Locked in Paradise
Desperate US parents are sending their troublesome teenagers to tough boarding schools overseas, but many have had second thoughts when they discover just how tough these schools can be.
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Annual fees are between $25,000 (£13,000) and $40,000 (£20,800)
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Reporter Raphael Rowe visits Tranquility Bay in Jamaica, a correctional institution set up specifically to deal with unruly teens.
Situated in a small village with spectacular views across the Caribbean Sea, it is the stuff of holiday brochures… but not for the kids who are sent there.
New arrivals – some as young as 12 – cannot speak without permission and are allowed only the barest of necessities.
They are cut off from their families and they must earn privileges such as phone calls home.
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LOCKED IN PARADISE
Tuesday, 7 December, 2004
1930 GMT on BBC Two (UK)
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One of the most controversial methods of punishment used in the behavioral correction program is Observational Placement or OP.
Children in OP lie silently on the floor in a guarded room until staff members decide they can leave. They eat, sleep and exercise in the same room.
Even though Tranquility Bay director, Jay Kay, says the aim is to get kids out of OP within 24 hours, Raphael talks to ex-students who had been in there for much longer.
Fifteen-year-old Shannon Levy, who left Tranquility Bay in 2002, spoke about her experience in OP.
“They lined us up like sardines…there was no air, no ventilation… and if we had to go to the bathroom we had to leave the door open so they could sit there and watch us. I was there for eight weeks straight,” she said.
Cruel to be kind?
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Raphael Rowe (right) asks students about the conditions in OP
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Some of the parents of children who have not responded to the program say the regime is brutal, open to abuses, and some of the staff poorly trained.
Several of them are taking legal action against WWASPS – World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools – the business organization that runs Tranquility Bay.
Bertrand Bainvel, Head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) in Jamaica, wants OP scrapped because he says: “There is a high possibility it falls under the definition of child abuse.”
In their defense, WWASPs say their schools have “helped thousands of teens and their families and have a 97% parent satisfaction rate.”
And it is true that for some parents, the school has been the answer to their prayers.
Raphael interviewed one parent who was very satisfied. He had not seen his son for 14 months, but told Raphael: “I have to believe in these people, they have helped a lot of children.”
For Shannon Levy’s mother Jayne, it was her only hope. “I had to do something quick because I was fearing for her life,” she said. “Desperate parents do desperate things.”
Credit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/4061595.stm
Mr. Kay stood by and watched a staff member snap my arm and break it the day before i was kicked out of the program. This program was in no way helpful , you don’t take troubled teens from sometimes broken homes and abuse them. When i had to share in these so called groups i was told i was a liar and that theirs no way my life was what it was in the good ole USA . The staff members hated us for being Americans with more material things then they will have in a life time. They would have a psychologist from another country come in and give all kinds of drugs for schizophrenia when i know i wasn’t schizophrenic. I was force fed meds by a nurse and staff members many times. I knew that i had to get out , the case workers would inform families that the letters written home were all lies that none of the things we were telling are parents were true. I never spoke to my parents through the 9 months i was there until the day i found out i was being kicked out. I begged my “therapist” who was a southern California native to help me that the abuse was unbearable mentally and physically. Nothing… no help. Jay Kays piece of crap father .. yes this is a business for profit. You made a profit off of a abusing and punishing children in a inhumane fashion. Now not many children have gotten kicked out of Tranquility Bay so i must have done some pretty bad stuff… if you call talking and fixing your hair without permission really bad then yes i was horrible. Those were the reasons i was put in OP . Once there is when the anger and loneliness really set in. I rebelled against staff. Male staff too , i decided the only way out would be to start a riot. Other girls were being molested and physically abused.. you would go to sleep listening to screams in the night and i couldn’t sit there and let them hurt me or anyone else anymore. Someone gave staff a heads up about what was going on and they had extra staff the night of the riot.I tried to jump over the wall but was pulled down by my shirt and was restrained in the rocks where the laundry was done in buckets. Mrs. Grahm a female staff member rubbed my face in the rocks making it bleed . The staff members were abusive and had no training .. i could have died a few times from strangulation from the positions they would hold you in cutting off the airways. I still have nightmares. Luckily there are a lot of us who went through these programs so we all share a bond a truth that no one can really understand unless they have been there. I was put in the school and they made the classroom isolation for me and a couple of my sisters. When they realized i was the ring leader they separated us . into different classrooms. Out of all the girls i was the only kicked out. I left tranquility bay looking like a dalmatian covered in bruises and with a dislocated arm. Because my parents didn’t know what happened in that place they sent me to another program but unrelated to wwasp. I am so happy that place is shutdown. No child should endure it.
Bull crap.
My husband was sent to spring Creek Lodge in Montana as a child. And as I was not there to see what he went thru directly I do see the after effects of what that horrendous place did to him. He still does have nightmares to this day. And he suffered from PTSD and probably still does. It took him years to open up to me about the treatment he endured under these people. And when he did I had trouble believing it myself. Until I started to do my own research and saw all the testimonies from other survivors and parents. It all sounds like a movie made up not real at first but once you see there’s hundreds of kids with the same stories then you start to believe it has to be true. As well as the lawsuits that the kids and parents filed hundreds of them. I truly feel awful that anyone was treated with such disregard for human life, treated worse than murderers in our prisons are treated. And they are just children. I don’t know how anyone in their right mind could ever think these actions wouldn’t have horrible adverse effectson these poor children. To see someone I love and view as the strongest person I’ve ever known brought to tears and very obviously traumatized by his experience makes me so angry. When he first discovered the websites dedicated to these kids who endured these same atrocities, and began reading and comparing his own experiences with others it gave him some solace to know he wasn’t the only person so adversely affected by his situation. So for all of you nay Sayers out there these kids are telling the truth they really did go through all the horrible things they have described and I believe there’s a special place in hell for those who advocate the abuse and overall neglect of these children. To see it still be affecting my husband 20 plus years after he left these programs goes to show how severe the “treatments” they were given truly are. And to know that there are still some of these places in operation to this day blows my mind! I’m sorry to all of you that went through any of these so called schools and just hope you all know there are people out here that support you and will do what we can to help you to cope with the after affects that a lot of you are still dealing with. It’s unreal and unfair, and in my opinion caused more problems for my husband than he had going into the program. He was smoking cigarettes going in the program. Coming out he was very angry had no ability to control his own anger most of the time. As well as using alcohol and drugs for a long period of time through his late teens early twenties just trying to dull the pain he was feeling from all he endured. So if you look at it the way I do that place made him worse than he was going in. They offered no emotional support to these children and made them feel as if it was something wrong inside themselves for feeling like they were being mistreated. That all this was made up by the kids. But clearly that’s not true! There’s also been multiple suicides from people after the left these places. Im so sad for anyone who had these same experiences as my husband and understand why they made the poor choices some had made after getting out. They had no idea who or where to turn to because as children the adults that were interested with the care and we’ll being of these kids were the people that isolated and made these kids turn into the troubled minds they became. And when they did try to bring attention to their situation the people at these facilities would tell the kids loved ones that it was manipulation and lies to get the parents to take them home. If they looked out the windows they were charged with escape. They took my husband’s clothes and shoes almost the entire time he was enrolled to keep him from running. And also would lock them in this outhouse sized wood shack with no clothing or blankets in the winter in Montana. With snow 5 or 6 feet deep. Some for days at a time. It’s incredibly sad, especially since there were kids as young as 10 years old in some of these places going thru these things. I’m sorry to all that had these things occur in their lives and wish I had the power to make the people who run these places pay the same price as you all had. Good luck, and I hope you find the right person or people who are going to be there to help heal from these traumas you suffered.
I was in this program when I was 17 for 11 months I really don’t remember what happens there I just know when I started watching and reading about this a flood of partial bad memories started rolling in.i begain to withdraw from others and I totally shut down.this was at 25 now I am 33 and have been on the sts ever since I looked into this.it was a traumatic non helpfully program and I was wondering if any kind of lawsuit went down or how to inquire for any such thing.i was traumatized by this incident it effects me daily and all I can do is shut up about it and keep it in I have been held back from a life because of it.ive turned to the sts and self medication to suppress what happens to me ..help! I’ve never reached out for any help but after seeing what I seen and remembering it to be more then true I know I can’t do this on my own I’m really not sure in how to get right again…my family put a restraining order on me and I have noone and been on sts just wondering why my life has turned to such a misters of what to do and where to do from here….I am lost help me if u can suggest anything my life is in shambells and I have no direction in witch to seek help.i am on the sts of San Diego for 8 + years and. Ant take this anymore I want to die I feel less then and unwanted.i hope to find a way to understand what I’m goin threw and start to heal from it.email me or whatever help is much appreciated.how do I live when I have noone and nothing to help me find a new start I’m lost.help hahnsolo2021@gmail.com
I was woken up at 2:00 am by a man and a lady, handcuffed and put into the back of a car in the middle of the night. I screamed so loud I have no idea how no one in the neighborhood heard me and called the cops. I was driven to the Tampa, Fl airport which was about an hour to and hour and a half from my home in Kissimmee, Fl and I fought the whole way. I screamed, cried and kicked the whole time thinking I was just being KIDNAPPED! I kicked the driver in the head while driving down the highway which is how desperate I was to not care if we crashed and I died, because I wanted a chance to escape. Once at the airport I waited for the opportunity to make a run for it the only issue was the handcuffs. I waited until the female transporter went for coffee and I told the male transporter that I had to pee so I could get into the bathroom and ask for a cellphone to use. I asked a lady in the bathroom to barrow her phone to make a call and she left me, I tried to contact my boyfriend at the time but way unable to reach him at 3:00am, so my next option was to hide in the bathroom and call the cops. The police were there in seconds but for me what seemed like minutes. They pulled me to the side and spoke with me while they spoke with the transporters who provided paperwork showing my parents had signed over their rights to them and they were NOT kidnapping me but rather transporting me to my new school for troubled kids. I died inside at that moment knowing this was all set up by my parents and they were sending me away to “fix” me. Once I arrived in Jamaica after being on a plane for hours in handcuffs I was taken to the school which was like 2 hours from the airport in the middle of no where with huge walls and then reality set in I wasn’t going home. I was only there for a few months but the things I went through and also witnessed stay with me until this day, I have been physically restrained, pushed down a flight of stairs for “walking to slow” in the rain, denied medical attention for my bruised back and ribs after the push, been starved for food, denied the basic right to privacy to pee, poop, shower alone, stripped searched naked by a adult as a child, denied medication for my migraine conditions, and also not allowed to ever speak with my parents one day ever while I was there. I remember a lot of what took place and also there is some more foggy memories I guess my mind wishes to forget. I remember laying in bed at night sleeping but not fully sleeping because I wanted to make sure no male staff Molested me in my sleep, I heard girl screaming at night time because they were being molested. I watched the staff members give kids medications they shouldn’t have take but were forced to because they wanted to keep them calm so they wouldn’t start issues with the students vs staff. The amount of trauma I endured in my few months at Tb before I phased out at 18 was horrible and I can only imagine those of you who stayed longer. I pray that you all find healing in whatever way that is for yourselves because we deserve it.