October 20, 2003
 

I was fifteen years old. I had many problems at home and was doing poorly in school. I attempted suicide. I spent four months in an inpatient psychiatric hospital.

Following my stay at the hospital, I felt I had only two options: return to the environment that caused me to want to kill myself or find another option. I found a tape in the lounge area of the hospital describing a sanctuary for my soul and development for my mind. It was Provo Canyon School (PCS) located in Provo, Utah. I begged my mother to let me go.

Since insurance would pay the tuition  costs, she approved my enrollment. Neither of us had a clue what horrors awaited me in Utah.

While at PCS, the staff punished severely for breaking rules that were never made clear. Fourteen years later I still suffer from the permanent knee and back damage they caused my body. Describing what has happened to my mind and my perception of the world is nearly impossible: I witnessed and/or experienced beatings by staff, being drugged, being threatened with death, and absolute renouncement of anything that resembled independent thought.

At PCS we were not allowed to read books of our own choosing. There was no library. We were not allowed music of any kind. We were not allowed television. We had no calendars and the only clocks in the entire compound were in the classrooms that we entered only a few short hours Monday through Friday. There was no way to calculate how long we were there.

We were not allowed paper or pencils except upon request with an explanation and later proof that we used the items for their intended purpose. We were only allowed to use paper and pen to do assignments or write immediate family. All written correspondence was read and censored by staff. I wrote my mother and my grandmother as often as I could to beg them to let me come home.

Every appointment with my “counselor” I was threatened with death and warned to not say anything negative about PCS or else I would suffer the same consequences as a fellow prisoner/student who had been beaten severely and was currently in a wheelchair, possibly for life. After three months, my mother and grandmother came to Utah and demanded my release. I believe that if they hadn’t, I would not be here to write this article today.

My experience is not unique. Many teenagers in America are being sent to “snake-pit” schools, boot camps, and wilderness programs. In these programs, preteens and teenagers are subjected to, padded and locked “get right” rooms, wrap mats, wooden cages, body bags, electric shock, behavior modification drugs, brainwashing, corporal punishment, sensory deprivation, enforced silence, teen guards, panic locks, flashing lights and alarms.

One teenage girl reported, “I saw a girl tied to a counselor and dragged along a rocky trail, (the counselor) pulling her hair and calling her worthless.” (An American Gulag by Alexia Parks, p. 237)

I received an e-mail message from one survivor of PCS stating, “I hate that fucking place. I was there 4 years ago and am still having bad dreams. I was in investment (punishment/torture room) for 4 months straight and (have) just as many if not more horror stories than anyone else.”

Lawsuits (Mundy v. Charter Medical Corporation dba Provo Canyon School, Milonas and Rice v. Provo Canyon School, etc.) in the 1980’s and 1990’s shut down the former parent company of Provo Canyon School, Charter Medical Corporation. In the case of Milonas and Rice v. Provo Canyon School, the complaint read: “School administrators, acting under color of state law, had caused the plaintiffs to suffer and to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, antitherapeutic and inhumane treatment, and denial of due process of law.”

Provo Canyon School was found to be at fault, confirming earlier court findings, in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1981. The case is currently on appeal to the Supreme Court. Provo Canyon School is still in operation.

These behavior modification programs are frightening. And, what may be even more horrifying is that parents actually elect to send their children to these hellish places because it is more convenient than actually doing the job of parenting. Parents can pay these programs an extra $10,000 to request transportation of their defiant one(s) to the lock-down facility they have chosen for their rebellious child(ren). For the extra $10,000 two bouncer-looking men will come to the home or school of the child and escort them by coercion or use force when needed. The forces used to abduct the child include shackles, handcuffs, and drugging. If taken from home, it is usually at night when the child is sleeping or alone in his/her room. Screams for help go unanswered by family as he/she is taken into the night to the new prison.

“Parent-funded lock-up schools have been called the second fastest growth industry in the U.S. next to the building of prisons... Lock-up boarding schools are becoming trendy for desperate parents who can afford to pay for the private incarceration of their child.” (An American Gulag by Alexia Parks, p. 6)

It should be an obvious task of our “liberty loving” country to shut down these places. Unfortunately, many of them are exempt from regulation or allowed to self-regulate by declaring asylum under such pretexts as “freedom of religion.”

Where do the freedoms of the children come in to play? All sentient beings should be free of suffering, fear, torment, and cruelty. Imagine what it must feel like for all of those children who know that their parents want them in these lock-up facilities and that their parents refuse to believe their experiences when they return home, adding more insult to injury.

Luckily, for some, parents are willing to listen and rescue their children from these dens of terror. My mother, in an e-mail message, described to another parent her experience in rescuing me: “My daughter was pale, thin, and looked as though she were a lost soul. I cried so hard when I saw her and was so glad to be able to take her home.”

Another mother trying to free her son from PCS wrote, “Angela, they have my child on 40 mg of Adderal, 0.25 of Risperdal (Anti-psy), 40 Mg of Celexa, (anti-depres.) allergy meds, asthma meds, peak flow meter DDAVP 0.2 Mg, Singular 5 mg. I am looking all these meds up on the internet. I do not think I will be able to sleep at all until I get my child out of that place.”

How do we free the rest of the children? Some have suggested a children’s bill of rights or amending the constitution. Others think that going through legal channels takes far too long and is too uncertain. Children are in desperate need of help now and at risk of being forever lost, some physically, and most mentally, to the world. Tolearn more about this issue, please visit www.teenliberty.org, http://students.washington.edu/heal, and www.isaccorp.com.