Shocking.

<a href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,987172,00.html?=rss" target="_blank">http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,987172,00.html?=rss</a>

I just finished reading that article and I am appalled that this type of institution can be allowed to exist, in any country. It's really just disgusting. Now, in certain extreme cases, some type of intervention could be necessary, but this goes way beyond anything I could even imagine being considered acceptable.

At least the reporter was fairly thorough, seeing as I doubt anyone willing to provide any insight into the lives of the kids there will ever be allowed inside. Seriously, this is really shocking.

'If 70-80 per cent of the food you eat is not water rich, what you are doing is clogging your body. Eat 80 per cent water-rich food. Try it for the next 10 days. Watch what happens to your body. It will blow your mind.' Students have no choice in what they eat - there is a seven-day plan of basic Jamaican meals which never changes, and eating less than 50 per cent of any dish is forbidden.

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And also your colon. Diahrea isnt fun.

'I tell you, I was at my wits' end with my son. We'd tried military school, but he got kicked out. He never got into trouble with the police. He was one step from that. What it was is, he was going through this identity crisis. Peer pressure. Pot got involved.'

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Not Pot. Oh jesus not Peer Pressure, Identity crisis. What is the world coming to.

God that is probably the worst case of bad parenting gone even worse with psychos who think they are saints.

Jesus.

I just read this article and I have to admit it does seem a bit heavy handed. I think it would be better suited to kids who were doing some SERIOUS stuff, like murder, repeated drug charges and stuff. But not some of the stuff that was highlighted in the article. The girl that was sort of avoiding her mom comes to mind. She doesn't really deserve to be there. Maybe some therapy, but not this place. Personally, it sounds like a place for rich parents to dump off a kid that THEY think are being disrespectful. Plus it seems as if all you need to have your kid committed is 40k. I think it should be court regulated or something but I could see this place EASILY being misused by parents.

The parents forgot that they were teenagers once too and acted the same way.

Everyone does. Its part of life.

Oh God...

I saw the words "Part One" on the top of that article and my ADD kicked in big time.

I'll give it a read once I find my Aderol.

I read at levels 4-6 you can have your choice of clothing and shit. Does this mean before then they just do everything naked? With the words they used it pretty much sounded like it

I think I should talk to Zorro's parents about a trip to 'Tranquility Bay'...

well the people who do live in certainparts of pasadena and altadena seem as if they have more than enough to pay for such things. As for me, Don't have the money thankfully

Damn right. Poor kids dont deserve the care that this place gives you.

Damn poor sub human kids. The bastards should be sent to an island. OH WAIT! They cant afford it!

What's really sad is that the prisons for rapists and murderers aren't even usually this mentally damaging.

This morning I awoke from a dream that I was a rapist.

This is seriously some fucked up shit. NO KID deserves this kind of treatment. Breaking kids indepence and spirit is hardly what i call good treament. Its like a fucking little cult. You cant do anything you are treated like nothing. What kind of sick fucking parents send their kids here? Makes me sick to see shit like this be legal. blow_top blow_top

I dont know about you guys ,but I for one would never send my kid { if I had any } to place like that for fear of reprisal after they get out,besides what kind of mentally twisted kid would you get back when all is said and done ?

For 40K a year I bet I could find a martial arts school in Japan that would kick the hell out of the kid and teach him/her some manners in the process as well as develop them further mentally , the place in that article sounds like nothing more than a dungeon/brain washing center just there to break your spirit and turn you into a more deranged person than when you arrived. oh_no

Some years ago the Marine Corps had a "Devil Pup" program where they would take troubled kids and keep them for 2 or 3 weeks and teach them what "respect" really means and the value of it.

<small>[ June 30, 2003, 11:55 PM: Message edited by: candycab ]</small>

Ahh the F*%$KIN memories are comming back.


I went to a place like that, but no where near like that and no where near as expensive. That's a insane ammount of money to spend on reprogramming your kid. The place I went to was called Red CLiff.

Utah is the center of these programs... WHy am I not surprised. I went there, spent 67 days in the Utah desert. IT's all one big Mind game.

Yep... I got woke up at 4:20 (no joke) in the morning by a oh so wonderful escort. 1 big black guy and 1 big white guy. They said "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Had nothing to eat except for rice and lintels.
and the occasianal hamburger meat they threw at us. Drank nothing but Water all the time... and let me tell you nothing beats a nice warm glass of water after cows have been bathing themselves in... that's good drinking! buttrock

Did I come out the person my parents wanted me to be... well I stayed in my room on the computer for the next 2 years. Never did a dame thing. Casue they had a clause if you "went back to your old ways" they could send you back free of charge. I didn't want to go back... So I basicly became a empty shell... sure I seemed bright and cheerful on the outside, but I was nothing on the inside.. Felt almost like a machine. Finally when I turned 18 i was a legal adult. I did go forth and party once again and what was really fuck'n funny is I did the same thing back when I was 16... still lived at home until I was 20 then joined the air force.

I'll be more than happy to explain more if people want to hear it, but i'm burnt from work today and need to sleep.

To be perfectly honest, I think it's 100% the parents fault the kid gets bad enough to need this kind of "care" in the first place. And I also think a parent has mental problems if they think this is the way to "fix" it. Yah, kids that come out of this program may not do drugs/sleep around/etc, but I can't be convinced they are happy.

Matt

/sarcasm on* Yeah why bother with dealing with your child yourself when you can pay someone else to do it for you. /sarcasm off*

Well at least those kids got beds. Nothing beats sleeping with scorpions and snakes.

When I was at red cliff there were 2 types of groups. 1 group that parents sent there kids too. The other the courts send the kids too.

Hehe, I remember the time when a forest fire started close to where my group was... I was only a mile a away from it, but that was close enough. The people who were near the fire itself is a wonder that they got out alive. Everything burned except for the clothes they had on there back.

Now that's something to send your kid too.

Those parents who send there kids there, not the courts are freaking morons. They try to look for a excuse why there kid is acting "not normal". Like getting a 2.0 in school, sneaking out of the house at night, and just usual teenage rebellion.
Oh and be it from anyone else that they smoked the mota


That's all what it boils down too. They give up on there kid and feel that they have truly lost there kid, but that's not so... when the kid get back from a place like that. That's when the parents have lost there kid.

Im a pretty calm kid, but this article makes me mad. I place the blame squarely on the parents of these kids. No discussion. If they have $40 000 to spend on this crap, and can live with the fact that their child is in someone else's hands (let alone a Jamaican child detention hall), THEY DON'T DESERVE KIDS.

"A number of these students are 18 years old and therefore legally free to walk out, but until they graduate the programme their parents are refusing to have them home. Lindsay Cohen is nearly 19. A straight-A high-school graduate, she was heading for Harvard until an unsuitable choice of boyfriend had her sent here at the age of 17. The day she turned 18, Tranquility would be obliged to hand over $50 and the return half of her air ticket if she wanted to leave."

What the hell is that? You think Harvard's going to take in a student who spent 3 years at a jail? What the hell is wrong with these parents.

<small>[ July 01, 2003, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: The Webmiester ]</small>

by the way, this paragraph is garbage:

"When you have a teenager on the rampage, who are you going to turn to? In America, parents send their troubled offspring to Jamaica's Tranquility Bay - a 'behaviour-modification centre' which charges $40,000 a year to 'cure' them. Decca Aitkenhead, the first journalist to gain access to the centre in five years, wonders if there isn't too high a price to pay"

In America... yeah this is something we ALL know about and do and we just never told the UK... horrible journalism.

Very facinating read... I have to say that.

-Nick

To be quite honest, I would come out of that camp, swim to the US, knife in my mouth, and kill my parents.

Not only would it be justified, but it would DEFINITELY get the camp shut down.

that place is fucking horrible.

theyre like, killing kids and replacing them with mindless drones

what happens when these kids get into the real world and have to face REAL situations? theyre fucked, they dont know anything or how to handle anything.

"just say no" thats how you get shot.

As Dreyer was unfortunate enough to encounter,

These camps have been around for years.

I've read numerous articles on them, the funny think is that they've moved off shore and into Mexico in order to avoid getting sued here for the horrible things they do to the kids.

I think anyone who sends their kids there is an idiot. There are always other ways.

Tragically, we live in the "quick fix, instant gratification" American ideology. Pervasive in everything from politics to foriegn policy

Bobak:

These camps have been around for years.

I've read numerous articles on them, the funny think is that they've moved off shore and into Mexico in order to avoid getting sued here for the horrible things they do to the kids.

I think anyone who sends their kids there is an idiot. There are always other ways.

Tragically, we live in the "quick fix, instant gratification" American ideology. Pervasive in everything from politics to foriegn policy

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So true bobak.

If you get sick in those places your screwed. When I was at red cliff I saw people passing out right and left. All they said was drink more water. They all thought they were faking. They could of been, but Dehydration and heat stroke is very serious. Fook was it hot! I'm just glad I wasn't there during the winter. It gets cold in the desert at night....

Hell I had the flu and had to freaking do a 10 mile hike. That's all what we did during the day was hike all around the desert. Basically we had hippies who really liked to live outdoors all the time as our group leaders. It just got to be routine. Wake up, eat breakfast which consisted of water, oats, and hopefully raisins. Hike, didn't have much of a lunch, then make camp and eat dinner have the "little" intervention time, write a poem about what we felt during the day, finally bed time. Then the cycle starts all over again. That's probably why I joined the military because I got used to a routine.

The Webmiester:
by the way, this paragraph is garbage:

"When you have a teenager on the rampage, who are you going to turn to? In America, parents send their troubled offspring to Jamaica's Tranquility Bay - a 'behaviour-modification centre' which charges $40,000 a year to 'cure' them. Decca Aitkenhead, the first journalist to gain access to the centre in five years, wonders if there isn't too high a price to pay"

In America... yeah this is something we ALL know about and do and we just never told the UK... horrible journalism.

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The readership of the Observer is wise to that, I assure you. It is sloppy jouralism but nobody would believe it was the norm, or even approved of widely. It certainly shouldn't detract from the article.