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PANI Issues Report Amid Chaos at Dundee Ranch

By Tim Rogers
May 21, 2003
 trogers@ticotimes.net

More than a dozen youths at Dundee Ranch Academy in the Pacific-slope town of Orotina reportedly escaped yesterday, during a visit to the controversial U.S.-run behavior-modification facility by officials from the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ), and the Ministries of Health, Education, the Child Welfare Agency (PANI) and the Alcohol and Drug Institute.

Police and staff were reportedly still searching for the runaways yesterday afternoon. Dundee Ranch declined comment.

Located on the remote grounds of a former hotel by the same name, Dundee is a year-and-a-half-old program for troubled teens, mostly from the U.S. (TT, Oct. 25, 2002).

Critics of the program argue that the academy's "tough-love" tactics -- including the use of physical restraint and sentencing disobedient teens to solitary confinement -- border on inhumane treatment and make the academy more like a boot camp than a boarding school. Academy owner Narvin Lichfield, however, defends his program as a last resort for teens with serious behavior or drug problems (TT, Jan. 17; March 14).

After four months of investigating, the PANI yesterday issued its long-awaited report on Dundee Ranch, instructing the facility that it has 30 days to implement 15 in the way it operates.

The PANI also filed a criminal complaint against Dundee Ranch with the Prosecutor's Office, requesting a judicial investigation of the academy. If the needed changes are not implemented in a month's time, the academy could be issued a judicial order to close, according to PANI's acting director, Ileana Ballard.

 
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