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Consistency is
Key
July 14, 2006
By Isabelle Zehnder
It is a shame to
think that children continue to be sent to Tranquility Bay (TB) even
though TB has made headline news with allegations of abuse and
neglect and has been featured in two documentaries; one that aired
in France, Lost Children of Tranquility Bay, and another that
aired in Australia, The Cutting Edge, Tranquility Bay. People
around the world have shared their concerns and distress over what
they saw.
In John Gorenfield’s January 23, 2006, article “No More Nightmares
at Tranquility Bay?” Gorenfield said that as a teen at Tranquility
Bay you can’t call home and can’t walk from room to room without a
Jamaican “chaperone”. You can be wrestled to the ground for talking
out of turn while they twist and pull your limbs and grind your
ankles. Some of WWASP’s programs have been shut down on allegations
of child abuse and neglect. In one of WWASP’s programs, High Impact,
a WWASP affiliate in Mexico which closed in 2002 after “dark stories
emerged”, teens said they were kept in dog cages. Two parents, Chris
Goodwin and Stephanie Hecker, told the Rocky Mountain News
their children were made to lie in their underwear for three nights
with fire ants roaming over them and were threatened with a cattle
prod if they scratched.
These stories are
told time and again, when will people start to listen, when will
people realize they must do their homework before sending their
child away?
One child recently
lost his life. He was victimized at TB for nine months, during which
time he was pepper sprayed multiple times a day – every day,
according to news articles we have read and the Fox News report that
aired in June 2005. It is easy to ask ourselves: “Could this
really be happening to children?” I asked that very question for
months as I delved into a research project that has, for me, lasted
for years.
I have interviewed
many victims and their families and have seen there is a consistency
in their stories – a consistency that is impossible for me to
ignore. I would ask others to listen to these children with an open
mind and with an open heart.
Layne Brown is gone
and many of us who knew his family grieve with them. This child
suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to be there to help
him. And though it is hard to imagine that someone could abuse a
child in this manner – pepper spraying him every day, multiple times
a day, then at times putting him out in the sun causing chemical
burns, taking a toilet brush and brushing his private area. We ask
ourselves, “how could this happen to an American child by another
American?” We think of something like this happening in a
concentration camp or to victims of war – not to our American
children – children who experimented with drugs, stayed out late,
weren’t excelling in school, and a myriad of other reasons children
find themselves in programs like TB.
People generally do
not want to believe this sort of thing happens. But unfortunately it
has happened and children continue to complain of abusive practices
in residential programs.
For me it became
all too real the day I first saw the video of the man responsible
for pepper spraying Layne all those months – Randall Hinton. He
admits that yes, the child was pepper sprayed at least one time a
day, and yes, it is safe to say he was pepper sprayed at least two
times in a day. Fox News interviewed Layne and his mother, Terry
Cameron, when he was still alive. It was disturbing to hear him tell
of the abuse he suffered and of his mother telling about the
negative way in which his experiences there impacted his life.
Layne is one of
many. We have heard his story, and the stories of many others. Time
and again we find consistency – it is hard to turn a deaf ear.
Our organization,
the Coalition Against Institutionalized Child Abuse (CAICA), strives
to get the word out about abusive practices in residential
facilities for children in an attempt that parents and those
concerned about the well-being of children will be informed about
what can and has gone on behind closed doors.
Not all programs
are abusive, we understand that, but it is critical that people know
what to look for, and more importantly, what to look out for. For
more information, visit www.caica.org.
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