More Questions about 'Tough-Love' Program
By Tim Rogers
Tico Times Staff
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A second former Dundee Ranch employee contacted by The Tico Times this week said he could vouch for everything Knight had said in her letter.
Speaking on condition that his name not be used, the former employee said: "If you put a spy camera in Dundee for a day, you would find abuse and an ill-trained staff."
"I know the kids are being mistreated there," he added. "What is being promised to the parents is not happening; the kids are not being educated, and they are not being helped emotionally in any way.
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Meanwhile, opponents of the program are voicing increased concern about the academy's "High Impact basic training facility."
During a Tico Times visit to Dundee last October, Lichfield explained that habitually disobedient youths from the academy or any of WWASP's eight other programs could be sentenced to do time at High Impact, where they must walk 100 miles around a perimeter track to win their freedom (TT, Oct. 25). This week, Lichfield described the walled compound as a "low-impact" facility meant to take kids out of their comfort zone to make them reflect on their behavior. Youths sentenced there will have the option of walking for two hours a day to win points toward graduating in a month, he said.
Critics of WWASP worry that the compound Lichfield is putting the finishing touches on is really a replica of the High Impact facility in Mexico, which was closed by Mexican authorities in 2001 for rights abuses. WWASP has also closed or been forced to close similar programs in Utah and the Czech Republic.
California father Chris Goodwin, who led the charge to close High Impact in Mexico, told The Tico Times this week that his son had been transferred to the Mexican facility from a WWASP program in 2001. At High Impact, Goodwin claims, his son was locked in a dog cage for a week at a time, hog-tied for three days, had his thumb twisted back and broken by a staff member, had his teeth knocked through his lips by a staffer who smashed his face in the ground repeatedly, and was forced to walk around the compound's perimeter track in the sun wearing flannel underwear and a sweatsuit.
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"We are trying to improve on the positive elements of the program, and eliminate the negative ones," he said.
Not everyone is convinced that the new facility will be more user-friendly.
"High Impact is going to be bad; it is set up identical to the one that was in Mexico," charged the former staffer who wished to remain nameless. "That is the only model Lichfield knows."
:skull:
[ This Message was edited by: BuzzKill on 2004-09-29 09:02 ]
