I have personally witnessed the repeated abuse of minors at the Peninsula Village facility and would be more than happy to testify or present evidence to this fact. These behavior modification teen wilderness camps are a controversial excuse for therapy at best,they are also are exorbitantly expensive. PV costs 500 dollars a night, more if they are "forced" to restrain you, or if you are in STU, the lock down unit. PV costs over a 150,000.00 a year, the kids in PV either have very good insurance or the state, your tax dollars, pay for them to be abused. When I started to research PV I was amazed to discover how completely unqualified many of the daily staff is. The job requirements to be a live in counselor are a high school education or a GED, associate degrees from community colleges are common Out of the staff that PV shows on it's website, I don't believe I saw one member of the daily staff that actually lives with the kids. Therefore, it is obvious that Peninsula Village turns an excellent yearly profit. The purpose of this letter is to officially report and describe the abuses that I both witnessed and was subjected to, in the hopes that it will help the children still suffering under that nightmare.
I was in Peninsula Village almost two years from 96 to 98, both my parents and I feel that we were extremely misled as to what my treatment there would be like. I was in the lock down unit for six months on arrival to the Village although I was cowed, completely subservient and did everything that they told me to. I was physically restrained on the first day in a hospital gown by at least 8 large adults for nothing more than pulling my arm away, it was an impulse reaction, when the large orderly woman dugs her nails purposefully into my arm. I know that this was purposeful, as I was sitting on the floor in the isolation room looking up at the staff member and I pulled away but only instantaneously as a sort off knee jerk reaction and not violently, she had hurt me. She then stepped back looked at me again and pressed the buzzer staff wears around their neck to signal a restraint. There was absolutely no need to restrain me other than to prove a point, we can hurt you if we want to, which I don?t believe they are allowed to use restraining for. I was already in the isolation room all she had to do was walk out and close the door, I also wasn?t at all violent or had even thought to be, I regarded her as a teacher or some other adult authority figure, you certainly do not react violently to a teacher. I was not in PV for any form of violence. I wasn?t even defiant, mostly I was scared, crying and sitting on the floor of the isolation room in a ball. This was after the intrusive body search and being woken up at 5:30 in the morning by three burly adults who escorted me to Tennessee, it was more like being kidnapped.
While being restrained the Peninsula Village staff applied excessive pressure, I couldn't breathe and kept repeating that I was choking, but they let no pressure off, I was bruised and sore the next day, the restraint went on for hours. I saw one girl with a nasty black eye which they said came from pressing her face into the floor, like that made it better. I saw other cases with bruised arms, wrists or legs. There is no doubt in my mind that they could have restrained my totally non-resistant sobbing 95 pound borderline anorexic teenage self between all 1400 pounds of the 8 of them without hurting me. I was not fighting at all, even at first, I was far too shocked. Each held a body part so it was not a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, the individual staff member meant to hurt us. They also kept restraining you long after any fight was gone and even if none was there in the first place. I remember girls being restrained for what seemed like all night, although it was really only about three hours, maybe more. There was an isolation room in the lockdown unit, nice cold hard linoleum with cement underneath but they would restrain you anywhere, gravel, garden manure, wherever.
They used a straight jacket called a burrito. I can remember seeing one tough little state kid stuck in that thing for a day or more, they were leading her around. Other girls were strapped to a cot wrapped up in it, stuck full of thorzine and left to drool. There were about two restraints a week. I was once restrained because I couldn't stop crying , I really couldn't I would have stopped of course to avoided being restrained, I was about as resistant as a wet noodle and they still held me down choking for hours. They would restrain girls for nothing, for saying in group therapy, I don?t agree with that politely enough , or for sitting down on work detail saying that they felt sick and needed to rest.
We were not allowed to look at or talk to the other girls and we had to ask for permission to do anything, move even, of course go to the bathroom and we had to tell them what it is we had to do, they stood outside the door and timed us. Group therapy was more like a denouncement session and began as soon as you were crying, that is later on the first day, after they had restrained you for a few hours and you were a broken puddle ready to confess to anything. I don't believe that many of the staff that actually lives with the girls on a daily basis is especially educated, perhaps some BA's and associate degrees, These are the one?s who actually deal with the children and run group therapy and restrain them. The lights were left on all the time, we slept in cubicles and were often woken by the staff patrolling , they were always standing over us. We were punished constantly, abuse was constant every second for those two years.
We had level systems, I never got beyond the first level although I was completely compliant. I don't think I was as willing to rip into my fellow prisoners as much they would have liked. Group therapy was a communist denouncement experience, it was pure hell, and I am not exaggerating. They would find out your deepest darkest secrets and then browbeat you with them like you were disgusting dirt, we could say nothing to defend ourselves or we would face being PCId/ restrained. They liked sexual revelations and would ask you everything about them, specific details and more details, it was not appropriate, odd and used to induce shame. You would confess to things you didn't do and then they would tell your family. Many of the girls were in there for something that had happened to them, somewhere, I think the website, says the Village is an expert at helping abused girls. It was terrible to watch them torture some poor kid who was in there because she had been raped or molested. Many of the girls had been raped or molested, myself included, and to be held up to shame, ridicule and denouncement in relation to sex at a place that was supposed to help you with your experience was a pure nightmare.
They encourage the girls to pick on each other, to rip into each other during group therapy so bullying is greatly encouraged, in fact the level system is based strongly on it. There was desperation mentality, as we all struggled so hard to avoid being punished and they punished all of us together, I realize now that the punishments were arbitrary, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them they were still going to rain down on our heads. We would pretend to give feedback, their word for harassment and abuse, but how can you tear someone apart after listening to them scream all night while staff held their face into the floor. There were also frequent outbreaks of head lice while I was in STU.
It seemed very odd that some of the girls were in a behavior modification facility at all and it was hard to tell how all this abuse was going to help them. The treatment did not seem at all relevant to the problems the girls were having? One of the girls was there for telling her parents that she was gay and that was really it. There were lots of anorexics, and many had never used drugs or drank. Worst of all some had done nothing other than get molested by a close relative, to the horror of their families. The PV website says that PV is expert at helping girls deal with issues like rape and molestation. I want to know whether or not the relative being accused was being investigated? There was very limited contact with the outside world especially for girls who's families had signed them over. It did not seem reasonable that these girls were treated as if they were being punished or were in jail for more serious offenses. I thought too, that a lot of the girls who were in for more serious things were acting out more serious problems in their lives, like the kids who had unfit parents and were in foster care. It is a very hard world out there for a teenage runaway with drug addict abusive parents. One thirteen year old was in because her father had been murdered and the state thought the child might need help dealing with this, she had done nothing else. There were kids who seemed to have chemical depression, meaning they seemed to be suffering from a biological problem, nothing they could help. I didn't understand how someone with a medical problem who ate a bottle of pills in a cry for help could take responsibility for the fact that they had a chemical imbalance. Some girls were good students, there were a certain amount of custody battles.
After the lock down unit with its cramped quarters and barred mesh covered windows for months, we had the cabins and work detail. Work detail was exercise digging up stumps, cross sawing logs, mauling logs, building endless things under the constant abuse of the staff in the hot sun. I believe I was also suffering from sleep deprivation because we were often woken up at two in the morning to go out to the log shed to be shown how much wood still needed to be chop or for some other arbitrary reason, we also always woke up before dawn. I used to fall asleep standing up, literally on a daily basis. We marched around in lines, or holding on to a rope, and there was still no talking or looking at the other girls, it was very lonely. We had to haul around the Gott, a water jug that weighed so much your arms would feel like they were going to fall off and you'd want to vomit but if you dropped it you knew you were in worse trouble, we carried around many heavy things. The cabins have no running water or bathrooms only porta johns. They exercise you past the breaking point and then over a little, and then much more. It was torture, I can't emphasize that enough torture, we did this all day most days, unless we were in school or on shutdown. We had no free time, we weren't allowed to read or anything, everything was tightly scheduled and we would always miss our schedule and be punished although we tried in pure desperation to make them happy so they would stop. Our showers were timed, everything was timed. Hygiene wasn?t that great and there was no makeup or jewelry or of course shaving your legs, only ugly work cloths. I only mention this because it is very dehumanizing for a young girl. We had no free time whatsoever, I did not speak to another girl the entire time I was there, without staff permission, which was rare. We weren't allowed to read, that was the worst for me because I love to read. No books, how are you suppose to learn without being able to read.
School was ok when you got to go, but it wasn't very organized and there was a lot of other stuff going on, we also only went half the week, so we could do more important things like dig stumps out of the ground, I guess. Most left with a GED, I think they really focused on GED training, which makes it hard to get into colleges, especially if when they ask for high school credits you list a behavior modification facility. Often if something came up, like we went on shutdown or were sent to STU, the lockdown unit, we would miss school all together. Once they had us sit in a circle with our backs to each other and stare at the wall for five months only to turn around for group therapy and to be escorted to the bathroom. We had no school for those five months and five months is a long time to sit in a circle starring at a wall only to turn around for a denouncement session.
From all the restraining you are probably thinking that the girls were always acting up. I can not stress how completely not true this is. For the most part they were more like zombies than wild teenagers. I?ve done some research on prison camps and abuse and I don't believe there is a teenager girl out there that isn?t going to turn into a limp half dead dish rag in the face of no escape, constant abuse; mental, physical, emotional and sexual although not physically so, denouncement sessions, sleep deprivation, sadistic people four times her size watching her constantly and being drugged. The opposition I saw was closer to nervous breakdowns than defiance. There was some defiance but it was only verbal protests of the abuse. The girls crossed the staff at the Village in really sad to watch ways, like protesting the denouncement sessions, no my rape wasn?t my fault, or saying I can?t work anymore I feel sick or I can?t stop sobbing I?m trying but I cant stop, I?m just going to sit here and not move. I never saw really saw anyone physically fight back or even threaten too except by pulling away or as they were already being restrained try to pull away and this was usually accompanied by a very believable, remember I saw bruises, you are hurting me I can?t breath. I never saw anything that posed as a danger to staff or the other girls but I sure as saw them restrain people a lot. I also thought it odd that if the girls are so dangerous that they would have them marching around with hammers, saws, mauls, axes and other pretty dangerous things. The Village is very expensive costing about 400 to 700 dollars a night, they charge more when they are "forced" to restrain you or put you in STU, as this requires more work or something. Everyone in there had really good insurance or was a ward of the state.
I forgot to add they, of course, won't let you talk to your parents except after I think it was six months for me, even then just by phone with a family therapist on conference call so if you break out of the party line and say ?please get me out it?s a nightmare? large orderlies can appear and march you back for more abusive indoctrination. They laugh at you when you say you want a lawyer. Your parents have of course been told you are a lying manipulator and not to believe you and that you just want to come home so you can go out with boys and smoke pot. Kids wet the bed because they were too scared to ask to go to the bathroom at night, either that or all the abuse was manifesting in weird ways. I wouldn't believe it except I lived it and I swear on my life everything I said is 150% true.
I have lasting scars from this experience, I have nightmares almost every night, not always about the village just in general, that the world is a horrible place and all the scary fascist people are going to eat me and everything I care about and I'm going to be completely at there mercy. Besides the nightmares sometimes I shake uncontrollably it is very embarrassing and is not helpful at work or in school. I have finally gotten over my overwhelming social anxiety enough that I don't care who sees me shake if it means I get a college degree and have a life of my own. The Village taught me nothing other than how to be cowed and subservient and to think it was ok when someone abuses me, I still am completely incapable of making eye contact with other human beings. The Village teaches you to give in to peer pressure and let your self be influenced by those around you even if they are going against what you think is ethical. I can?t emphasize enough how bad Peninsula Village is. I was amazed that we had no rights while in there. I asked to speak to a lawyer or someone from the outside, I heard girls ask to have the police called repeatedly, and they laughed at us. I am so serious I am not a happy camper! Therapy at PV is a horrible lie. They take abused girls and tell them that they deserve abuse. It's the daily mantra there, how everything is your fault, your rape, your parents problems, your anorexia, your life in foster care, the fact that you?re a slut, don?t forget that you are a disgusting alcoholic slut, I?m sorry I don?t know how to say that politely, it is not said politely there, even if your knowledge of either thing is very limited or non existent. I never got to talk to another girl the entire time I was there, other than with asked permission and staff listening, even then it was just about mandatory things, like, put the piece of wood down here. I can understand how you people are taken in by Peninsula Village, from the outside it looks ok, my parents trusted and had no idea that such things even exist in America, they believed as I did that it was a safe and caring program that would help their daughter like most school and health programs. People don't believe that something this insane, this Gulag like would exist in America. No-one sees it from the inside except the daily staff and the girls really and us they do so much to discredit and keep down that we do not believe anyone will believe us or care. I feel as if I have just recently woken up from Peninsula Village?s nightmare and it has been seven + years. It is an evil, horrible place that should be shut down and they should have any licensing stripped from them and be brought up on child abuse charges.