TV programs worth watching

Sun March 12 — Sat March 18

There is not a lot of interest on the ABC this week, so we’ll concentrate on SBS instead.

The USA today is ex­periencing a series of crises which are all part of a general crisis. Youth in particular are feeling the effects: lied to by their leaders, fed bullshit and pap by the media, and facing an increasingly bleak future as jobs vanish. They are angry, frustrated and rebellious.

But, hey, this is the USA, so it can’t be capitalist society that needs reforming, it must obviously be the kids themselves. They need "behaviour modification". And there are plenty of outfits willing to provide it.

On SBS Television on Tuesday, 14 March at 8:30 pm Tranquility Bay, which screens this week in the Cutting Edge timeslot (SBS 8.30pm Tuesday), looks at the growing private reform-school industry in the USA.

With exotic names like Tranquility Bay and Paradise Cove and beachside locations in countries like Jamaica, Fiji and Western Samoa, these institutions are designed to suggest to parents that if they fork out anything up to $25,000 a year in school fees their troubled-teens will find an idyllic and understanding academic paradise where they can reform.

Parents attend seminars where they are sold the concept that behaviour modification programs can change their children for the better. Just sign the contract.

Instead the pupils behind the schools’ barbed wire fences have been subjected to abuse and half of the schools have been forced to close.

The World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP) is the leading provider of these programs for American teens. At the helm of a company which earns $95 million per year is Robert Browning Lichfield, a Utah resident and Mormon, who has built his fortune through the numerous WWASP programs that are located throughout the world.

Parents suckered into signing contracts with WWASP discover that the organisation is not liable for any harm the child should suffer while in its care and that the company is allowed to use pepper spray, electronic disablers, mace, mechanical restraints and handcuffs to enforce good behaviour.

The schools have been attacked for lacking a comprehensive academic curriculum, operating without a licence from the education ministry and offering student qualifications that aren’t officially recognised, even in the USA!

At WWASP, punishments are of a physical nature and designed to inflict extreme pain on the receiver. Misbehaviour such as talking at inappropriate moments is punished by relegation to the "dog cage" — a small boxed area where a student is forced to lie face-down for hours, days or months, in extreme heat conditions. One female student was subjected to this punishment for 18 months.

Although foreign authorities have been sufficiently concerned with the activities of the schools to shut down WWASP establishments in Western Samoa, Costa Rica, Mexico and the Czech Republic, complaints of physical and sexual abuse are allegedly ignored by American authorities. In total, six out of 12 WWASP schools have closed amidst allegations of child abuse.

The program claims that the profitability of WWASP goes a long way to explaining why American authorities have not mounted investigations into its activities. An examination of personal finances of school executives, such as Robert Browning Lichfield, indicates that they are amongst the biggest donors to the Republican Party and gave over $1 million in political donations in 2002-2004. They also fund the missionary work of the Mormon Church.