New Bethany. New Beginnings. Rebekah Home for Girls. Hephzibah House. Second Chance Ranch. Rachel Academy. Circle of Hope Girls Ranch. These are all places that claim to offer succor to parents of ‘troubled teens’, safe houses where they can send their kids for discipline and loving assistance to overcome whatever has made them rowdy or morose or obstinate or disobedient, all those symptoms of independence, and turn them into cheerful, cooperative, socialized citizens of community conventionality. They all rely heavily on the appeal of Christianity, and their names resonate with biblical themes…when hearing invocations of Jesus to draw children out to isolated camps ought instead to fill everyone with the same sense of dread that hearing the Jaws theme music ought to do.
Predictably, these fly-by-night camps run by Jesus freaks all turn out to be hellholes.
She told me how, in her first weeks at the academy’s Missouri compound—a summer-camp setup in remote La Russell, population 145—she and other girls snuck letters to their parents between the pages of hymnals in a local church they attended, along with entreaties to congregants to mail them. When another girl snitched, Roxy said, McNamara locked some girls in makeshift isolation cells, tiled closets without furniture or windows. Roxy got “the redshirt treatment”: For a solid week, 10 hours a day, she had to stand facing a wall, with breaks only for worship or twice-daily bathroom trips.
She was monitored day and night by two “buddies,” girls who’d been there awhile and knew the drill. They accompanied her to the shower and toilet, and introduced her to a life of communal isolation and rigid discipline. Girls were not allowed to converse except from 6 to 9 p.m. each Friday. They were not allowed contact with their families during their first month, or with anyone else for six months. By that time, Roxy said, most girls are “broken,” having been told that their families have abandoned them, and that the world outside is a sinful, dangerous place where girls who leave are murdered or raped.
The girls’ behavior was micromanaged down to the number of squares of toilet paper each was allowed; potential infractions ranged from making eye contact with another girl to not finishing a meal. Roxy, who suffered from urinary tract infections and menstrual complications, told me she was frequently put on redshirt, sometimes dripping blood as she stood. She was also punished with cold showers, she said, and endless sets of calisthenics after meals.
There are lots of horror stories about manipulating girls into cowed submission; but there are also plenty of boys’ schools where the lessons are taught with overt violence.
Ford operated a separate New Bethany home for boys in Longstreet, Louisiana. Clark Word, now 44, was sent there when he was about 15. On his second day, he recalls, he watched administrator Larry Rapier punch a boy of 10 or so in the mouth for wetting his pants on the bus to Sunday worship. Violence was the norm, Word says, and students were expected to enforce discipline. In one memorable 1982 incident, a student named Guy disappeared from the school after he was badly beaten with golf clubs by other students, leaving Guy’s terror-stricken friends to wonder whether the staff had finished him off. (Rapier’s ex-wife Dee told me she sent Guy to recover at her mother’s Texas home before returning him to his parents.)
These people, cloaked in the trappings of religious faith, can carry out the most horrendous policies of naked child abuse, and local authorities often help them out: when girls escape the nightmare, police will haul them back and help handcuff them to their beds. These aren’t prisons for violent offenders; they’re supposed to be voluntary counseling centers to help unhappy children get back on track, at their parents’ request, and shouldn’t shackling children to the furniture be a sign that something is wrong? Every time these places are raided, they find evidence of screwy priorities.
The operators of shady homes do seem to have a knack for avoiding major prosecution. Just last year, prosecutors in Blount County, Alabama, charged Jack Patterson—a Roloff protégé and founder of a boys’ home called Reclamation Ranch—with aggravated child abuse. Then-prosecutor Tommy Rountree said deputies raided the ranch after an escapee alerted them to beatings, isolation cells, and armed staffers who would “go hunting for runaways.”
The raid uncovered handguns and rifles, leg irons, and handcuffs; 11 boys were taken into state custody. But because deputies neglected to seize Patterson’s computer, which the escapee claimed contained files of videotaped beatings, Patterson was able to plead his felony charges down to a “verbal harassment” misdemeanor carrying a $500 fine. He now runs a home for adult men on the Reclamation Ranch property and a girls’ home called Rachel Academy in neighboring Walker County—and is in the process, he says, of opening new homes in Ohio, Florida, and Michigan.
Would you send your kids to places run by psychotics with firearms and leg irons? I wouldn’t. There’s something seriously wrong with these dungeons.
Efforts have been made to change the situation.
Congress has tried, and so far failed, to rein in the schools. In 2007, a spate of deaths at teen residential programs prompted a nationwide investigation by the Government Accountability Office. Its findings—which detailed the use of extended stress positions, days of seclusion, strenuous labor, denial of bathroom access, and deaths—came out in a series of dramatic congressional hearings over two years. The result was House Resolution 911 (PDF), which proposed giving residents access to child-abuse hotlines and creating a national database of programs that would document reports of abuse and keep tabs on abusive staff members.
Hephzibah House’s Ron Williams and Reclamation Ranch’s Jack Patterson urged supporters to fight the bill. In an open letter, Williams argued that it would “effectively close all Christian ministries helping troubled youth because of its onerous provisions.” They were joined by a group called the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, which opposed HR 911 on the grounds that states—despite all evidence to the contrary—are best situated to oversee the homes. The bill passed in the House, but stalled in a Senate committee.
If you read the bill, it is a collection of fairly common sense rules to prevent child abuse and neglect: physical and mental abuse is prohibited, kids have access to a phone for emergencies, staff are required to know the state laws regarding child abuse and neglect. The bar is set very low here, and only basic, minimal, freakin’ obvious restrictions are imposed…and this would “effectively close all Christian ministries helping troubled youth”?
Then so be it. Christian ministries must be so unethical, so corrupt, so hateful, and so incompetent that perhaps we can simplify the law and just make exposing children to Christianity, period, a criminal act. I’d favor laws that prohibited churches and priests from anywhere within a mile of a school or playground, if Christians can’t even abide by the common-sense provisions of HR 911.
Scary. I think the fact that they think they can’t stay open if they have to observe basic laws against child abuse kind of says it all: they’re incompetent thugs. What I don’t understand is why this is considered even remotely acceptable by the “mainstream”. Probably the religious component. Can you imagine the uproar if there was, say, an Islamic* or secular “home for troubled children” where the adults in charge treated children this way?
*In the US, of course. In Saudi Arabia they’d probably just wonder why they were so soft on the kids.
Jesus, that’s disgusting.
The biggest thing that strikes me is the unwillingness of anyone in authority to step in and do something about this. Or worse, the authorities that help these evil assholes do this. Sometimes it really feels like there’s no one fighting for the good guys.
The Mormons used to run several slave labor camps along the same lines under the name Youth Development Enterprises. Boys would pick fruits and vegetables (pineapples, primarily) all day, 6 days a week for “character”. A few of my LDS friends were sent there for being gay, disagreeable, or inquisitive. (The Wiki article, which says that the programs “sadly” ended seems to have been written by someone with no familiarity with the program.)
It’s exactly like the Magdalene Laundries, the Irish boys schools, etc., ad nauseum. The stories are all so similar it’s just astounding. Given the ubiquity of this culture, I can’t think of a reason why parents would even consider sending their kids away to a Jesus-themed anything, except that they’re unthinking godbots without reason or morals or empathy. They’ve got faith in spades, though. (“…but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” and all that.)
BTW, the Google I see above where I am typing this is for ChristianMingle.com. “Christian & Single?”
Hell no, and no.
Dianne:
I thought of that, too. The society is so closed that, even in the unlikely event that it undergoes some major transformation and modernization, we’d probably never know much about the similar horrors taking place at this very moment. And I just had a very dark thought: maybe the Islamist insistence on keeping girls at home and unschooled is the lesser of two evils.
Thomas Galvin:
PZ is. He just got an award for it! :)
Ugh! Disgusting! That’s just as bad as those f$#@ed up parents that send their kids to those sexual reorientation therapy camps when they find out their child is gay.
Almost makes me wish there were Religious Tendency Reorientation camps.”We are HEEERRRRRE to CURE you of your MISGUIDED and HARMFUUUULLL tendencies toward organized religion and a belief in GAWWWWWWWWWD.Faith in any way shape or form will be met with severe repercussions,One utterance of a PRAISE GOD or a HALLelujaaaah! and you will be forced to read science books until you actually have a CLUUUUUUE how things really work!.”
Iris- you hit the nail on the head, they don’t think. I enjoy their TV commercials. “we let god take the next step so you don’t have to”. This guy god must be insanely busy, what with finding people significant others, answering prayers 24/7 and keeping the wool pulled over the fundies eyes.
IMHO this is what congress should actually be concerning itself with, not steroid taking baseball players and other sports related bull-hock.
This is the Christian Taliban perfectly illustrated. Religious perverts at their very worst. Can’t the victims sue the people doing this?
It is pretty obviously child abuse on a big scale.
`
Almost makes me wish there were Religious Tendency Reorientation camps.”We are HEEERRRRRE to CURE you of your MISGUIDED and HARMFUUUULLL tendencies toward organized religion and a belief in GAWWWWWWWWWD.Faith in any way shape or form will be met with severe repercussions,One utterance of a PRAISE GOD or a HALLelujaaaah! and you will be forced to read science books until you actually have a CLUUUUUUE how things really work!.”
I know you’re being sarcastic, but this sounds scarily like the old Soviet Union and other communist dictatorships for me to feel comfortable with it even as satire. Science needs no indoctrination, it really does work and people will eventually get the cause and effect down. Besides which, push “reason” too hard and you’ll get people wondering if maybe there is something to that religion stuff after all since you seem to be so scared of it…
One thing that’s disturbing: I got an ad for one of those sorts of places when scrolling down to read the comments. I hope FTB gets the weird and crazy ads sorted out of the pile, soon.
Scary stuff, my sister-in-law has mentioned this type of ‘camp’ for her daughter who has been displaying ‘manly’ or “overly boyish” behavior (she fears that my niece is Gay)… You all might be reading a news report on me breaking her out if this ever happens… My infantry training has to be good for something right? lol
These camps are nothing but Abuse/brainwashing centers for sick perverted sadistic people who claim they are doing “god’s work”. Sick, Sick, Sick!
So a 17-year-old girl gets assaulted, after which she quite understandably has some coping behaviors.
And instead of sending her to a counselor for some common sense treatment, they ship the girl who got assaulted to Christ Correction Camp. Like Islamists stoning a woman who gets raped.
Jesus. And I mean that in the foulest sense of the word.
Crikey – this is the 21st Century. What is going on?!
my sister-in-law has mentioned this type of ‘camp’ for her daughter
Is your sister-in-law likely to respond to being slapped upside of the head with a couple of these stories of child abuse at these camps? Any chance of slipping your niece some information on how to pass until she turns 18? (Passing, in this case, could refer to her sexual orientation or just her preference in how to behave on a day to day basis. Plenty of straight women act too “mannish” for fundies.) If not…breaking her out and suing for custody on the basis of abuse by the parents might be the way to go.
I work in law enforcement, and there are very specific rules and laws we must follow when dealing with juvenile suspects, especially with secure holding and restraining. If we ever treated a child the way these “camps” do we’d rightly get our butts sued off.
It’s disgusting how adding religious to the description of an organization can make that organization exempt from laws or any kind of public scrutiny.
How can anyone buy this? We all know how many ridiculous and unnecessary laws are passed all the time, without much complaint. But this one absolutely had to be stopped because…. it was infringing on the right of particular states or districts to fuck up “their” children. The only reasonable approach to this could have been “better safe than sorry” and both the Senate and each individual state taking care to close any loopholes that could give power to child abusers. Sorry, using logic and empathy again. My bad.
Jesus child molesting Christ, reading about all those people jumping state and opening new homes and fucking up more children (and adults) over and over again was upsetting.
Want sick irony? The google ad on the page while I’m reading this article is for “Stillwater Academy Turnabout, A residential school providing help & hope for troubled teens”. It took a 5 second google search on that place to find complaints of abuse at the hands of Academy staff.
Is that the same one I’m seeing, for a place called Stillwater? Looking at their website, it seems to be run by professional therapists and not be religiously oriented, and it seems that they involve the whole family in the treatment. Granted, that’s just what they say, but I’d be hesitant to label it “one of those sorts of places”.
Dianne said: “Is your sister-in-law likely to respond to being slapped upside of the head with a couple of these stories of child abuse at these camps?”
Nope, that would be “god’s will” {eyeroll}
Already been working on the rest of your advice…(great minds eh?)
-Æ
Me:
HumanisticJones:
Of course, I could be wrong.
Nope, that would be “god’s will” {eyeroll}
It’s god’s will that her daughter be abused? Why are they worshiping this maniac? I mean, even apart from the whole non-existence problem, does this sound like the will of a good deity?
From what I have gathered is a “normal” fundi upbringing, that doesn’t sound reassuring at all. And I’m not even American so I don’t have any personal experience, I just read about these horrors on the net. So how can any decent person in US who reads articles like this one or hears about these schools and rumors that are bound to surround them, support politicians who protect these institutions from the law? Seriously, somewhere in the article it was mentioned that there were multiple raids on some schools before they could be closed down. Why doesn’t that make parents suspicious? I doubt police would go raid schools without good reason. I know people can be hateful or deliberately obtuse or brainwashed, but it seems that US has managed to produce a frightening amount of that kind of people. Phrase “like lambs to the slaughter” comes to mind.
Kids dying in these camps from beatings and abuse happen all the time. Seems to be a few a year.
The Mormons are into heavily in to these reeducation and indoctrination camps. They have their own gulag in Utah for kids.
Why does god need a spaceship? Why does god need remote prison camps for children?
Thomas Galvin said: The biggest thing that strikes me is the unwillingness of anyone in authority to step in and do something about this.
I’m so frustrated and appalled by this, and have been for years, that I’m unwilling to do what I want about it because what I consider an appropriate response would be… severe. I learned how to respond to entrenched, violent injustice from my father, who helped blow up Russian tanks in Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution. Enough, indeed too much, said.
In place of this, because I shrink from violence, I’m doing my best to befriend and support teens who cross my path. I seem to be pretty good at it, according to them and my other friends. The day may come (it hasn’t yet) when I’m appealed to to intervene directly, but so far my young friends have managed to skirt “camp” threats successfully. I honestly never thought I’d ever be called upon to help teens save their own lives by teaching them the dissimulation tactics of a “good girl who never got in trouble.”
And just in case reading this made you think, oh what a great idea these prison camps are, this is one of the links at the bottom of the page:
Isn’t the Judge Rotenberg Center a secular institution? It managed to survive to this day despite openly torturing kids.
I read this article in Mother Jones a couple of months ago. It chilled me to the bones because I have 12 and 14 yo kids and could relate. The kids were not allowed to communicate honestly with their parents because communication was monitored. After reading this, I decided to establish a safe word with the kids. It’s an innocuous sounding phrase that will set off secret alarm bells for me – something like “the food is great, but I really wish they had some RYE bread” will mean OMG, MOM GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE.
For some reason, the kids resist having a phrase like this because my fear was based on an article about a christian fundie camp, which I obviously would never send them to. BUT, they could be in other social situation in which they could not say. “I’ve had enough, please be the bad guy and get me out of here” Heck, even if they’ve had enough of gramma for the afternoon. Then I can be the asshole and they save face.
Please, if you have kids, set up a safe word. Never know when they’ll encounter crazies in the world. Heck, I might have call RYE some day.
correction – that should be OMG, MOM GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA HERE.
@Chris
At this camp of yours, what would happen if someone listened to the leonard cohen song hallelujah?
Dianne
Sorry I jokingly meant that for the parents who put their kids through all that crap so they would at least have some idea of what they’re doing to their kids.I should have explained more.
I would never actually support something like that but sometimes I wish these parents could get a taste of their own medicine so they could see the damage they’re doing to their kids.
Hey, that is no problem.
It’s god’s will that your neice acts “manly”, whatever the hell that means.
It’s god’s will that you throw her a lifeline and bust her out of one of the xian gulag camps.
It’s god’s will that the cops occasionally raid these camps, usually after a kid has died.
It’s god’s will that we are all No Religions. I think god is getting pretty fed up with the xians and fundies. They are losing members by the millions per year.
Didn’t try very hard then…
That article provokes some very violent feelings in me. I find a little strange there are no stories of parents “going postal” on these places.
I don’t think that any child deserves being sent to such a place, no matter how troubled they are, but it’s especially horrifying to see what wide range of behaviors parents consider troubling enough to send their child to a reeducation camp or school. It can be anything from setting a house on fire to drinking a beer with friends or zombie forbid- acting too boyish. Scary.
Please, if you have kids, set up a safe word. Never know when they’ll encounter crazies in the world. Heck, I might have call RYE some day.
Excellent idea! Plus I might need to let my kid know that I need out of this nursing home/rehab center RIGHT NOW some day.
Wow that is shocking,
I was planning to do some resume building investigative reporting when I go on leave from my current deployment. This is freaky enough to warrent camping out with a telephoto lense for a few weeks. If anyone knows addresses or a directory for these schools; it will assist greatly in my planning process.
Send it to [email protected] if you run across this stuff
I once worked with a guy who along with his job with me he was also a part time police officer, pastor, and child abductor for these camps. He and his father would get contracts to fly to a town, in the middle of the night and abduct, with parent permission, a screaming and kicking teen child, and take them to these camps. This nut job really thought he was doing gods work. He laughingly told a story of a particular young man who fought the entire way and even managed to escape after a couple nights at the camp. The in-house bloodhound was able to track him right down however. He also told me that his adopted brother was currently in one of these camps until he was able to make the right decisions. Imagine being in the hell of foster care, finally being adopted, and then getting sent off to one of these nightmares.
I’m seeing an ad for Stillwater Academy in the adspace right above the comments. A quick google search yielded this as the top website.
Seriously, who has control over these ads?
I’m pretty sure they auto select ads based on keyword searches on the webpage.
Sickening.
I think, before going to ANY camp, every child should watch that episode of the Simpsons where Bart and Lisa went to Kamp Krusty. Just to remind them that there are such things as child abuse and bullies.
Seriously though. I’m surprised no one has broken down the doors of these places, or sued them for abuse, assault or neglect.
What part of “modern society” applies here if our kids are subjected to this treatment?
Re the ads. These are the ads I’m seeing now.
It’s god’s will, of course.
In this case god’s will is a computer somewhere that just keys in on words somewhere on the web page. God himself is busy starving children and adults to death in eastern Africa and frying Texas with a drought.
I just skip over them without paying much attention.
The same part of “modern society” that applies when bronze age mythology and morals are allowed to dominate.
I and my four siblings were raised in the article’s atmosphere. No one in our small town lifted a finger to help us. 2 of my siblings are alcoholics, one is so mentally disturbed he is on permanent disability, and one is raising his kids exactly like he was raised. Child abuse is a cancer that spreads, torments, and spreads some more. If it hasn’t effected you yet, it will.
Reading those reports you could think that in addition to their bible, these people have been using 120 days of sodom as a supplementary pedagogical treatise.
Fucking disgusting. If there are words strong enough to describe these fucks, I implore someone to teach them to me. “Disgusting,” “vile,” “evil” … all seem far too tame those their ilk.
Being tortured and abused in gulag camps isn’t the only thing fundie xians do to their kids.
Some of them are heavily into beating their kids. Sometimes the kids end up beaten to death.
Then there is the fundies ritual of human child sacrifice by medical neglect. It’s estimated that 10-100 children are sacrificed this way each year. I’ve found at least two families who did this to more than one of their kids.
“It’s better to be abused for a few weeks on earth than to spend an eternity in hell.” Seriously, that’s their thinking. It is logic that is so fucked that it’s nearly impossible to argue against. You’d have to convince them that hell isn’t real and/or that teenage sluts aren’t worthy of hell before they’ll believe that making someone piss themselves in a corner is NOT a lesser evil.
I’ll repeat what I said about this in TET.
Note this bit about an argument between a mother and the headmaster:
Of course. Why speak to the chattel when you can speak to a real person?
BTW, there are a couple of people in the MJ comments doing damage control for New Bethany.
Sal Bro: That’s precisely the same mentality out of which they object to birth control and STD prevention.
@Inflection, that’s what jumped out at me to. What kind of parent thinks that what their recently assaulted daughter needs is to be sent far away from home and put in the care of perfect strangers. I’m also having trouble understanding how parents can accept not having contract with their kids for month(s) at a time.
Folks, you should definitely click on those crazy ads when they show up. That means money goes from the insane christians to FTB, and you’ve gotta admit that’s the right direction.
Carovee,
They relish it. If their children were the mindless followers of instruction that they want they wouldn’t be sending them to re-education centres.
I have a friend who is one of the original “reform school girl”s who spent most of her early life in foster homes and various schools for troubled kids. Her trouble was that she was sexually molested by every single foster home she was ever placed in, and she didn’t like it. And, yes, she complained and just got shuffled to new places to be molested.
I know it’s anecdote, but from the stories she’s told me, I had trouble sleeping for a couple days. She’s turned out OK but definitely has some “issues” left from her experiences.
There is an organisation called CAICA (coallition against institutonalized child abuse) that fights against those camps. There site however, wich featured some truly horrible storries, seams to be down at the moment.
Its stuff like this, that sometimes makes me wonder how much hate I can feel…
I don’t want to start another argument, so I’ll simply ask: ‘psychotic’? Wicked, wrong, evil, cruel would be better words…
Because clearly the states and localities have already handled these situations so well that these “homes” for troubled youth have been demolished and the ground they stood upon sown with salt.
That’s North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, btw. I’m hardly surprised that Foxx was against the bill. This is the same woman who claims that “abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women” and pushed for federal funds to be denied to state medical schools that include abortion procedures in their education.
I think it’s something like this: ideas about human behavior from 30 AD are correct because they came from a god and are found in a magic book. Torture and death are acceptable solutions for problems because that’s what god does. Knowledge that isn’t from the magic book can’t be trusted, because humans are sinful creatures. To top it off, this crap is like the Energizer Bunny, it keeps going and going…
Here’s a link to the mormon gulag, otherwise known as Utah Boys Ranch and/or West Ridge Academy.
http://mormongulag.com/
Their particular specialty was the successful enlistment of Utah politicians to back their cause, including the infamous Chris Buttars.
The “Academy” claims to be non-sectarian, but makes all inmates read and memorize parts of the Book of Mormon. And they keep mormon missionaries on staff.
The other claim the academy makes, which does not hold true in practice, is that they counsel gay teens but do not try to force them to change. Former senator, Chris Buttars, is no longer on the Board of Directors as far as I know, but there’s plenty of evidence that the academy was/is as virulently anti-gay as the most hardline mormon contingent.
If you scroll down on the home page to an article written in May of this year, you’ll see information on what is only their most recent sex abuse scandal.
One of the most interesting links to explore from the home page is “Trapped in a Mormon Gulag”, which contains stories written by teens unfortunate enough to be trapped there. On that page the website also links to “PZ Meyers” (should inform them of correct spelling, I guess).
If this is where the “moral compass” they keep blathering on about leads, I thank Darwin’s monkey gods that I’m one of those miserable atheists who allegedly doesn’t have.
Here’s an excerpt from the mormon gulag website. In these closing paragraphs from a story written by a kid who managed to walk out of the gulag on his 18th birthday, you can easily spot the recurring themes of lack of oversight, of manipulation of parents as well as teens, and of tactics that keep these institutions in operation.
That’s right Senator Buttars, government funding should come with oversight, but even though taxpayer money is funneled to faith-based initiatives, oversight does not always follow.
Buttars and his ilk made sure that state laws in Utah were even more lax than in some other states when it came to residential facilities for troubled teens. They didn’t want their cash and work cows taken away.
http://utahboysranchwra.wordpress.com/trapped-in-a-mormon-gulag/
QFT. Children with “troubling behavior” need qualified counseling and therapy, not “alternative treatment” provided by shoddily licensed equivalents of gulags for children.
I know people, and of people, who have been through this. Some never quite made it all the way out; that is, their bodies are here but something of their minds got left in there and we can’t get them back.
#46 hit the nail on the head: when you believe that your God, the God Who is Love Itself (TM) would torture any being for all eternity, NOTHING you do to someone you perceive to be at risk is off the table to prevent that. All you can do is slowly kill the mind and body over a period of weeks or months; but God will do much worse for all eternity if He’s not prevented!
And hey, some 3 billion people are Christian or Muslim! Doesn’t that make you feel great?!
Reading these accounts, I get the sense that at least some of the perpetrtors are just sadistic bastards who get their thrills by abusing teenagers. And doing so under the banner of Jesus sure seems to keep the parents fooled and the legislators out of the way.
Probably.
There is a place for residental treatment centers.
The real ones have trained professional staff. People with degrees in psychology, child development, psychiatry, social work and so on. And relevent training. Staff to client ratios run around 4-5 to 1. They have good medical support. They are also very expensive.
In the xian and Mormon gulags, the main qualifications seem to be large, muscular males with sadistic tendencies who can say jayzuss a lot.
Obviously not nearly as severe, but my experiences in a Catholic school may help some understand how parents are fooled into thinking the abuse is just discipline.
My parents pulled me out of public school for a few years and put me into a Catholic school instead. I was considered a problem kid (turns out I have Asperger syndrome, but that condition was rarely determined back then…I was simply a problem child), so my parents were looking to the Catholic school to make me better.
The Catholic school was very good about advertising their program and providing good general education, great religious education (from which springs all things morally good of course), and excellent discipline. While the nuns were pretty vicious in the classroom, they (2 of the teachers at the school) were always very good about being cheerful and happy when talking to my parents. They set them at ease when I raised objections about what was happening at the school (the most vicious group of peers I ever dealt with, discipline that would definitely be viewed as abuse today, constant degradation and accusations against the students)…whereas I was the problematic child.
Which would you believe? The child you think has problems, or several adults that speak well and provide all kinds of reassurance?
I definitely understand how parents get fooled by these groups. These groups know how to prey on the parents…
I wonder about that. A few probably are, just from sheer odds; but it’s clear from many sources (Abu Ghraib, Stanford prison experiment, various police departments, etc) that ordinary people turn into sadistic bastards when they’re put in an authoritarian context which condones abuse. They learn to normalize and justify what they’ve been through, whether as staff or prisoner, and then they get recycled back into society and take their denial with them. I wonder how many voters, editors, journalists, officials, social workers, teachers and parents still tolerate these places solely because they’ve been primed to denial.
ghee it sure reminds me of the “scandals” we read about of the catholic church had in Ireland
I guess they are all the same after all.
Are the “religious schools” in Pakistan any different?
the emotional reaction I have to these kinds of stories and I would include the stories of child soldiers among these kinds is very disturbing!
thanks for keeping the light on these issues
uncle frogy
I sort of understand the reasoning behind sending kids with difficulties away at to a camp – I was abused by one set of parents as a child, and after custody got switched too my dad/stepmother instead of my mother/stepfather, I still had panic attacks occasionally just because I was at home (I still have them, even at 18 and legally and adult, just because being at home triggers extreme helplessness sometimes).
I think that going away somewhere to people that didn’t know me to give me some time to adjust and process things would have been very helpful, so I disagree with some of the commentors criticizing the concept of sending kids away to a camp as opposed to therapy – assuming that the camp isn’t run by a bunch of psychopaths and that the camp has proper therapists and such, which I’m sure at least some of the parents believe is the case.
To me, the most horrifying aspect of the matter is the way that law officials and the like refuse to do anything to regulate and improve conditions in these places, as I think that well-run and well-regulated camps (preferably without without a religious aspect) could be beneficial to some children.
And instead of sending her to a counselor for some common sense treatment, they ship the girl who got assaulted to Christ Correction Camp.
This is what I don’t get: It cost them $20,000 or more for one of them to have their daughter in one of these gulags for three months. At the 150/hr rate that a good psychiatrist would cost, and probably what a megastar of psychiatry would cost in a shit pile like Missouri, they could have gotten over 10 months of 3 hour-long sessions a week–that would have worked, not fucked the kids up for life.
Religion poisons everything.
I imagine the YFZ Ranch (Warren Jeffs polygamist sect)treats their members (especially girls and women)just like this.
I can’t imagine how anyone could be so cruel and inhuman. Not that all atheists are good people but I’ve never heard of an atheist institution doing anything like this.
“all those symptoms of independence”
Look, all of these Jesus camps are hell holes. Many many of the secular camps are hell holes.
And I don’t think any sane person would dispute that some of the people sent there don’t have any serious behavioral problems.
But when discussing this let’s keep in mind that there are many children with very serious behavioral problems. And we have a completely and totally inadequate support systems for both the children and their parents.
Obviously these camps are not the answer, but let’s not pretend that everyone sent there is just showing normal signs of independent thinking.
Which only makes it worse. No one deserves to be sent there, but children with serious problems will probably be harmed even more than the rest.
I don’t think PZ or anyone else here thinks that none of the children parents decide to send to camps have any serious problems, but confessions in that particular article are mostly about children who don’t seem particularly troublesome. Or at least they weren’t until after reeducation or whatever torture camps are called. Infractions for which a lot of them are sent to camps are ridiculously benign, and PZ put emphasis on that. Troubled teens are serious matter, but parents who are ready to send their children to violent and dangerous reeducation camps for not conforming to their expectations are a problem too.
Maybe sadism is part of human nature, and with a little encouragement in can come out in almost anyone.
I was contemplating yesterday whether some of these children (specifically, very young ones, whose parents support this rather than having been deceived, and who are at camps where children are sometimes kept for years and which have a history of having escapees returned by the police) might not be eligible for asylum elsewhere. There’s precedence for American citizens being granted asylum because of child abuse, but so far that’s been for mothers “kidnapping” their children to get them and themselves away from abusive fathers/husbands. I don’t know enough about asylum law to know whether unaccompanied minors can request asylum because of danger from their parents. nor do I know whether spending several years in asylum-camps would necessarily be an improvement (judging from the stories about asylum-seekers in the UK that The Walton has been highlighting). However, if this were a possibility, a new underground railroad might be necessary to save these kids from having their entire lives fucked up and from potentially being murdered in these camps.
nor do I know whether spending several years in asylum-camps would necessarily be an improvement (judging from the stories about asylum-seekers in the UK that The Walton has been highlighting).
I can confirm that for asylum camps in the US as well. They’re pretty appalling. Their one advantage is that they attract the attention of lawyers who sometimes manage to get those in them actual asylum.
OTOH, I do think a child who is sent to a Jesus camp and returned there by the police can make a strong case for fearing for his/her life, health, and freedom if returned to the US so they might have a pretty good chance of getting asylum…if they could get to anywhere that might give them asylum. Jesus camps are generally in the middle of nowhere, intentionally. Easier to do what you want if there are no neighbors around.
And the US isn’t the easiest country in the world to get out of in the best of times. Especially now that you need a passport to get into Canada or (theoretically at least) Mexico. The best bet might be to try to escape to southern California and walk across the border there. Of course, then you’ve got a child who was probably home schooled or otherwise isolated in Mexico without money or resources and probably no knowledge of the language…Suboptimal, shall we say.
that’s pretty much why it would require a support network to make such a thing happen. Escapees have little chance by themselves in any case, since homeless teens are rarely taken seriously and generally are returned to their parents. This would definitely need an organization that would get the children out, then help them apply for asylum and re-start something vaguely resembling a normal life. However, such an organization would pretty much set itself up to be fucked with by the FBI, considering they’d be, for all intents and purposes, committing international kidnappings :-/
To be honest, as an outsider who’s been keeping track of the US. I think it’s high time to simply re-civilize the redneck chunk of the population of the US by force. They’ve gone completely of the deep end, torture, violence, Iran-like religious fanaticism. Nazi-like militarism… They’re creepy as hell, and hostile and obnoxious to boot.
It’s about time I think for the rest of the US to stop taking all that crap, and to wrest control back from these backwards savages. It’s time to simply stop tolerating these far right nutjobs. Because their a source of evil and destruction to themselves and others, and a spawning ground for more Breiviks, especially since every escaped loon can get an automatic weapon from the rack in America.
It’s time to actively fight back against people like this, who run those houses, and who do all the other crap rednecks do. Time to say enough is enough, and to stop being nice to those fuckers.
that would work about as well as the Soviets and Americans trying to “civilize” Afghanistan. Say what you will about American rednecks, but the guys know how to shoot and are itching to have someone to shoot at.
Also, if you’re going to start a war with the largest nuclear power in the world, you might want to wait until the sane rest of us can escape to another planet/parallel universe first.
Jesus wept, man. Jesus fucking threw up, fell down and wept. Or he would if he existed. Where religious belief goes, the lust for power follows.
That was a very depressing article to read. How parents can send their children to these places is beyond me. As is how they can apparently do so little research before sending them or before they donate money. Maybe it is just because I was never part of the evangelical church culture that I do not understand this and would not immediately believe the claims of these thugs making a presentation and want to donate money. Is it assumed that because they are allowed to speak at church that they must be good people?
…
Oooh – kay.
Is this even legal? I mean, back in the eighteen – nineteen century Europe stuff like that were commonplace, but now, in XXI century, trying something like this would induce response, reporting of which would include words like “crackdown”, “armored vehicle” and “police raid” in the headlines. Sure, there is still lots of abuse in the name of Gawd, but hurting little ones is a big no-no even among jesus-drones nowadays. And institutionalizing it? WTF US, WTF?
I was at New Bethany in 1974. After reading accounts of the Irish children, the missionary’s kids in the story “All God’s Children”, and so many more horrific examples of abuse, it is clear this is the NORM. rather than the exception. I did not talk about my experiences there, as I never wanted to go back there in my head. It has taken decades to come to terms with things that happened. I do know that it was not “God’s will”, which is what I thought at the time.
As I see now, the entire concept of this “God” is false and terribly dangerous. The problem is religion, though I am intrigued about the line of thought regarding sadism as a human trait, which comes out easily in certain settings. Though this is unfortunate, even if it were “Lord of the Flies”, there simply must be something in humans that stops us from hurting children. Look how repulsed you are at reading this! It is the shutting down of reason which is commanded by these sects that allows them to thrive. There is a verse that is quoted often, Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” This verse is used to circumvent conscience and reasoning, to the point that a person is taught not to trust their own instincts of right and wrong. This allows the person to give over morality to an authority figure who interprets God’s will. THIS allows for the Jonestowns, New Bethanies, Hephzibah Houses, White House Orphanage hell houses, etc.
Regulation could cure many of these tendencies. It is NOT infringing on the practice of religion to save people from abuse. Children are vulnerable, and they have no rights. They are not believed. This has got to stop.
PLEASE, send a copy of this article to your congressional leaders and tell them you want it to stop. If you have one of these places in your area, write the local newspaper and demand investigation. Some of you have stated you know people pondering sending children to these places… show them these articles!
Now that we know, we have to do something. Spread the word!
This entire subject makes for some very disturbing reading. It immediately made me think of Stephen King’s and Peter Straub’s Sunlight Home For Boys in The Talisman. I thought they were exaggerating for effect!
Yeah, that works well. The southern response to losing the US Civil War was to retrench and use violence against freed slaves and northerners. (Find a copy of At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray. Also, check Strom Thurmon’s 1948 presidential run based on being pro lynching.) Attempts at civil rights brought about treats of violence and use of violence. Witness the violence done against black veterans of WWI in the late teen and twenties and the civil rights activists of the sixties.
These people have cause problems and murdered thousands over the last century and a half. And they have become a key power base for the neo-cons for the last forty plus years when Nixon sought them out.
Your half assed, smart ass statement shows how little you know of this. And your proposed solution will be just as successful as the British, Russian and American invasions of Afghanistan. You are just a little bit like Dick Cheney.
the largest nuclear power in the world
The largest nuclear power, a country which used its entire nuclear arsenal, probably unnecessarily, at one point in its history and which has attempted (with mixed success) to use its power to dominate the world for the past 60 years. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised at the Jesus camp thing. It’s just more of the typical violence of the US in the end.
To tell the truth, I, for one, think that Lincoln should have hired Garibaldi and let him loose in Dixie: at least by now they would really know what it means to fight a “radical-revolutionnary-leftist” out for their blood.
You can’t civilize people by force. Anyone who claims otherwise is definitely an idiot and probably in charge of US foreign policy.
You’re forgetting Ireland in the 20th Century.
Can’t believe I’m the first one to mention The Handmaid’s Tale.
Maybe, as a ‘perfidious Albion’ person, I’ve missed something here, but why haven’t the people running these places, and, indeed, the parents of the abused children, been dragged off to jail? Does the US not have laws against punching 10 year old boys in the mouth, amongst all the other horrors?
not if it’s done for religious reasons. The US barely manages to convict people who killed their children for religious reasons.
For those questioning as to why the perpetrators are not in jail… one reason is the statute of limitations. Also, it comes down to who people believe, people who were incarcerated or people of “God”.
But there are those who have been brought to justice.
Getting the word out is one way to stop it from continuing. There is a vastly funded network that defends and supports these abusers, and not so much for the survivors.
I’m no psychiatrist, but law enforcements lack of response to – or worse their collaboration with – these religious concentration camps seems to look like a Milgram experiment. As long as the police and the politicians and the locals are assured that their actions are absolved by god then they will follow the directions of these Christian re-programers no matter how reprehensible they are. Hasn’t this ALWAYS been the real danger of organized religions?
And what ads showed up on my newsreader preview at the bottom of this post when I first opened it? Christian singles groups, “family values based” help for teens and Christian academies for troubled teens! I’m sure the readership here will enthusiastically support those links. Yeesh.
I recommend Reform at Victory by Michele Ulriksen about her experience at being whisked away to one of these religidiocy centers. Sadly she killed herself some months ago.
@Janine, #84
Yeah, that works well. The southern response to losing the US Civil War was to retrench and use violence against freed slaves and northerners. (Find a copy of At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray. Also, check Strom Thurmon’s 1948 presidential run based on being pro lynching.) Attempts at civil rights brought about treats of violence and use of violence. Witness the violence done against black veterans of WWI in the late teen and twenties and the civil rights activists of the sixties.
These people have cause problems and murdered thousands over the last century and a half. And they have become a key power base for the neo-cons for the last forty plus years when Nixon sought them out.
Is what’s being done now working either? They basically have veto power over attempts to rectify the situation through the legislative process, the Democratic party mostly wants to accomodate them, the left (to the extent that it’s more than embryonic here) has so many of its own issues with religion that it’s not willing to fight them, and expatriation isn’t going to be a viable possibility for more than a tiny percentage of the people that would want to leave.
This is what you can expect of extremist Christianity just from mismanaging the troubled youth in the country. Reeducation camps to make docile civilians out of them…didn’t the Soviets and Nazis have something similar? Imagine an America where the dominionism-minded theists have taken power, and I’ll show you an America wrapped in endless civil war. This is a non-mindset that must be fought by any means necessary.
It’s quite difficult to convict parents who ritually sacrifice their children to their god. By medical neglect.
Frequently they get convicted of minor charges and spend a few weeks or months in prison, if that.
A lot of the time, nothing at all happens to them. In my reading, I’ve run across two families who lost two children to medical neglect. Either god hates them or they are stupid.
There you go. Acquitted in baby’s death. FWIW, the one lingered for a long time and could have been saved with a few bucks worth of antibiotics.
It’s estimated that this one cult has ritually sacrificed 30 of their kids over the last few decades. The vast majority were never even charged.
Seeing the response to this article all over the internet just makes my heart pound like it’s coming out of my chest. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to thank God. I want to thank Kathryn Joyce again and again and again. We already have plans for bloody-mary’s with a pickled green bean garnish. Many thanks should go to Bruce, author of “Fallen From Grace”, and Andy Kopsa, another free-lance writer.
These 3 stuck with us. They believed us. They spoke for us. Our gratitude for them knows no bounds. The thousands of kids who passed through the gates of New Bethany, Hephzibah House, Circle of Hope, New Beginnings and all the Lester Roloff homes have never had outside and public support like this before. PLEASE help us save the kids who are living this hell right now. PLEASE!
Law enforcement has been and still is aware of what happened behind those gates. They also know that there are laws in place right now that can be used to at least get an indictment against ONE former staff person that we know of. But nothing is happening from the law-enfocement side of things. However, those on the “outside” are finding out. Perhaps church members will question excatly where their hard-earned tithes that they put in the collection plate are going. Perhaps someone who reads this article will hear a friend or relative talk about looking to “place” their child somewhere, then interrupt and say “wait a minute”.
I don’t know where we would be if Kathryn hadn’t responded to that e-mail.
Sounds like the Magdalene Laundries (Irish Catholic indoctrination camps/reformatories/slave labour camps, which it is a sad reflection that were largely driven out of business by the reduction in cost of domestic washing machines rather than any public outrage over the treatment of their victims) writ large.
I can’t believe that looking at the one that I’ve got on my AdChoices selection (notionally non-denominational Christian, but it seems (thanks Wiki) that they’ve got links to LDS and no-one else) is actually a 501(c). Oddly enough it’s also the subject of at least one ongoing lawsuit.
Surely if they’re claiming non-profit status that ought to allow some oversight?
I’d encourage everyone to click on the ad links, as at least it will cost these bastards money.
I went to an Anglican school. It was a wonderful experience. I was not abused, had contact with my parents and got a good education. I was given a chance to rebuild my self esteem and social life after a bad experience in the US public school system. I interfaced a lot with the chaplain and headmasters and there weren’t any Trunchbulls.
The Anglican bit was pretty benign. A short sermon a week, generally dealing with being nice to people, and the occasional hymn singing…and a religious studies class which was only taken seriously by one or two teachers.
Not every parochial school or institution is a hive for abuse.
Sometimes it gets easy to think so, given only anecdotes of hellish experiences.
Stop and think for a minute. What possible reason would any see for you posting this other than to minimize a serious problem?
It’s the same deal was with the MRAssholes. If it’s not about you it’s not about you. Fuck off.
And?
@Lola, Yes! The first thing I thought reading the account about “red shirts” and issuing TP squares was, “That’s straight out of Margaret Atwood! What are they, using it as a ‘how to’?”
I read The Handmaid’s Tale very recently, and thought it was just too extreme and the timeline was too condensed. There was no way that liberated, modern women could be disenfranchised and broken so quickly! It’s not possible, I thought. Then I read an account on Reddit about a Utah anti-gay camp (Cross Creek) & the abuses the writer suffered there: http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/hk0xy/a_gay_teen_describes_her_experience_at_a_utah/
And now I read this. And I wish that places like this really did only exist in books.
Well, I realize that child abuse is a serious problem in church run “reformation” camps. However, with the catholic school anecdotes, I felt that an issue which is definitely an issue in some fundamentalist groups was being extrapolated to all parochial schools. This is wrong.
Ing, If I were to take your response and infer from it that all pharyngula posters and therefore all atheists are all arrogant, blowhard assholes, I would be wrong. If I were to infer that anyone who replied “wait! I’m not an arrogant asshole” was simply doing it do distract from the serious issue of pompous, holier-than-thou asshattery on this forum, that would be UNFAIR of me.
Tamakazura, I didn’t feel that there was any extrapolation going on, just further examples to show that the problem isn’t confined to camps run by fundamentalist groups. There have been issues with many parochial and state schools. There have been plenty of people who went through various institutions who suffered no abuse; that only a few suffered does not excuse any particular institution.
It is because a minority were/are abused that the abusers got away with it for so long. The victims have been isolated and disbelieved.
For instance, just because I was lucky and didn’t get beaten at my RC primary school doesn’t mean that the school was a good one. Other children were beaten and if I were to deny that I would be siding with the abusers in victimising them.
Any of us can be lucky in our experiences. If we use that to deny a problem exists then we are part of the problem. Can you categorically deny that anyone in your school ever had a less than happy experience? Do you have enough information to assert that there has never been any abuse there? Or might you be hiding behind your privilege, saying “It didn’t happen to me, so I don’t believe it ever happens to anyone else”?
It is often worth questioning our assumptions based on personal experience, because our experiences are not the same as others’ and it is in the nature of abuse that it rarely occurs in front of independent witnesses, further marginalising the victims.
My intent was not to marginalize you, tigger. I realize that you had a horrible experience, and also know that in my realm of experience, the stereotype is that Catholic schools are run by clergy and nuns who are blindly trusted by parents and who are often abusive. I’m not surprised by your experience because I’ve heard a lot of stories like it. I’m sure there are plenty of good RC schools out there and plenty of kids who had good experiences, but their stories do not stand out as much as the bad ones.
I think the general attitude of the moderate religious towards fundy reform camps is a negative on the whole, and I think they are viewed with suspicion outside the fundamentalist communities.
The problem in the secular community may not be that not enough of these stories are told and that victims are ignored and uncared for, but that most people feel powerless to do anything about it…so don’t.
Marginalization seems to me like it would be more of an issue in the religious community. People who are ashamed of their experience and people who are in denial of the experiences around them. They’re the ones who have the power to do something.
I can say for certain that my school did not have an institutional policy of abusing children as yours did or as these camps do. Beating kids and then lying to parents was not considered OK. As for individuals, it is not possible to say that there were never any kids abused at my school. Of course you could say the same about any state or private school. If there is not a culture of abuse at a particular school, and yours seemed to have one, we should not tar an institution as potentially abusive just because it is associated with a church.
And also, I never said that there was no abuse at religious schools, my point, which I guess was not clear was that not all religious schools were abusive. I was giving mine as an example of a positive experience at a religious institution…something I know from years of reading is a minority opinion on this forum.
Oh. And I’m an atheist. I realized at this same high school that I couldn’t really believe even liberal Christianity.
I am wondering if we are at cross-purposes here. I wasn’t personally abused at my primary school but I happen to know some were; so my point is that it isn’t possible to be absolutely certain that any institution is free from abuse, however happy one’s own experience might have been, because the abuse may well be hidden.
I hope you are right, and that your school was totally free of abuse, but unless you interview all past and current students and get truthful responses, can you be really sure?
No one likes to think that their favourite teacher or priest was anything other than perfect, as abusers are very, very good at fostering a very good relationship with most of the people around them, which is why their victims have such a horrible time being believed. So they are hurt twice over, once by the abusers and again by the people they turn to for help who think they are lying.
It isn’t just institutions, but parents, too. How many times have children been returned to abusive homes because the parents are ‘pillars of the community’ and the children have been given a reputation as ‘troublemakers’ or disturbed’?
The community is far more likely to assume the victims are making false accusations than that the accused are guilty.
Be honest; if a past student from your school were to tell you that they had been abused whilst there, would you believe them? Or would your own pleasant experience lead you to think that they might be exaggerating if not outright lying?
Actually, the honest answer is if someone told me they were abused I can say with certainty that I would be shocked but believe them and my memory of the person whom they accused would probably be tainted. Might not have been the “honest answer” that you wanted to hear, but that’s the risk you take when making sweeping assumptions about the inner thoughts of people you don’t know.
Why the hell do you feel the need to protect people who aren’t involved. Seriously, it’s not the fuck about you. What part of that don’t you get. Insisting the topic move away to ‘Well they’re not all bad” is minimizing. Go away.
Tamakazura, I made no sweeping assumptions here; an honest answer is what I wanted (I had no thoughts in advance as to what it would be) and thank you for giving one.
You might also like to ask yourself why it is so important to you to come here to defend an institution that hasn’t been accused of anything, when the effect is to draw attention away from the institutions that are abusing young people (the subject of the original post).
Before I saw the RCC for what it really is, I perceived any criticism of it as a personal attack; because that is how I had been taught/programmed/brainwashed to react from an early age.
Now, of course, I realise that such programming is very effective at keeping the perpetrators of abuse protected from facing justice. Anytime someone has a legitimate complaint against the hierarchy, hundreds of laity jump in to defend their faith, completely missing the point, because of their training. It makes it exhausting to pursue justice because of having to fight through irrelevencies.
Stop. Think. Read what Ing wrote. It’s not about you so why do you think it is? Might you have been programmed as I was?
Between me and my husband we’ve owned more MP3 players over the years than I can count, including Sansas, iRivers, iPods (classic & touch), the Ibiza Rhapsody, etc. But, the last few years I’ve settled down to one line of players. Why? Because I was happy to discover how well-designed and fun to use the underappreciated (and widely mocked) Zunes are. http://www.kusadasi.tv/ Barbi