real-life reeducation centers

[Az]

And if a kid doesn't give a ****?

[Provost Harrison]

Well, they should be assisted in whatever professional capacity is necessary, not these torture camps...

[Q Classic]

it is interesting to note that jamaica says little because it's an economic engine there...

[Adalbertus]

Azazel,
Such issues are with 99% certainty previous failures of the adults. I see no reason in punishing kids for that. Quite often, parents think they have something like a cute dog and are completely surprised by the fact that a kid starts to think for itself.

I admire my grandpa for that he took my mother with him to a pub, saying that the best place for a girl to learn what alcohol is, are her parents.

Also, as already mentioned there is another situation where mutual confidence is difficult. My grandma was (I think) around 17 and fresh in love with a young man (see above), when her mother burst out into tears :"you don't love me". My grandma had all problems to console her. That's how she learned she was adopted.

I just try to imagine "17 is too young, go to tranquility bay" ...

My grandmother was still in love with him as a 17-year-old when she died in 1997 (and 16 years after him)
Destroying a personality like done in those camps is one of the few things I rate worse than murder.

[Kassiopeia]

Adalbertus's got it. It's repulsive how parents use these camps to correct their own mistakes in raising children. Face it - they don't become troubled teenagers magically by some unknown force. It's in the parents. The environment might have something to do with it, but parents ought to be able to counter that, if they really care about their kids. Things like these camps make me second-guess the basic human right of reproduction, sadly.

If they send off a kid for just dissenting with them, i.e. being a teenager, then that's just even more revolting. These camps step on the human rights of these children - no privacy, no sexuality, no free thought. It's frightening. These people that call themselves their parents should have no right to their children.

Some say these things are better than the kids ending up in prison. Well, to end up in prison at least there's a justice system to regulate it. Apparently all there is needed for a pair of nuts to send their kids to a camp is enough cash.

Originally posted by ixnay

There's a huge thread on the Something Awful forums about this right now - the goons are using their mass swarming power for good, in an attempt to shut them down/raise public awareness of this. I'll keep you updated on any progress there.

for the goons.

[mrmitchell]

wonder why or how a parent could conceivably think it is a good idea to send their children there

Parents who send their kids to these places don't trust anyone. The common divorce/adoption demographic of the parents is mentioned in the article, and it's not a leap to say that your trust is damaged if the love of your life divorces you and leaves her kids to rot. The divorce heavily affects the children, who turn to illegal activities to deal with their problems because the adults are not offering any help. Then, emotionally damaged parents who know a hill of beans about children find Tranquility Bay or one of many other such organisations and think "This is how to save my child!" They are (1)irrational and do not consider that there can be any downsides at all or (2)hate their children subconsciously and want them to burn in hell.

A second possibility is that the parent once again has issues in trust, but not because of divorce. They just are suffocating maniacs who can't stand to let their children grow up and go out into the world. This kind is just as bad, if not worse, than the first. If they were informed of all the beating and knew that their kids would become obedient slaves, they would still put them in the program because "If it hurts so much, it has to work!" or once again they subconsciously enjoy seeing their children in pain.

Tranquility Bay uses a device of self-approval similar to the "denial" trap that is often used. As it goes, denial is the first sign of drug abuse, so if your kid says he's not on drugs, then obviously he's been tripping out on LSD for years and you never even noticed, you bad parent.

Unfortunately, people who can't see through even the denial trap don't really like the person they're accusing anyways (or do not have the capability of it). In some instances this can be because the parent was raised their child in the vision that he would fulfill all of the parent's dreams, and in some instances the child is too good and the parent starts feeling jealous, wishing that their own childhood could have been that fulfilling. Anyways I guess I'll quit my unchecked rambling unless someone dares to say I'm wrong.

[muxec]

A perfectly viable system.
There are two education methods "Eastern" and "Western". Eastern education is strict discipline and respect to the parent/teacher. Western education is democracy for not-working teens. Yes Eastern education may be wrong. Japanese samurais knew that they will be samurais in age of four. Maybe it's not too good but Western culture is wrong. When i read that american children copulate in age of 13 and it's considered normal I can not imagine it. When I read that in age of sixteen 95% of american boys tried narcotics at least once i'm getting shocked. How could it be? Do these parents really love their children or just say them "Do whatever you want but dont disturb me!" ? Why do they need their children? If they really love and need their children they would not allow children to do everything. If the good parent sees that the child recieves low grades in the school, he (parent) punishes him by not giving pocket money or (if it's not against local laws) punishes him physically. In some countries punishing a child is strictly forbidden. In USA parent who lashes his child even can be jailed. So how to affect the child? How to make him realize that he is not the only in the world and to teach him to be polite? These rich parents have the only choise- to send their childred to the Tranquility. Yes, children will have a bad time in their childhood, but they will die from drugs. They will not fail to find jobs just because they can not be polite. I think that parents who send their children to the Tranquility really love their children, they are not indifferent to their future lives.

When 3 years before we (with mom) imigrated to Israel I was sent to elite school known as shevahmofet (www.shevahmofet.org , the site is still under constraction). It's Russian school, but it's the best school in Israel according to the Ministry of Education. All my Israeli friends (except onliners) are from the school. About a year ago i was invited to 18-th birthday of my friend who already finished the school. Her boyfriend, who finished ordinary Israeli school, also was invited. Lets call him MrF for instanse. All other guests were from the my school. When one of my friends opened physics textbook (just for herself, not to show off) MrF took this like a personal insult. He said "your school is bad, one of my friends one year ago gone to your school, he was a normal guy, but now if i ivite him to party he replyes, that he is busy doing lessons. Your school 'corrupted' the nice boy". So people, do not be like MrF, dont accuse Tranquility without knowing it. I think, that must of tranquility students will thank Tranquility later.

[muxec]

What? Am i the only pro-Tranquilitist?

[mrmitchell]

muxec, do you not realise the irony?

[Az]

muxec:

[muxec]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
muxec, do you not realise the irony?

Yes i do not. Please point me exactly to the iron of your irony.

[muxec]

Originally posted by Azazel
muxec:

Why?

[Shi Huangdi]

Of course, solutions such as Tranquility Bay should be reserved only for severe cases, and it does seem as though there were cases in which they were sent there inappropriately.

But there can be truly severe cases among adolescents, kids who use drugs, kids who are violent, kids who refuse to obey any authority, kids who are excessively violent, kids who refuse to put forth any effort into school and fail courses. If enough factors are there, then whatever mistakes you have made in raising them in the past you shouldn't just let them continue on the path they are on, and it is right to intervene in some way.

[mrmitchell]

Yes i do not. Please point me exactly to the iron of your irony.

You praise it as though without it you would be dead on the streets, and yet that is exactly whut it is supposed to do--force you into believing you would have been dead on the streets without it.

[muxec]

Originally posted by mrmitchell

You praise it as though without it you would be dead on the streets, and yet that is exactly whut it is supposed to do--force you into believing you would have been dead on the streets without it.

Yes, without study I would really die on the street in Ukraine.

[Provost Harrison]

Lack of opportunity and prospects for the youth of today is the major problem, knowing that no one listens and that things will never get any better for them, that there is nowhere to go. They don't sleep around out of some kind of disrespect for their parents, but because they have nothing else to do, the way society makes them, and the same goes for the drugs - escapism from the reality of the situation.

As Kassiopeia said, at least prisons are regulated by a justice system. At least the institutions which exist to help reform youngsters (and I admit they are inadequate for what is needed) are under public scrutiny, but these secretive concentration camps are no solution, and the idea of sending my own child there would be enough to make me sick...

[Atahualpa]

our creativity is one of the few things we humans have and should protect. Not only it allowed us to become what we are, but it allows us to get even farther.
Such institutions clearly break any form of creativity and recreate a totalitarian system in the mind of the young. Therefor they when grown up could agree more to such sort of a system than to a democracy.
In that light I think it is dangerous educating children like that.

As others already said I think it is the lack of education enforced by parents. Maybe this may also have to do with the number of babies per Mother shrinking children have little time to develop social skills inside the family. In older days when a typical family consisted of grandparents, parents and 3 or more children there were enough people for the children to turn to and develop social skills.

Whatever the reasons may be I suggest looking for the real leaks and not praising short-term solutions.

Of course it is very difficult to speak because I do not have any children. Maybe some older Apolytoners peek in and share their experience in raising children.

Ata

[Sava]

I think they are useless. TV's do the job good enough.

[monolith94]

From our good friends at casa by the sea.

Date: June 26th 2003
Time: 6:00 P.M Eastern
ISAC Corporation engaged in a rescue mission of a child in Mexico today. ISAC staff flew into San Diego yesterday where they met the mother of the child and Telamundo News. This morning the mother of the child, an ISAC staff and press proceeded to Casa By The Sea to withdraw the child. According to our reports, the child was escorted the day before back to the states by an escort service at the request of the father. According to the mother, the father initially refused to withdraw the child even when he was made aware of allegations of abuse. These allegations came in the form of notarized statements of individuals and parents and sworn affidavits. ISAC then made the following information available to the father last week: "In fact, a parent's failure to remove a child, or a relative's failure to report suspected child abuse or neglect may leave the adult open for criminal prosecution or future civil liability." An attorney provided this information to ISAC. The father has been made aware of the facilities currently under investigation by ISAC. He was also made aware of those programs being "looked into" by the U.S State Department for allegations of abuse. ISAC has forwarded on the abuse reports that we have received (as required by law) to the appropriate state officials. If the child is again placed into ANY facility that is being "looked into" by the U.S. State Department this will result in an immediate and subsequent investigation by ISAC and the results of this investigation will be made public.

The child is in the United States now and no longer in Casa By The Sea.

[VetLegion]

I am one step away from taking up arms and liberating these children

[Provost Harrison]

I know what you mean Vet, that whole lying on the floor business is torture by very definition - it is being used to break the will of these children to resist. You are prevented from doing that to an enemy by the Geneva Convention...let alone your own kids

[VetLegion]

I would never think to tell people what to do with their lives, but this **** is evil and it is breaking so many laws and conventions, no wonder it is in Jamaica, it would not survive even in USA

[mrmitchell]

Isn't there some international law we can bust these jackasses under?

[VetLegion]

I know where I can get a couple of AK-47 rifles. Used. But without ammo. Also, I need a ticket to Jamaica and some way of making sure I won't just get stoned when I get there and forget my rescue mission..


On a serious note, yes, I think this violates the UN charter about children which Jamaica signed (I think)

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
The article was a little over-the-top, don't you think? Tranquility Bay may or may not be a ****ed up place; I don't really know. What I do know, however, is that I don't trust what this writer had to say. The author was trying a little too hard to write a lost scene from "1984."

Assuming you have someone actually forced to lie face down on the floor without moving or speak, blah blah blah, that would violate international law on treatment of EPW's. We don't go that far at Camp X-ray, but it's "over the top" to criticize it harshly when applied to kids as young as 11?

[Drake Tungsten]

with that said, if the allegations about the conditions there are true, i find it a horrid place, and wonder why or how a parent could conceivably think it is a good idea to send their children there--especially, as in one case, when the "sin" is nothing more than having an "unacceptable boyfriend"...

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

We don't go that far at Camp X-ray, but it's "over the top" to criticize it harshly when applied to kids as young as 11?

I have no problem with criticizing Tranquility Bay; it certainly deserves condemnation if the allegations in this piece are true. What I didn't appreciate, however, was the style the author used, manipulating the image of various subjects through his prose. Are the parents and children associated with Tranquility Bay really brainwashed automatons, as the author goes to great lengths to describe them as? Was the dancing girl really miserable or did the author just think that "the saddest girl in the world" was a description that would make the piece more powerful? This piece seems a little too good to be true, like Stephen Glass's article on the cult that worshipped George H.W. Bush. That article turned out to be a bunch of bullshit and this one might be as well.

As I said before, I may be overly cynical, but caution is called for in these days of rampant media fabrication. If this article is accurate I hope they shut Tranquility Bay down, but I'm going to make sure I'm hearing the truth before I join the call to arms.

[Q Classic]

i wonder. i haven't been able to do much more research on this matter, unfortunately, because i've been busy, but i'll look into it more.

i don't often go to the sa forums, but i'll swing by this time.

[Spiffor]

From the Tranquility Bay Website

Behavior Modification
High standards exist. Inappropriate behavior is confronted, consequented and redirected. Appropriate behavior is reinforced and rewarded. A merit system is used requiring each teen to earn their status and privileges through a standard program using a level system.

Personal develoment courses
Daily Personal Development and Emotional Growth Courses are an important part of the overall program.
These courses intermittently utilize effective resources such as: educational and inspiring audio & video tapes, selective reading material, special workshops, and group feedback sessions.

Teen Drug Use: Warning Signs
Neglected appearance/hygiene
Poor self image
Grades dropping
Violent outbursts at home
Slurred speech
Curfew violations
Hostility towards family members
Red eyes
Valuables Missing
Possessing unexplained valuables
Change in friends
Depression
Withdrawal
Apathy
Reckless Behavior
No Concern about future
Defiles Family Values
Disrespectful to parents
Lying/Deception
Sneaky behavior
Disregards Consequences
Loss of Interest in healthy activities
Verbally abusive
Manipulative/Self-Centered
Lack of Motivation

(granted, I removed the few warning signs which have indeed to do with drug use, rather than with teenagehood in general).

Working with parents is a key component to the success of the Program. Families have frequent phone contact with their child's case manager and when appropriate, the teen is included.

a more neutral article (but less informative)

[Drake Tungsten]

Much better article, Spiff.

She said Colin had two teeth knocked loose by a staff member's fist and spent at least eight months in the isolation room. "They are very physically severe in Jamaica," she said. "For sure, they did things they couldn't do in America."

Someone needs to look into these accusations. Physical abuse is unacceptable.

[muxec]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Isn't there some international law we can bust these jackasses under?

I hopr that ther is no law. CHildren must be allowed to be punished. If they are not, the new generation will be full of ****ing stupids.