without food, a blanket, or a sleeping bag from March 22 to March 25 on the 7,000-foot Kaiparowits Plateau, where nightly temperatures dropped below 22 degrees Fahrenheit. In the end, he was so sick that he lost control of his bodily functions, and urinated and defecated in his pants repeatedly, so the staff made him hike without pants, and made fun of him. He had started the program on March 1, but he didn't live to see the end of that March. He died at 2:54 PM, March 31, while the staff sneered at him and called him "a faker." By 3:00 PM, the staff had changed their tune, and were screaming, "Oh shit! Oh shit!"
The pathologist who did the autopsy reported that, due to the perforated ulcer, the contents of the boy's intestines had probably been leaking into his abdominal cavity for 24 hours or more. "He would have had low blood pressure, a fever, an elevated pulse rate, and exquisite tenderness of the abdomen," Grey says. "Any reasonable person should have realized that Aaron Bacon was in need of immediate medical attention."
But not North Star Expeditions. They just said that he was faking it.
The crime for which Aaron was sentenced to death: Smoking pot and experimenting with LSD, speed, and magic mushrooms.
The North Star staff tried to rationalize away the whole incident by saying, "He was a hard-core doper, and his parents knew it. His parents were dopers. Now they are just trying to blame it all on us, and get us in trouble."
The local prosecutor was also interested in blaming it all on them. The prosecution's evidence was stark:
Aaron Bacon, a 5-foot-11-inch teen, began the course weighing 131 pounds. When he died 30 days later, he weighed 108 pounds.
Investigators from the Garfield County Sheriff's Department and the Utah attorney general's office have found that during the last 20 days of his life, Aaron went without food for at least 11 days.
He also went without a sleeping bag for 14 nights when the average overnight temperature was 32 degrees.
Aaron's worsening condition was chronicled in his journal as well as the journals of other campers. He wrote about how his counselors laughed at him for losing control of his bowel movements. Another teen wrote that Aaron was starting to look "like a Jewish person in the concentration camps."
"The ignorance, arrogance, incompetence, callousness and greed of the people running these programs is proving repeatedly to be dangerous, abusive and even fatal," said Bob Bacon, Aaron's father. "The lessons are not being learned."
Gina Score's crimes, for which she got the death sentence, were stealing Beanie Babies from a store and stealing money from a school locker — petty theft. She was sentenced to the South Dakota state-run boot camp by the court. Although her father David Score didn't have a choice, he thought sending Gina away might be a good idea. Maybe the strict discipline would get his daughter to stop stealing from other girls' lockers at school.
Her father said that her thievery was always minor: Sometimes she stole from her parents or her neighbors or from kids she knew. She would take a few dollars here, a few there, mainly to buy candy. Her dad says she never took more than $65 and she would repay most of it. He couldn't figure out why she did it, because in every other way, she was a normal, happy kid. Sensitive and intelligent, she liked to write poetry and planned on skipping a grade when she came home.
Incidentally, fourteen-year-old Gina Score weighed 226 pounds.
Excuse me, is it just my opinion, or were a lot of people obtuse as all getout? Why couldn't they see the obvious answer? A 14-year-old girl who weighs 226 pounds and habitually steals petty cash to buy candy so that she can shove even more calories into her mouth obviously has a hellacious compulsive eating disorder. That's why an otherwise intelligent and sensitive girl gets into trouble like that. She needed medical and psychiatric treatment, not prison camp.
Note the cultural bias there:
"Fat girls are disgusting and should be punished for eating too much."
Skinny girls who suffer from anorexia nervosa don't get sent to prison camps for some well-deserved "exercise", do they?
One young reader, a veteran of the system, who shall remain nameless, wrote in response to that:
> Also, once in your article you mentioned that a girl that had a
> binge eating disorder should get psychiatric treatment. Sometimes,
> that is just as bad. A lot of people think psychiatric hospitals
> have changed, kids aren't beaten or abused there anymore, but they
> are, and now even more kids are going there for the same
> "quick-fix" reason boot camps exist. And also because parents are
> using it as a type of manipulation, or they think their kid has
> problems even if they don't, etc. It is the popular thing to do
> today — to lock your kids up, or drug them.
Yes. I didn't make it clear, but I was really thinking about some kind of effective outpatient treatment that would just help her to get a grip. Maybe I'm dreaming...
226-pound Gina collapsed from heat exhaustion during a forced three-mile run in hot, humid weather. Her pleas for help were ignored: As she hyperventilated, eyewitnesses later said, counselors taunted her, accusing her (as happened with the others who died) of faking her weakness. Gina struggled to stand, then collapsed again and was left lying in the sun for three hours. By the time she arrived at the hospital, her temperature registered 108 — as high as the thermometer would go. "How," her father David Score asked bitterly, "could anyone treat another human being that way?"
Mark Soler, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Youth Law Center, helped investigate the Plankinton, South Dakota, juvenile facility after the death of Gina Score, and was stunned by what he saw: a barbed-wire maximum-security detention center where some kids were shackled and locked in isolation 23 hours a day for 30 days in a row.
"There is not a lot of very serious juvenile crime in South Dakota," says Soler. "These kids were locked up for things like truancy and curfew violations. Yet there was this extremely punitive attitude which was not geared toward helping them."
The death of Nicholaus Contreraz was also unbelievably gruesome. He was tortured to death over a period of weeks. The sicker he became, the more he was beaten and tormented, and accused of being a malingerer and faking it, and denied food and water as punishment. At the end of his life, he was also so sick that he was unable to control his bodily functions:
ORACLE, Ariz. — On the day he died, Nicholaus Contreraz was awakened at 6:30 a.m. He had been sleeping on a mattress positioned halfway in the bathroom of Barracks 31. Staff at the Arizona Boys Ranch had placed the 16-year-old Sacramento youth on Yellow Shirt status for, among other reasons, persistently defecating and urinating on himself. They wanted him to be near the toilet.
Employees at the paramilitary-style camp, where hundreds of California youth offenders are sent, had already tried to deal with Nick's incontinence by making him sleep in soiled underwear, ordering him to drop his pants so that other boys could inspect them, requiring he finish whatever physical activity he was engaged in before using the restroom, making him eat dinner while sitting on the toilet and, near the end of his life, making him carry a yellow trash basket filled with his soiled clothes and his own vomit.
At times he was instructed to do push-ups that lowered his face into the foul-smelling basket.
On the day before he died, Nick collapsed several times during physical training. After he fell while running up a hill, staff bundled him into a wheelbarrow and made another boy push him around the camp. Nick was told to make the sound of an ambulance siren.
On the day he died, a staff member told Nick he deserved an Academy Award for faking.
Nick collapsed for the last time about 5:30 p.m. on March 2. Staff members, who had spent the day ordering more and more physical punishment, issued their last command. Get up, Nick was told. "No" was the last word he spoke.
Nick was pronounced dead two hours later, succumbing to a massive, undiagnosed infection that had conspired with other illnesses raging in his body.
A Puzzling Death at Boys Ranch; California youth died amid questions about his care at Arizona program for juvenile offenders. Policy of sending kids out of state also scrutinized., Julie Cart, The Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1998.
The Arizona Department of Economic Security report stated that 17 former Arizona Boys Ranch staff members were placed on the Arizona Child Abuser Directory as a result of their treatment of Nicholaus Contreraz. Strangely, in Arizona, inspection, supervision and certification of such children's boot camps is left to the "Department of Economic Security". Go figure. (It sounds to me like something out of a bizarre dystopian science fiction movie, something like "Brazil".)
The California Department of Social Services report concluded that Contreraz died as a result of "medical neglect and physical abuse" and charged that there was a pattern of "widespread excessive use of physical restraint and hands-on confrontation" by staffers. The California agency harshly criticized the Arizona Department of Economic Security for failing to inspect or oversee the camp.
The Arizona Boys Ranch had a long history of documented complaints against it. Arizona officials said nearly 100 child abuse complaints had been filed against Boys Ranch or its employees in the previous five years. Twenty-one of the abuse claims had been substantiated by state officials during licensing proceedings and others were still under investigation. But the Arizona State "Department of Economic Security" still did nothing to stop the child abuse.
One has to wonder, "Just whose 'Economic Security' was being protected?"
In July, 1998, the California Department of Social Services advised all California counties that it was ending funding for out-of-state placements at the facility. Nearly three-fourths of the 400 juveniles at the ranch's seven campuses had been from California.
Worst of all, Nicholaus Contreraz's murderers all walked. They were charged with child abuse and manslaughter, but they got off on a technicality. The court ruled that the other staff were depending on the (mostly absent) staff nurse to inform them of Nick's medical condition, and she had said that the kid was okay, so they were not responsible for his death. And then, by some twisted logic, the court ruled that the staff nurse didn't have enough information to really know that the kid was going to die (because she wasn't there enough), so she wasn't guilty, either. So nobody was guilty.
The State of California canceled its contract for rehabilitation of other children with the camp, but that was the extent of the legal repercussions. Nobody did any hard time for Nick's death. Such child-murderers rarely do.
The various state and federal governments just want somebody to imprison and "treat" those drug-using kids... And if accidents happen, oh well... What else could you expect from such kids?
The vicious physical abuse like stomping, beating, kicking, starving, and thirsting children isn't the only kind of abuse going on in those children's gulags. Steve Gage and Karen Lee-Gage, Founders of Royal Haven, a residential home for at-risk girls from throughout the country, at Sisters, Oregon, were arrested on June 7, 2000, on 45 or 52 felony counts based on allegations from 7, 8, 10, or 11 ex-residents (depending on which newspaper you read), including several counts each of rape, sexual abuse, and criminal mistreatment.
That will really teach those girls to behave.
Gage Sentenced to 45 Years
Eric Dolson, Nugget Newspaper - Sisters, Oregon.
Feb. 2, 2001
Steven Gage will probably spend the rest of his life in prison.
Gage, 43, the former proprietor of Royal Haven Equestrian Center for Girls near Sisters, was sentenced to 45 years behind bars on 27 counts of theft, criminal mistreatment and sex abuse of teenage girls under his care.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Stephen Tiktin on January 31, 2001. It followed the guidelines of a plea agreement between Gage and the Deschutes County District Attorney reached January 4.
Prior to sentencing, victim after victim of Gage's abuse, including girls who ranged in age from 14 to 18 at the time the sex abuse occurred, gave tearful testimony that he should receive the maximum sentence allowed under the plea agreement.
"He took the trust we gave him and twisted it for his own sexual desire... I was just a child, and so was every other girl he molested," said one young woman who accounted for nearly half of the original 146 counts of sex abuse that occurred.
While she spoke, Gage sat at the defense table, shrunken, having lost dozens of pounds while sitting in jail seven months waiting for his trial. His hair was thin and graying, his face hollow and white. His head shook slightly from side, either from a slight tremor or perhaps in denial of the atrocities described.
His head seemed to barely reach above the collar of an oversize denim jacket with the words "Deschutes County Jail" stenciled on the back. It made him seem even smaller.
"Look at him! Do you think that this man would ever be a part of any teenage girl's fantasies? It was disgusting!" said one of the victims of coerced sexual activity with Gage.
"I don't know what shell of a human being does this to 13- or 15- or 17-year-old girls and thinks he can get away with it," said another. "He preyed on the souls of children for his own sense of confidence."
Parents told the judge of the nearly unbearable guilt they felt when they had discovered what Gage had done to their daughters.
"We were seeking desperately a safe harbor. Imagine the shock and horror and outrage when we learned that we had delivered her into the hands of an uncontrolled, manipulative, evil, sexual predator," said one father.
The girls testified that their fear extended even to bucolic Sisters High School where, under a previous administration, Gage had conned his way in as a truant officer, offered the services of his supposedly trained drug-sniffing dogs. He had keys to the building, his partner Karen Lee was on the school board.
"We could not go to the school (authorities). We would look out the door of English class, expecting to see his face," cried one girl.
A Sisters teacher in the courtroom flinched as these words were spoken.
The girls told of how he gave favors of jewelry and privileges to his "special girls," the ones who did not or could not resist his sexual advances.
In determining the sentence, Judge Tiktin first spoke to assuage the guilt of parents and the girls.
As a man who has seen much of the worst, as a man who must be "always suspicious and even cynical," Judge Tiktin told them that "I myself could have been deceived by Mr. Gage ... (until yesterday), I think I failed to grasp the character and scope of his crimes.
" ... what happened is not your fault," the judge told parents and girls. He praised the courage of those girls who came forward.
Judge Tiktin said that he believed Royal Haven "was a scam from day one." He spoke of Gage's "tremendous conceit and contempt of others, to take these precious children as objects for your sexual gratification ... the cruelty, the isolation, the exploitation of their disaffection from their family."
At which time, Tiktin read the sentence, which added up to 45 years behind the walls of prison. The judge established that Gage will always be under supervision as a "sexually dangerous offender."
If he lives that long, Gage could get out after 36 years with time off for good behavior, but even then he will be 79 years old when he next breathes air as a free man.
Gage Sentenced to 45 Years, Eric Dolson, Nugget Newspaper - Sisters, Oregon, Feb. 2, 2001
http://www.nuggetnews.com/archives/2001 ... ont8.shtmlLately, the operators of children's camps have found a new way to get around those bothersome laws of which they keep running afoul: move the camp to a foreign country which has few or no laws governing such camps.
Pacific Coast Academy is nestled in the mountains of Samoa, more than a thousand miles from any major country. Many parents and former students across the West say the camp is rife with physical, emotional and sexual abuse and has substandard staff members and facilities.
Bob DeLancy, a Gilbert Arizona mortgage banker, visited his son at the academy and helped videotape several students who were complaining of sexual and physical abuse. After seeing the tape, officials at the U.S. Embassy in Samoa helped remove 23 students. After a short legal battle, 15 returned to the United States.
DeLancy said there was no sailing boat, helicopter or cattle ranch that one promotional flier had touted. The staff had no doctors and was lacking in qualified counselors and therapists, he said.
Lonnie Fuller, the Gilbert man who directed and co-owned Pacific Coast Academy, said he has been unfairly criticized for helping people. "We're trying to do a good thing here, and we're getting absolutely crucified," he said.
The involvement of Steve Cartisano, who marketed the camp until Fuller "fired him" after the students were removed from the camp, casts serious doubt on the academy's reputation. Cartisano is banned from operating camps in Utah and Hawaii and has been the subject of accusations of abuse or fraud from a long line of parents and former students. In 1992, he was tried for, but not convicted of, negligent homicide and child abuse stemming from the 1990 death of 16-year-old Kristin Chase in the camp he ran in Utah, "Challenger" wilderness camp.
Several parents said Cartisano exaggerated the amenities of Pacific Coast Academy on the phone and often called himself "Stephen Michaels" to hide his identity.
Fuller said he hired Cartisano out of pity but had to fire him because of his lies and "horrible" history. "His problems got to be my problems," Fuller said. Both men worked together in the late 1990s at another teen therapy camp in Samoa. New Hope Academy folded in 1999 amid allegations of fraud and abuse. Fuller said he left the camp long before then.
Pacific Coast Academy is not licensed or registered in the United States. The academy's only accreditation is with the Samoan Youth Rehabilitation Agency, Fuller said.
But wait! There's more! It just keeps getting better and better!
In an editorial in a Samoan newspaper on Feb. 17, 2000, Savea Sano Malifa complained that the good name of Samoa was being tarnished by those criminals from America, and...
... an American who is alleged to have been hounded by authorities in several US cities, has been to Samoa, cashed a string of dud cheques in a bank, then went back home where [he] is said to be in hiding. But before he left, he reportedly created a corporation called "Youth Rehabilitation Administration Agency of Western Samoa" which nobody seems to know about.
The agency is supposed to issue licenses to overseas organisations applying to open youth treatment centres in Samoa. They do this after checking out the owners' facilities, compliance to regulations, education services, food and medical services, environmental safety, and so forth.
This information is then passed on to clients, mainly parents of troubled children in America. In other words, there's a scam going on using Samoa in a fraudulent manner. Not surprisingly, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture has not heard of this organisation nor does it have a listing with the Telephone Directory.
The Americans involved are reportedly Steve Cartisano (aka Steve Michaels) of Arizona and Lonnie Fuller who is said to be still in Samoa. Neither of them is on the telephone directory, nor is that other company they are supposed to represent, Pacific Coast Academy.
Editorial from the Samoan Observor, Troubled American teenagers in Paradise!, by Savea Sano Malifa (2/17/00)
So the "accrediting agency" that Fuller said certifies the Pacific Coast Academy is actually a fraud and a hoax created by Fuller and Cartisano so that they could accredit themselves, huh?
They sound like just the kind of nice, reputable gentlemen you would want to trust with your children's lives, don't they?
But that still isn't nearly all of it. It just goes on and on. Savea Sano Malifa continued the story, explaining that much earlier, Steve Cartisano had conned an American businessman, Dan Wakefield, into financing the founding of "New Hope Academy" in Samoa, with promises of $10.9 million in profits from a $25,000 start-up investment.
"He told me, 'Dan, keep my enemies at bay and I'll make us millions,' said Dan Wakefield, one of a group of Utah County businessmen who hired Cartisano to help start Orem-based New Hope Academy in the island nation of Samoa. "But the whole time we were paying all his expenses, he was conducting a premeditated scheme to destroy the credibility and financial stability of our company."
Cartisano completely mismanaged the business, and wrote $23,000 worth of fraudulent checks in just one week while Wakefield was away from Samoa and not overseeing the project. (So it turns out that Cartisano was that mysterious American who kited all of the bad checks and then set up the "Samoan Youth Rehabilitation Agency" before running back to America.)
When the accusations and charges became too much, New Hope Academy suddenly disappeared, and just as suddenly, Steve Cartisano and Lonnie Fuller were running "Pacific Coast Academy", right next door. When the problems at that camp became overwhelming, Cartisano fled back to the USA, and went into hiding. Dan Wakefield is still looking for Steve Cartisano, trying to get his money back.
You know, I can certainly sympathize with the Samoans. They don't need or want the bad publicity or the problems. I suppose some white people in America might think that they are just a bunch of primitive savages, living backwards lives on their remote island. But the Samoans do not send their children halfway around the world to be tortured by strangers. And the Samoans certainly don't build concentration camps for their children in the USA. It seems to take "civilized" people from Stateside to commit such monstrous, insane crimes. Funny that some people still think that the Samoan natives are the savages...
One person who has had some luck in making contact with Steve Cartisano is Jon Krakauer, who wrote an excellent article on children's "tough-love" wilderness camps for Outside magazine, called "Loving Them To Death". (It is so good that it is simply MUST reading. So read it.) The most disturbing thing about the creeps who run those camps is their completely unrepentant attitude, where they seem to feel that a few children's deaths are normal, acceptable losses, just part of the cost of doing business:
When asked about the deaths at Challenger, North Star, and other programs, Steve Cartisano calmly answers that because wilderness therapy saves the lives of so many children, an occasional fatality is a regrettable but justifiable cost of doing business. He calls it the "window of loss."
"Jaggar and Henry apparently share this view," muses Bob Bacon, "and I find that despicable. Nobody from North Star has ever indicated to Sally or me that they are sorry for what they did to Aaron. Even now they seem convinced that they were performing a benefit to society."
...
Because Cartisano is being investigated for insurance fraud and other swindles, his precise whereabouts are a sensitive matter that he prefers not to divulge. In a recent phone interview, however, he couldn't resist boasting that he's "running pretty much the same kind of program I've always run." At last report, he had raised tuition to $20,000 and didn't lack customers.
Unrepentant, Cartisano says plenty of parents still applaud his style of treatment. "Our clients come from all over the United States," he says of his current program, based in Costa Rica. "I take kids sailing. We don't have to put up with any ridiculous regulations or inspections down there. Things are going really well."
Loving Them To Death, Jon Krakauer, Outside magazine, Oct 1995.
(By the way, the "Jon Krakauer" who authored that article is the same Jon Krakauer as the one who is famous for the book "Into Thin Air", about the disastrous summer of deaths of climbers on Mount Everest. That book is a first-hand account of Krakauer's experiences while climbing Everest. So it is no accident or coincidence that Jon Krakauer is writing articles for Outside magazine.)
Lou Kilzer, a Staff Writer for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote an excellent piece of investigative journalism about the crimes committed by a program called "Teen Help" — "Abuse allegations fly / Government investigations, lawsuits claim that youths were mistreated; Teen Help denies charges", Denver Rocky Mountain News, 07-20-1999. In this article, Kilzer described how Teen Help was a monster that spanned several countries:
Teen Help and its "World Wide Association of Specialty Programs" acts as an umbrella organization that represents several facilities around the world. They have been charged with many crimes.
"Teen Help activities touched off investigations by law enforcement or regulatory agencies in several states - including Utah, South Carolina and Ohio - and three foreign countries - Mexico, the Czech Republic and Western Samoa. Facilities in Utah, Mexico and the Czech Republic were closed."
One suit alleges that Teen Help's Paradise Cove compound in Western Samoa uses a "secret psychotherapy of threats, intimidation, invasion of privacy, physical abuse, mental abuse, verbal abuse and random punishment to break their captives' will and keep them confined."
Another suit filed in June charges that "homosexual attacks" by the staff at Paradise Cove "were not only tolerated on these two plaintiffs but threats of great bodily harm were made by these staff members if any attempt were ever made by either plaintiff to communicate information on the attacks to the outside world."
Sunrise Beach in Cancun, Mexico, run by Glenda and Steve Roach, was closed by Mexican police for a variety of charges. "After the newspaper Cronica de Cancun reported child abuse allegations at the facility, Mexican authorities staged a surprise raid. Police said they learned that some teens had been held in punishment rooms for as long as four days at a time." Police sent the inmates back to the USA and charged the Roaches with immigration violations, among other things.
Cross Creek Manor, the girls treatment facility Teen Help founder Robert Lichfield launched in 1990 in La Verkin, Utah, was closed, because:
The State Health Department found it guilty of numerous health, safety, and medical violations.
Cross Creek staff members used another facility, Brightway Adolescent Hospital in nearby St. George. for Teen Help's intake center,
All teens arriving at Brightway were enrolled in a behavior management program. But hospital records did not document what behaviors needed managing.
Of 198 teens entering Brightway during the last four months of 1997, 154 were sent to Jamaica or Western Samoa. "No portions of patient records, including assessments and treatment planning documentation, are forwarded to these out-of-country programs," the report said.
Investigators analyzed the records of 14 recent patients. They found that the same form letter had been sent to the parents of all 14, saying that their teen needed "12 months or more in the residential treatment program in order to fully internalize the changes he needs to make."
Brightway was shut down because of all of those violations of law and proper medical ethics and procedures.
"With Brightway closed and its intake services eliminated, Farnsworth said Teen Help now depends on statements from parents that their children need to change their thinking."
The untrained parents psycho-analyze their children and decide what treatment the children need. Unbelievable.
In 1998, Glenda and Steve Roach — who had run Sunrise Beach near Cancun — left to run a Teen Help compound in the Czech Republic. "The Roaches were charged under Czech law with cruelty to people in their custody and with curtailing the students' freedom of movement, police said. Police said they had found diaries and other documents that confirmed the allegations of abuse. Teens at Morava 'were often isolated and denied food' and handcuffed, police said."
Carolina Springs Academy near Abbeville, S.C., promises a pleasant stay in the country,
"But investigators for the South Carolina Department of Social Services found conditions there far less idyllic. In the
