On 2006-05-13 21:08:00, TheWho wrote:
"
On 2006-05-13 19:46:00, Nihilanthic wrote:
"So your spin on this is somehow a kid sent to a TBS should be more likely to commit suicide, but have no evidence why, just a hunch, becuase the suicide rate is more or less the same as the national average?
:lol: Do horses sniff your hands for grasping at straws so much?
Considering there are no hard facts about TBSs AT ALL regarding their effectiveness, or the population of children going in (and why they are) except they tend to be white, adopted, and have rich or wealthy parents, all your assertions, hunches, and inductive reasoning to try to explain your forgone conclusions are what the laymen call "bullshit".
Get some proof or GTFO, please. "
Niles, you finally admit that there is no evidence which supports TBS's are ineffective. This is a big step. Now if we can just tilt the scale and show you how effective it has been for many families I think you will begin to see some of the benifits."
How Do Behavior Modifying Schools and Camps Work?
II. History of behavior modifying techniques
Behavior modification is the use of outside stimuli to alter behavior. When stimuli are used repetitively to encourage or discourage behavior, behavior gradually changes. For example, when a puppy is trained not to jump on the couch, the owner responds to the puppy?s bad behavior of jumping on the couch in a authoritative voice: ?No, bad puppy?. Then, the owner picks up the puppy, and puts it on it?s puppy bed. The owner gives the puppy a biscuit when it settles down, pats it?s head and says lovingly: ?Good puppy?. The owner continues to encourage the good behavior of the puppy, sleeping on it?s puppy bed, and discourage the bad behavior of jumping on the couch. The owner repeatedly does the aforementioned until the puppy?s original behavior changes, and she learns the owner?s idea of good behavior and bad behavior.
During the 1960?s, trendy behavior modifying techniques were ?widely taught in colleges and universities, and widely practiced in schools, prisons, hospitals, homes for the developmentally disabled, businesses, and in private practice offices? (1) By 1970 behavior modifying techniques were being challenged on ethical and legal grounds. (2) Depending on the type of behavior control used, techniques may raise concerns about the dehumanization of people, denial of human rights, and manipulation. Some techniques such as coercion, are a threat to persons regarded as autonomous. Coercion often involves a tight control of a person?s environment, and aversive procedures. (3)
III. Types of behavior control used in behavior modifying techniques
In behavior modifying schools and camps, techniques are used to modify the teenager?s perceived inappropriate behavior to a more desired one. Because the location of the school or camp is remote, and the environment is controlled, questions have arisen concerning the ethics of the behavior modification used. The use of behavior modification at these institutions may be against the wishes of the teenager who did not consent to be escorted to the school. This was the case when David van Blarigan was involuntarily escorted to Tranquility Bay, a behavior modification school in Jamaica: ?Just past midnight, David van Blarigan,16, woke up in Oakland, Calif., home to find his parents at his bedside with the two burly strangers they had called to take him away. ?Why are you doing this?? the teenager cried out. ?Because you?re unhappy here,? his mother replied. ?If you don?t cooperate,? one of the escorts said, ?we?ll have to put you in handcuffs.? (4) If a teenager like David van Blarigan is coerced to attend a behavior modifying school or camp, then the application of behavior modifying techniques is coercive treatment (5)
There are many strategies for getting a person to act in a desired way. Strategies can be grouped into three types of behavior control: rational persuasion, manipulation, and coercion.
The type of behavior control that is called rational persuasion is when the authority figure?s communicative approach is straightforward. This encourages the person ?to reevaluate his intentions toward a certain act without bringing to bear any pressures of incentives extraneous to the rational evaluation of the likely consequences of that act from the point of view of the self-interest of the person being asked to act?. (6) An example of rational persuasion being employed is when a young kid is caught by his adult neighbor, smoking a cigarette. The adult neighbor asks the kid why he smokes. The kid shrugs. The adult tells the kid that smoking is bad for your health-- that it causes lung damage and turns your teeth and fingernail?s yellow. The kid is left to evaluate his action of smoking a cigarette on his own.
According to Berghman, manipulation is being employed if a person trying to influence the behavior of another, through communicative means, and is not straightforward or open. The manipulator deliberately uses pressure on his subject?s ?motivational system? that is to be manipulated in an attempt to obtain the needed assent from his subject. (7) Such a manipulative technique can be seen at home: two boys, Jack and Ryan are trading Pokemon cards at Jack?s house. Jack has the desired Pokemon card that Ryan desperately wants. Ryan tells Jack that unless Jack gives him the envied Pokemon card, he(Ryan) will go home. Jack, not wanting Ryan to go home, agrees and gives Ryan the coveted Pokemon card.
With coercion, the absence of freedom to refuse or assent can take the form of an offer or a threat. In the form of a coercive offer, strong incentives to act are given. Therefore, any reasonable person would be expected to act. Using rational persuasion and manipulation in behavior modification, the subject has a choice to refuse or consent to the attempted behavior control. In coercion, freedom of choice is absent. This is a threat to persons regarded as autonomous. (
In these schools and camps teenagers have to move up in the level system in order to leave the program. This is a coercive threat and it offers an unattractive result: If the teenager does not want to cooperate with the authoritative figure or comply to the rules of the level system, he will remain at level one and cannot leave the program. Desiring his freedoms, he will appear to comply with the coercer, the authority figure, in order to leave the program.
In behavior modifying schools and camps, coercion is the primary method used to behavior modify the teenagers into conformity with the goals and purposes of the program. In the majority of these programs, levels systems, systems of rewards and punishments based on propriety are used and are perceived as a coercive offer. The teenagers cannot refuse participation in the level system. Therefore, it is coercive treatment because the behavior modifying technique of level systems used is against the will of the teenager. Rather than staying at the bottom level where all personal freedoms are relinquished, a teenager will participate in the level system in an attempt to move up and get out. Moving up in the level system is desirable because there are privileges, and any reasonable teenager will act in order to obtain more of their personal freedoms that have been denied. This use of coercion is unjust because our society respects the autonomy of persons: ?In societies stressing the values of respecting the autonomy of persons, from a moral point of view coercion is prima facie wrong?. (9) At some point, trying to modify someone?s behavior forces him to act in a certain way, and this ?forcing? can be defined as coercion. (10) Forcing a person to act in a certain way is different from rationally persuading or manipulating him.
IV.History of behavior modifying institutions
Behavior modifying programs came into existence during the birth of behavioral psychology in the 1960?s. Investigators in the behavior research area first began these programs with institutionalized adult and juvenile offenders, hoping to deprogram their criminal behavior. At the time, criminal behavior was believed to be ?a learned phenomena?. In such a closed environment, the behavior modification system of punishments and rewards could be stringently controlled.
In the late 1960?s and early 1970?s, these behavior modifying programs flourished. Studies show statistically short-term improvement in the reduction of undesirable inmate behavior for more desirable behavior. These changes in behavior were associated with the reinforcement contingencies of reward and punishment . However, in the late 1970?s, some problems were found in these institutions that led to reduction of many institutional behavior modification programs. The problems identified were: ?institutional constraints,? ?external political and economic pressure,?, ?limited supplies and personnel,? and ?the often deleterious methodological compromises caused by these influences?. Also staff resistance to adherence in the behavior modification procedures, and ?staff perceptions that experiments were inflexible and dictatorial?. These institutions? problems seem to stem from the use of coercion and lack of funding which may have sparked fear into the hearts of many--behavior modification programs gone bad.
In response to this trend, popular books and movies such as A Clockwork Orange, The Manchurian Candidate, Brave New World, and 1984 further amplified people?s fear of being controlled through ?exaggerated fictional presentations said to portray some version of behavior modification?. (11) People?s fear of being controlled stems from the far-reaching abilities to control other?s behavior through behavior modification. Since the birth of behavior modification, words such as ?brainwashed? and ?mind control? have become part of the American vocabulary. These words also played upon the idea that people are afraid of losing their autonomy and dignity--of having their minds controlled by another. In a nation that respects the autonomy of persons, behavior modification could have negative effects when used on society as a whole. Heldman, a law review critique, ?argued that behavior modification could be used to ?impose an orthodoxy of ?appropriate conduct? on the community and thus to silence social and political dissent?. (12) Heldman?s hypothesis may have ignited some of the attacks on behavior modifying institutions.
The most problematic attacks on behavior modification programs were legal challenges in court and in the House of Representatives. The most prominent of these was when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the notorious Special Treatment and Rehabilitative Training (START) program for the use of coercive strategies to achieve inmate compliance(U.S. Congress, 1974a). Congress was involved because ?members of Congress...criticized behavioral technology and expressed concern about the treatment of research subjects and infringements on freedoms in therapy and research in general, as well as specifically in behavior modification?. (13) Ultimately, START was shut down by the Federal Bureau of Prisons during litigation. Questions remain as to whether or not the behavior modification that replaced it post-litigation, was more coercive. (14)
As a result of the legal challenges and ethical issues pertaining to these institutions, by the 1980?s behavioral approaches to crime and delinquency were almost nonexistent. Behavioral approaches to crime and delinquency are referred to by Milan and Long as ?the last frontier of behavior psychology?. (15)
V. When did these privately funded schools come into existence?
Behavior modifying schools and camps, known as boarding schools, had been established during the late 1960?s, early 1970?s and 1980?s. Privately funded boarding schools that had behavior modifying programs such as Cedu (est. 1967), Provo Canyon School (est.1971), Oak Creek (est. 1972), DeSisto (est. 1978), and Rocky Mountain Academy (est. 1982) were not well known. (16) As shown through the growth of the teen help industry, these behavior modifying schools and camps did not become popular until the 1990?s. Now the aforementioned schools are well known among other newly founded behavior modifying schools and camps such as Tranquility Bay, Cascade, Cross Creek Manor, New Hope, and Red Rock Springs, to name a few. Recently, an alarming trend has been occurring in the teen help industry. Parents nationwide have been sending their troubled teenagers to behavior modifying schools or camps across the country, some to places as remote as Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Samoa. This explosive growth in the teen help industry is apparent in the mid-July 1999 web rankings ranked by the Alexa program at strugglingteens.com of behavior modifying/camps and sites related to them: 169,394 Intrepidnet Reporter, 240,383 Cascade School, 283,540 ASI, 417,337 SUWS, 566,957 WWASP, 592,368 CEDU, 660,723 Catherine Freer Wilderness Therapy, 673,273 DeSisto School, 900,894 Natl. Assn. Of Therapeutic Wilderness Camps, 970,730 Arizona Boys Ranch, 1,040,931 Cross Creek Manor, 1,043,904 Adolescent Guidance Services, 1,254,308, Red Rock Springs, and 1,781,847 Spring Creek Lodge. (17)
Since then, behavior modifying schools and camps, nearly 2,000 of them, have become the subject of controversy and have been brought to nationwide attention through the media. These schools and camps have gotten wide exposure in the last 3 years: in newspaper articles in major dailies throughout the country; magazines such as Time, Outside, and Seventeen; television shows such as CBS?s 48 hours; internet sites such as ?Intrepidnet? and ?Teen Liberty?; and Alexia Parks? book, An American Gulag.
These schools and camps are the subject of controversy for three reasons. One, because they appear to be an improper response by ?new breed? parents to place the parenting duties on a school because the parents lack the ability to parent or because they fear their teenager. Two, because claims of abuse have been brought to attention by teenagers that have been escorted to these schools. These teenagers are either suing or planning to sue the schools and their parents. (18) Sergio Alva, a teenager who was escorted to Paradise Cove in Samoa, plans to file a lawsuit against Paradise Cove on charges of abuse. (19) David van Blarigan, a teenager who was escorted to Jamaica Bay, is in the process of filing a lawsuit against the school and his parents. (20) There are many other lawsuits in process. And three, ethical questions about the denial of the civil and human rights of teenagers have been raised. Teen-rights activists such as Alexia Parks have responded through various forms of media in an attempt to have these schools and camps regulated by the government or terminated.
VI. Why did these schools come into existence?
Many of these schools and camps originally came into existence to respond to the needs of the truly disturbed teen. Now it appears that more of these schools are supplying the demand of apprehensive parents wanting to help their so-called ?troubled? teen. By their standards their teen is angry, defiant and also, may have committed juvenile status offenses.
Parents now have their teens escorted to these schools and camps in an attempt to keep them away from drugs, violence, sex or homosexuality. Moreso, parents want to keep their kids away from the seductive youth culture that has ?it?s own music, drugs, precocious sexual mores and values?. (21) They want to mold their children into happy, healthy, individuals who have a better set of values and are grateful to their parents. Are these schools and camps just an expensive alternative to deal with teenage angst--to place the parenting duties on a school when a parents lacks the ability to parent their teen in a time of crisis? Or are teenagers today really that troubled that they need to be imprisoned in a remote school or camp and behavior modified so that they may have the values they need to achieve their society?s perceived notion of success?
It is apparent that more of these schools are coming into existence to meet the need for a set of values that the ?new breed? teenagers lack and that in their parents view need to be inculcated. ?New breed? parents seem to ?prefer self-fulfillment and duty to self above worldly success and duty to others--including their own children?. (22) ?New breed? teenagers live in a separate world. A world that is isolated from respected adults, this may be due to the fact that many parents are divorced and working full-time, or have little time to teach (through example) values to their children. Teenagers rely on their peers and popular culture-- not respected adults. (23) This absence from respected adults ?subjects children to a multitude of powerful, contradictory pressures? (24). These pressures cause ?new breed? children to do worse in school, have negative views of themselves and others, hurt others more often without feeling guilty about having done so, and to be prone to violence, to delinquency, and drug use. (25) These schools not only meet the need for a new set of values for teenagers but also are a weapon in the war against drugs--they straighten out the drug and alcohol addicted adolescent. (26)
These behavior modifying schools and camps are similar to residential treatment centers for teenagers because they also help to straighten out the teen. But these schools have much more in common with prisons than residential treatment centers. While residential treatment centers only treat patients for a maximum of 90 days--what insurance will cover, behavior modifying schools and camps can ?treat? their ?patients? year-round for two to three years. These ?patients? are teenagers who were parent-sanctioned kidnapped to the school or camp, which is very similar to an arrest--but without the due process. These teenagers, incarcerated in the school or camp, have to follow a level system in order to move up and get out. Are these behavior modifying schools really ?schools? and are the camps really ?camps?--or are they cleverly disguised parent-funded prisons for teenagers?
1 Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Behavior Therapy p.75
2 Ibid
3 Ibid.
4 Time Magazine, January 26, 1998
5 Berghmans, Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry p.535
6 Ibid
7 Ibid
8 Berghmans, Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry p. 537
9 Ibid
10 Ibid
11 Stolz, Ethical Issues In Behavior Modification p. 9
12 Ibid
13 Stolz, Ethical Issue In Behavior Modification p.12-13
14 International Handbook of Behavior Modification and Therapy p 527
15 International Handbook of Behavior Modification and Therapy p 526
16 Peterson?s Guide to Private Secondary Schools 1999-2000 p.1070,1071,1054, 1075
17 internet:
http://www.woodbury.com/news/webrank.html18 internet:http://www.teenaid.org- California attorney Thomas M. Burton is preparing 10 individual lawsuits against Teen Help and its related companies..
19 CBS 48 Hours ?Breaking Point? 9/15/99
20 Time Magazine, January 26, 1998
21 Welsh, Tales Out of School p. 6.
22 Purdy, In Their Best Interest p. 116
23 Purdy, In Their Best Interest p. 119
24 Ibid
25 Ibid
26 Sunset Magazine
