These posts are better than arguing with theWho. Can you elaborate on this gulag some more? Were you allowed to contact the outside world, for example? How was Hidden Lake Academy structured--a heirarchy with "reformed" detainees granted authority over lower ranking ones, for example? Was group "therapy" forced? What were the punishments if you didn't say what they wanted you to day in "therapy" "?Explain HLA to people who don't understand what it was like. Thank you.
im not going to explain HLA to you. explaining HLA would involve writing a three-volume book, something i dont have time for. you are better off sorting through different posts. or maybe i'll string some together sometime soon.
i can answer your specific questions though:
Contact: you were allowed to talk to your parents once a week for up to 20 min, always supervised, often on conference call w/ counselors. letters were allowed at first only to parents, then as the program moves on you can send letters to your extended family, and near the end of the program, your freinds. all letters to family are censored by counselors, all letters to friends are censored by counselors and then parents. we were allowed to watch TV, although usually the kids picked sports. we were only allowed approved magazines and newspapers (anything overly liberal, pro-life, pro-homosexual, pro-drug, sexual or conspiratorial was not allowed). all approved magazines, newspapers, and books were checked by staff and anything not approved would be torn out. there was no internet connection, students are forbidden from accessing the internet both at school and when they go home on vacation. There were supervised trips to AA meetings, community service, amusement parks, and movie theaters.
Hierarchy: staff ruled everything. there were student "positives" that were supposed to "help" the newcomers by being nice and supportive and showing the ropes. students had no power over each other; other than through group punishment. If you were on restrictions and one kid acts up, the entire restriction group is punished with PT (physical training - lots of push ups and sit ups). There was also a minor unspoken hierarchy: some students held more sway with the staff and therefore had more power over other students. there were dorm heads who assigned chores like vacuming, mopping, etc to kids. there were also "honor" groups like phoenix and STARS that were given more priviliges and more trust. that meant that if they tattle on you, even if they are lying, the counselors will always believe them over you. this gave them quite a bit of power - although to be in phoenix or stars you had to be a goody-two-shoes anyway and most of those kids didnt abuse their power. they were just nice.
therapy: it was forced. if you disagree, you go on restrictions. Thats when from the second school ends to the time you go to bed, and all day on the weekends. You stand in line all day and march around. you are forbidden from speaking. if you speak, you either do pushups or you have to carry a rock over your head all day. if that rock falls below your eyebrows, you do pushups and carry the rock for another day. if you keep speaking, they make the whole group do PT. sometimes you do PT anyway - in the mud, the rain, in the heat, in snow, freezing rain, lightning storms, doesnt matter. you walk around and clean up trash all day. you create trails, repair and pave roads, make ditches, do landscaping, cut trees and clear forest, build diversions for the stream, haul dirty laundry, basically any work HLA needs done on the property. if the counselors are feeling nice that day you might be lucky enough to be able to sit inside all day studying or reading a book. also, the person running restrictions for a while was a wannabe drill instructor who treated the kids like cadets and yelled at them till he lost his voice or the kid broke down crying.
there were other punishments too: zaps were for minor offenses, you had to walk around the lake during your dorm time. work assignments, you had to join restrictions for just an hour or two. if you really broke the rules they send you to ridge creek. thats a whole different story.
ask specific question, and you will get specific answers. i'm not going to write you a novel.
