Here is an article demonstrating how destructive brutal teen programs are for families. ::jawdrop::
The Morning Rooster -
http://www.morningrooster.comDoes WWASPS create family unity?
Amy Nickens - 6/25/2003
The website for the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (hereinafter WWASPS) opens with a flash intro that dramatically displays the slogan ?Creating Family Unity (pause) Through Education, (pause) Growth, and Change.?
WWASPS is a company based in St. George, UT. The company is affiliated with a number of disciplinary boarding schools in the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Jamaica. The students who attend these schools are children whose parents have chosen to send them away for drug use, delinquency, depression, or disobedience.
There are nine schools operating under WWASPS at this point, though the schools are not owned by WWASPS. Dundee Ranch, located in Costa Rica, was the first WWASPS school that I heard about. A month ago, the students at Dundee Ranch revolted after Costa Rican officials informed them of their rights. The New York Times? Tim Weiner reported that ?six people present claim adults beat some of children to quell uprising.? The academy's owner Narvin Lichfield was jailed for 30 hours and may face criminal charges. Most of the children are going home.
Through reading Weiner?s reports over the months of May and June and poring over the WWASPS website, I have pieced together a picture of what WWASPS is and what their schools do. I have also gained a little insight as to what sorts of parents send their children to these combination boarding school/prisons. What I have not comprehended is why these schools still exist. Allegations of physical and psychological abuse emanate from the schools. Local authorities in Mexico, the Czech Republic, and Samoa and the State Department have investigated some. The latter two schools have been closed. Yet, nine schools and some 2,200 students remain under WWASPS? control.
WWASPS claims to provide what it calls a ?Structured Environment.? In this Structured Environment, ?Inappropriate actions and choices are confronted, given consequences, and redirected. Appropriate actions and choices are reinforced and rewarded. The Programs and Schools offer tight supervision around the clock. Each student follows a rigorous daily schedule and a firm set of rules.? In WWASPS programs, conformity is key. Personal freedoms are diminished.
These boarding schools are like prisons; the Activities page outlines that ?initially, all activities are on grounds. Over a period of time, teens may earn the privilege of participating in off-campus activities.? Even the process of getting a ?problem child? from home to one of these schools can be like an arrest. In May of 2003, Tim Weiner delivered this shocking report:
?Ryan Fraidenburgh was 14 when he was brought here shackled, kicking and screaming. Two men carrying handcuffs and leg irons came for him at his mother's home in Sacramento, Calif., shoved him into a van and bound him hand and foot. They drove him 12 hours south, over the Mexican border, into a high-walled compound near here called Casa by the Sea.?
Though this may sound criminal, Casa by the Sea does not have the worst reputation among WWASPS schools. Tranquility Bay in Jamaica is the most feared among WWASPS children. Untrained locals administer discipline on teenagers in the form of twisting their arms behind their backs; it delivers pain without leaving obvious bruises or scars.
With allegations like these and the fact that some schools have been closed following investigations, I wondered what kind of parents would send their children to WWASPS schools. Some are well-meaning but desperate and misinformed parents whose naivety cause them to resort to this option. Some, like the father of a boy was sent away because he did not get along with his new stepmother, seem to be selfishly ridding themselves of problems they do not want to handle.
Parents are, whether they know it or not (and some have to know), in effect, paying other people to abuse their children for them. Child services workers would seize children from their homes if the parents themselves were inflicting the sorts of ?discipline? children receive at WWASPS schools.
Yet, when children are sent out of state or to foreign countries to these schools, the state government workers responsible for their well-being are left without a way to monitor their treatment. WWASPS has done a fairly good job of making sure it?s difficult to get to these children.
WWASPS is also vague about its policies and what exactly the ?Program? is. Their stance seems to be that they have it under control ? and that seems to be the case. The parents aren?t in control. They are at best misinformed to the point of being detrimental to their children and at worst, they are criminally neglectful. They aren?t the only ones. There is no one taking responsibility for these children. The State Department has done some investigations but is obviously not serious about making major changes. If it were, Dundee Ranch would have closed before the students had the chance to revolt. At this point, Costa Rican officials are doing more for these kids than anyone in America. WWASPS, the owners of the schools, and the schools? employees must be held accountable. Every WWASPS school in a foreign outpost should be closed. Until these things happen, we are all criminally neglectful.
I?d like to know how ?family unity? can be created with children hundreds of miles away from their families in Costa Rica or Jamaica, unable to leave the grounds of their schools. There is a difference between tough love and neglectful abuse. WWASPS tries to blur those lines; at least for right now, they?re still getting away with it.
It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep
the rest in order; and those who have once got an ascendency and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantages.
--Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798
