New Times- excerpt: 

The Independent - excerpt: Its website shows palm-lined tennis courts, a swimming pool and rooftop views of the ocean, and promises parents of problem teenagers the solution to their problems: sending their children to a camp in Jamaica to learn to behave. But the American-run Tranquility Bay camp on a remote corner of the Caribbean island faces growing allegations of mistreatment from former pupils and their families. In the latest case, a London boy, 12, was withdrawn by his parents after just five weeks when he complained about staff violence. His mother accuses the camp of "abusing children". Tranquility Bay is said to have the harshest regime of seven similar camps linked to an organisation called the World Wide Association of Speciality Programs, based in St George, in Utah.

BBC News - excerpt: 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. . . . Some of the parents of children who have not responded to the programme 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 Speciality Programs and Schools - the business organisation that runs Tranquility Bay.

BBC News - excerpt:  Tranquility Bay is one of several facilities run by an American business organisation called WWASPS, the World Wide Association of Speciality Programs and Schools. . . . The teenagers inside are typically enrolled on the programme for three years, but this varies and largely depends on when the institution, and their parents, think they are fit to graduate.  . . In order to recondition these children, once inside, they are completely cut off from their home life.

Independent News - excerpt:  It took 12 years for Rebecca Ramirez to come back to Victory Christian Academy. But this is no happy school reunion for the 28-year-old. Ramirez waves a sign that claims Michael Palmer, the founder of the all-girls boarding school, raped her when she was a 16-year-old student in 1992. She stands in a cotton field across from the immaculate, 10-acre campus on State Highway 89 on the outskirts of Jay, a rural northern Santa Rosa County town. Ramirez wanted to forget Palmer and this place. She couldn't. Ramirez wanted to cancel her return trip here over the Thanksgiving Day weekend when fear and a sick feeling seized the pit of her stomach. She showed up anyway with her mom, Bonnie, and another former student, Jennifer Connolly. The three women stand together for two days holding up their signs, one that reads, "Mike Palmer Rapist Lives At School." Ramirez politely apologizes for the explicit protest signs but says it's time people hear her story. She tells it to several Jay residents who pull their cars over during the two-day protest, including one woman who leaves in tears and promises to tell everyone she knows about it.

Time excerpt: About 2,500 students are enrolled in WWASPS programs. Yet in recent years, most of the schools have come under attack on charges of abuse, including food and sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, alleged beatings and the deaths of at least two children. In September the association's Mexican affiliate Casa by the Sea, near Ensenada, was abruptly shut down after local authorities investigated the school for several cases of suspected abuse, which, WWASPS president Ken Kay said, were proved "unsubstantiated." Nevertheless, a panel sponsored by the National Institutes of Health issued a study last month that called "get tough" programs "ineffective" and possibly harmful. Said the panel's report: "Programs that seek to prevent violence through fear and tough treatment do not work."

KLS-TV excerpt:  A California girl is observing her 17th birthday in Utah today, claiming she's being held against her will inside a residential treatment facility in Draper. . . . The lawsuit claims the girl was abducted off the street in Oakland by someone working for her mother and is now being held, incommunicado, in a residential treatment facility in Draper.  

Post-Dispatch excerpt: For the second time in five months, a controversial teen reform ministry in Missouri is closing following abuse allegations. [It] is among several teen reform ministries that have opened in the state due, in part, to a lack of regulation. The programs share a similar adherence to corporal punishment and intense religious instruction.

Post-Dispatch excerpt: The abuse allegations, which are being made by at least three former employees, range from prolonged isolation to medical neglect, from censored communication to excessive corporal discipline. Yet Thayer Learning Center is thriving. . . . Thayer's success is a sign of the vitality of the teen reform industry in Missouri, where hundreds of young people from across the country are enrolled in at least a half-dozen programs. And like Thayer, the programs are almost entirely unregulated by the state.

Salt Lake Tribune excerpt: A bill permitting state regulation of boarding schools for troubled teens was quietly smothered in the Utah Capitol this year after the founder of a chain of controversial schools, who is a major Republican donor, lobbied key lawmakers. . . . The La Verkin entrepreneur, his family members and business associates have poured more than a million dollars into political campaigns during the 2002 election and so far this year. The contributions - all to Republican candidates, and many to Utah politicians - have come like a desert downpour: fierce and sudden. The family donated no more than a couple of thousand dollars prior to Jan. 1, 2001.

Daily Herald excerpt: A family that runs a chain of troubled boarding schools has dumped bundles of money into Utah political campaigns over the past two years -- and may have been peddling influence with lawmakers to avoid regulation, a newspaper reports. The Salt Lake Tribune reports in Sunday editions that lawmakers quietly killed a bill this year that would have allowed the state to regulate boarding schools. Since then, checks have flown into political coffers, and complaints surrounding the schools have swirled.

Union Tribune excerpt: In interviews, Mexican state and federal officials said they were enforcing the law, and were concerned about the well-being of the youths inside unlicensed facilities. Among the violations they describe: a pharmacy at Casa by the Sea that had never been registered; "punishment cells" at House of Hope Academy in Ensenada, which treated two dozen male teenage addicts; and an electric fence surrounding Genesis by the Sea, a religion-oriented behavior modification center for a similar number of girls outside Rosarito Beach. . . . None of the centers had a person properly licensed to run a rehabilitation center, said Dr. Francisco Vera, Baja California's health secretary.

Legal Affairs excerpt: Rick Strawn is an ex-cop who started his company in 1988 to help police officers find off-duty work guarding construction sites. Ten years later, he was asked by a member of his United Methodist church to transport the churchgoer's son to Tranquility Bay in Jamaica. . . . In his first year of business, he escorted eight teens to behavior modification schools. Since then, his company has transported more than 700 kids between the ages of 8 and 17. . . Strawn's willingness to use force differentiates him from other escorts. While no one tracks the teen transport industry, those in the business estimate that more than 20 companies nationwide take kids to behavior modification schools, residential treatment centers, and boot camps.

Sun Herald excerpt:  State officials have released reports that include claims by some residents at the Bethel Girls Academy that they were subjected to physical and verbal abuse. . . . Among the allegations brought by those questioned was the claim of one girl who said students were made to jump into a "sewage pond," and were required to exercise "until you cannot breath (sic) or you vomit." The girl also said Fountain called the girls derogatory names when he got angry. Another girl claimed Fountain sat on her head and that she was hit by Fountain "on the back of her leg with a mop handle." As a form of punishment, the girl said she had to listen to preaching tapes for hours. Another girl claimed that some of the mistreatment was done by "leaders," girls who had been at the academy longer and were in charge of newer residents.

Sun Herald excerpt:  A southeast Missouri religious reform school questioned for its strict disciplining of troubled teenagers has closed, ending a run marked lately by dwindling enrollment and legal dustups over its methods. . . . Mountain Park and its Florida counterpart both relied on Christian fundamentalist teachings, strict discipline and corporal punishment to work with teenagers with behavioral problems. . . . In Missouri, where state law generally exempts religious boarding schools from state regulation and oversight, Mountain Park has had competition, some with their own legal problems.

Deseret News excerpt: Allegations of sexual abuse and assault, which have sparked recent criminal probes here and in two other states, continue to plague a Utah-based program for troubled children.  The trouble linked to programs or services associated with the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS) also has a California congressman demanding a federal investigation by the Department of Justice. Meanwhile, Utah licensing officials say there is little they can do about complaints that come in for programs like WWASPS, which remain unlicensed because they are "boarding schools."

Boston Globe excerpt: A private school for emotionally troubled children that violated state standards is closing its Berkshire County facility and sending some of its students to a program it runs in Mexico. . . . The OCCS has been investigating five complaints filed against DeSisto for months. According to a letter sent by OCCS officials to McNear, the most serious incident at the school happened in January when a student with a history of hurting herself slashed her arms with razor blades. The student swallowed two of the blades and required 57 staples to close the wounds in her arms, according to the letter.

Deseret News excerpt:  The New York State Attorney General's Office is probing Utah-based programs for troubled youths after a teenager was allegedly assaulted last month while being transported to an affiliated school near the Canadian border.  Two men associated with La Verkin-based Teen Escort are accused of beating the boy as he was being taken to the Academy at Ivy Ridge in New York. The academy is a member program of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools/Teen Help (WWASP), which was founded by Robert Lichfield of Utah. A New York investigator said the business operations of WWASP and Teen Escort have him concerned because of what he says is a lack of regulatory oversight and the "impropriety" of the transport services.

Los Angeles Times excerpt: Police in Montclair removed more than two dozen youths from a private military-style boarding school Tuesday, after a former employee and several former residents accused operators of administering abusive punishment. . . . Police were led to the two-story apartment complex on a quiet street by accusations that youngsters had been restrained in handcuffs, left for hours in cramped, darkened storage rooms and forced into a cold swimming pool as punishments.

Chicago Tribune excerpt: Even in a lackluster economy, business for therapeutic schools is booming. While exact numbers are hard to come by, a trade association and other experts say the schools are a $1 billion to $1.2 billion industry that serves 10,000 to 14,000 school-age children. Many schools pitch their programs to educational consultants whom parents hire to find an appropriate placement. Mark Sklarow, director of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, said that, a decade ago, 30 or 40 programs would call on members each year. Today, that figure is about 400. "This whole thing has just exploded," said Jeanette Spires, a Lake Forest educational consultant. . . The amount of money parents spend on therapeutic programs is staggering, with the average cost at about $5,000 a month.