Comments from Survivors of Provo Canyon School

[cherish wisdom]

PETITION COMMENTS FROM SURVIVORS OF Provo Canyon School 1976-2003

If you are considering this "school" for your troubled teenager please read the following comments. If you are a parent with a child in this "program" realize that the program involves reprograming of both you and your child. Please consider other less drastic alternatives.

G.H. Provo Canyon School is truly abominable. It is an openly avowed behavior modification center, proudly using techniques aimed at destroying the victims sense of self.

L.P. Upon entering that place I was treated like crap. Nobody wnated to know how I felt and I, among everyone else, was not allowed to express a desire to leave the school or we would have dire consequences. I'd never want to be put through that kind of Hell ever again.

S.H This place abused me emotionally, physcially and mentally.

B.R. This institution does nothing in the way of helping students. I saw things go on there that would boggle the mind.

L.H. That place needs to be shut down. They treat kids inhumanely and freeze them in those secluded rooms and if you try to keep warm, they take your clothes away so you end up butt naked. And, sometimes they forget you're in there so you don't get fed.

A.S. I was abused at PCS and contine to suffer from bebilitating back and knee injuries sustained during "punishment" in their investment area.

R.R. I was there for 26 months. I have seen most all forms of abuse there and gone through many myself. The aubse of America's children needs to stop.

M.B.T. My daughter was tortured. It must be investigated. The fact that this institution desroyed two petitions just goes to show how low they will stoop. PCS is a very dangerous place for children and destructive to families.

A.E.T. Patient in 2003. I suffered isolation, seclusion, human restraints, take downs and forced drugging.

N.J. Some of the staff need to be fired because of the 2-faced manipulations, lying, cheating, inappropritate talk, tag teaming, threatening verbal abuse and deceiving.

D.M. A scripture for those employed at PCS who participate in abuse and for the others who cover for it or look the other way:

Matthew 18:5-6 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.  
(grandmother of survivor)

MM: I lost 2 years of my life in this place. i truly believe thay think they are helping those who enter PCS, but they really are making things much worse.

RR: PCS stripped me of all my social abilities

JF: Unless you lived through the hell we survivors lived through, you will never understand. I didn't need therapy back then, I'm in it now because of PCS. My parents had the money and I ended up paying the price.

DM: Behavior modification can only be kindled in one's own heart. Force is not the way a person is to live their life. Our public policies and laws need to relect what this country really stands for. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. shut this unlawful, inhumane, ungodly school down.

J.B. I now suffer from post traumatic stress disorder as well as social phobia.. it has been many years since I left PCS and I am still haunted and left with the damage and disorders PCS left me with. I hope and pray that justice will be done.

R.A. Not only do I want this place shut down because of letters I have gotten from my daughter I would like to know how to get her out.

L.A. Did any of these people ever once think about what we went thru at home was probably bad enought without being degraded and made to feel like complete worthless pieces of ****?

C.C. this institution needs to be closed now! Demolished so it does not end up as one of Ashcroft's civilian prison camps.

M.R. That place seriously shattered my nerves and has caused me paranoia and nightmares.

L.C. I was a patient there from may 1991 until December 1992. That experience made my issues worse instead of better. Please stop the cycle and close down the school

M.G. I had an ear infection once and it caused my throat great irriataion and they would not do a thing to help me. They would not even give me a single cough drop. They neglected everyone's medical needs if they could. They only helped people who were bleeding or had a broken bone. There was kid there who complained of pain in his arm and they did nothing. It turns out he had a serious bone infection.

These quotes and more can be found at
http://students.washington.edu/heal/sign.htm
Please sign the petition if you haven't already done so. It can be found at
http://beyondbusiness.net/index2.htm
 

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

--Thomas Carlyle

[Anonymous]

does provo receive state and/or federal funds anymore?

WP

[Anonymous]

how could i find out?
foia?

WP

[cherish wisdom]

The Provo Canyon School is privately owned and operated, although it does receive funds from both state governments and the United States. The school was established in 1973 for the primary purpose of educating teenage boys whose problems are so severe that their treatment and education require a restricted, therapeutic environment. All of the boys admitted to the school have problems of one sort or another, including physical, psychological, and emotional problems, and are handicapped by a general inability to conform to normal behavioral standards. The district court described the school as follows:

The Provo Canyon School is not a school in the traditional ordinary or classic sense. It does offer classes on a secondary level to its resident population, and in most instances does a good job in its formal teaching. Provo Canyon School is also a correctional and detention facility. Students are restricted to the grounds Students are confined. Some students are locked in and locked up with varying degrees of personal liberty restored as each progresses through the institutional program. If a student leaves without permission, he is hunted down, taken into custody and returned.

Provo Canyon School is also a mental health facility. Adolescent males education levee to 1979. the school received $568,278.24 from local school districts. Additional governmental funding dale has . juvenile courts said probation departments and county governments end welfare agencies. 1Ue figure below demonstrate that the school relied heavily upon government financing:

YEAR
 GOVERNMENT FUNDS RECEIVED
 PERCENT OF TOTAL FUNDS
 
1973
 $ 41,954.113
 12.05
 
1974
 131,196.05
 25.29
 
1975
 276,325.10
 33.74
 
1976
 118,150
 13.22
 
1977
 104,258.01
 15.96
 
1978
 434,225.50
 21.00
 
1979
 429,917.78
 33.91
 

perceived to have mental health or emotional difficulties or who are chemically dependent persons, see counseled and treated. Adolescent makes with forms of learning disability, physical, mental or emotional, are housed. counseled and "taught.." The student population, intermixed and various, is subjected to a form of behavior modification" described by those who run the school as eclectic. Some of its salient features are isolation from the outside world, little or no communication with the outside world, physical confinement, physical punishment, progressive restoration of liberty, investigation and evaluation of student "attitude" and "truthfulness" and "future conduct" through the use of a machine, and counseling.

Regardless of origin, condition or motivation, once arrived, each person during the beginning phases of the school program was locked in, isolated from the outside world, and whether anti-social, crippled or learning disabled, was subject to mandated physical standing day after day after day to promote "right thinking" and "social conformity." Mail was censored. Visitors were discouraged. Disparaging remarks concerning the institution were prohibited and punished. To "graduate" from confinement to a more liberated phase, one had to "pass" a lie detector test relating to "attitude," "truthfulness and "future conduct." Some failed to pass and remained in confinement for extended periods of time

Students generally are admitted to the Provo Canyon School at the insistence of one or both of their parents. Typically, the parents have had extreme disciplinary problems and being unable to control their child have contacted, the Provo Canyon School as a "last resort" Other boy are received at the school directly directly from juvenile courts and probation officers from across the nation. Many of the youths are placed at the Provo Canyon School by the boy's local school districts, with tuition funding coming from state and federal agencies pursuant to state special education laws and the federal Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Plaintiff Timothy Milonas Jr., had resided in the State of Nevada prior to being involuntarily committed to the Provo Canyon School by his mother. Milonas' commitment was a condition of probation imposed by a Nevada juvenile court. Milonas' father thereafter received a coded letter from his son, which letter implied that the son needed assistance. Because of that letter, Milonas' father independently contacted counsel regarding the school and how it was being run. Kenneth Rice, the other individual plaintiff, had resided in Alaska until his involuntary commitment to the Provo Canyon School. Rice was placed in the school pursuant to an order of an Alaska juvenile court. Four months after he was admitted to the Provo Canyon School, Rice ran away from the school, and, before he was returned. he made contact with an attorney and complained about conditions at the school. As a result of the complaints thus made by Milonas and Rice, the present action was instituted.

They probably still receive public funding because they still take kids who are ordered there by the courts. Funny thing - they still use the same abusive measures they were sued for.  Obviously they are not abiding by the injunction. They don't use polygraphs anymore but they DO interogate kids and get them to tell on one another.  

Give me the youth, and Germany will rule the world.
--Hitler

[Anonymous]

CW,
I have read the milonas case.  I was just wondering if provo was still to this day getting gov't funds.  the part of the case about the polygraph is particularly disturbing.  the judges took great exception to that practice and called it the most personal of intrusions into one's own private thoughts. that is an ugly case and i sure wonder what they're up to at provo now-adays, and if the gov't has a hand in funding, if juveniles are still sent there, or if boys are still sent there from the psyche ward.

[Anonymous]

whoops.  you said they do send juveniles there.  yep, i'm sure they have replaced the use of polygraph with some other form of torture.

[Anonymous]

That case is from the '80s.  If PCS is still accepting state funds, they can be sued under "color of state law", unlike other schools that are strictly privately (meaning PARENT) funded.  

Why anyone would put their kid in a locked psych hospital is beyond me, unless that child is severally psychotic or at risk of harming themselves or another, the LEAST restrictive environment is always recommended.  

Was that the case with CW's kid?  If so, experts also say that 90 days is about the norm for keeping a child in lock-down for their own safety and of course, to stablize their condition.

What's with these kids being locked away for many months, even years without due-process?  THAT is just nuts!!!!

 :eek:

[Anonymous]

Honey, I was there for 26months 2 years and 2 months, the only reason why they let me go is  because they gave up on me and did not think I would succeed. It is in my paperwork from them, no joke.

[Anonymous]

When I was in provo from 2000-2002 we did not have a polygraph, we had what was called a statement of facts. They give you paper and pencil, you sit down at a desk in  a corner alone somewhere, do not talk or look at anyone or else you get  a class 2 and thenyou are to write down everything that you have done wrong, when you think you are done you turn it in to staff who read it and tell you if you told them the truth or not, another words did you write down what they are looking for, so not only did you get in trouble for what they knew of, but for everything else you did that you wrote down and if you wrote that you did something with someone else they wanted to know they're names all the time and if you refused to tell them you got to go to observation until you were willing to tell them. Often staff did this to get kids in trouble that they did not like and to torque with certain kids also to see if they could make them lash out in anger. it was totally f* up.

[cherish wisdom]

To those who asked if pcs still receives public monies - they probably do because they still take court-ordered youth - therefore the state must pay. This is why the authorites ignored the reports of abuse at this school. They refuse to investigate properly because if they find that it is abusive then others may have a cause of action against the state for placing them in an abusive facility that routinely violates human, civil and Constitutional rights.  Please sign the petition to close this horrible den of torture and child abuse. Petition is found at:
http://beyondbusiness.net/index2.htm

To say the drug war is a failure is like saying the Hindenburg was short a few fire extinguishers.
http://mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n808/a10.html' target='_new'>Carl Hiassen

[Anonymous]

Who owns PCS?

[Anonymous]

On 2004-04-29 15:17:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Honey, I was there for 26months 2 years and 2 months, the only reason why they let me go is  because they gave up on me and did not think I would succeed. It is in my paperwork from them, no joke."

Sheesh, may I ask how your parents feel about that?  I mean, unless money is no object here, it sounds like they spent a minor (no pun intended) on an "unsuccessful" program.

Anyway, Anon, Kudos to you for hanging in there so long, hope you are enjoying life on the "outside" ... God knows you kids paid a big price for your freedom.

 :nworthy:

[Anonymous]

On 2004-04-30 16:03:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

On 2004-04-29 15:17:00, Anonymous wrote:


"Honey, I was there for 26months 2 years and 2 months, the only reason why they let me go is  because they gave up on me and did not think I would succeed. It is in my paperwork from them, no joke."

Sheesh, may I ask how your parents feel about that?  I mean, unless money is no object here, it sounds like they spent a minor (no pun intended) on an "unsuccessful" program.



Anyway, Anon, Kudos to you for hanging in there so long, hope you are enjoying life on the "outside" ... God knows you kids paid a big price for your freedom.



 :nworthy: "

oops, meant to say minor FORTUNE ...

[cherish wisdom]

Provo Canyon School was previously owned by Charter Hospital. The current owner is Universal Health Services.  They own 69 hospitals and other health related facilities. They boast profits of over three billion dollars per year.
The web-site is:
http://www.uhsinc.com

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
--William Safire

[cherish wisdom]

This was taken from the Provo Canyon School Petition:  Name with held.

My daughter stayed there in the 80's when she was a child. A family friend (doctor) told us it was a private school with lots of fun things to do. My daughter is severe epileptic and it was the medication that had caused her outbursts. The doctors there put her in cages with only her bra and underpants on a mat on the floor and a sheep to keep warm. Also the doctors there were supposed to be very careful about her medicine as they were to consult her neurologist before giving her any medicine. They never contacted him and shw was given medications that caused her to have more seizures that she didn't have at the time. The only way she got out was a friend of mine who worked there told me how they abused her and begged me to get her out. I had the lawyers for disabled people come there as an IEP and then told them we were taking her out. The school didn't have time to get a court order to stop it. I was not even allowed to help her pack and a counselor followed her and heckled her all the time she was packing because they wanted her to react and keep her there. The abuses were numerous and I myself saw many children there crying by what they were suffering when I visited my daughter.

These same abuses are currently occuring. Over 300 girls and boys are in danger of this type of abuse every day. Please speak out and help end this.

...to disarm the people (is) the best and most effective way to enslave them...
-- George Mason