Controversy surrounds Tranquility Bay
By Basia Pioro, basia@cfp.ky
Thursday 13th July, 2006 Posted:
13:49 CIT (18:49 GMT)
School part of CI budget
Since 2002 the Cayman Islands
Government has quietly been sending troubled youth to a high
security privately run educational institution in Jamaica called
Tranquility Bay.
The facility treats special cases as
an alternative to juvenile detention on Grand Cayman.
The first young Caymanian was sent at
the family’s request in 2001.
The Cayman Islands Government has
since sent five young people; three boys and two girls over the past
five years.
The last government–funded student
left in July 2005.
Health and Family Services Minister
Anthony Eden has confirmed that despite the fact that no students
are currently at the facility, the Ministry has no intention of
eliminating the just–in–case Tranquility Bay funding of $30,000
allocated in this year’s budget.
Mr. Eden said using Tranquility Bay
is not ideal, but is at least for the time being, a necessity.
“I am interested in putting a process
in place that will allow us to finally build a quality on–Island
facility as soon as possible,” he said. “But without a suitable
alternative at the present time in the Cayman Islands, Tranquility
Bay is a facility that we will continue to use, if necessary.”
In the Cayman Islands, the court
determines the fate of young people who run afoul of the law or who
come to the attention of social services.
Youth with schooling and drug
problems are dealt with by the Children and Youth Services
foundation, which caters to 37 young people.
Seventeen boys live at the
Bonaventure home, 10 girls are housed at the Frances Bodden Home,
while 10 boys between ages 16 and 19 attend daytime programmes.
Cayman also has a youth detention
facility, Eagle House, which houses five under–17 juveniles and 15
young offenders aged 17–21.
However, in some special cases the
courts decide that troubled youth need more than what Cayman can
offer, and as a result has used overseas specialty institutions,
including Tranquility Bay, which is mired in controversy.
Tranquility Bay
Billed to have a positive effect on
troubled young people aged 13 to 18 going through problems
associated with the difficult teen years, the Tranquility Bay
website states it is a “specialty boarding school and therapeutic
behavioural modification facility, with an excellent academic
program and therapy for kids who have been very defiant and hard to
manage . . .”
The site describes how its program
opens up new ways to help young people build character in order to
achieve family peace and harmony.
The facility opened in 1997 and is in
a remote area of Treasure Beach near St. Elizabeth, west of
Kingston, on the premises of a former oceanfront hotel.
It is owned and operated by the World
Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, a 19–year old
organization that holds about 2,400 children and youth ranging from
seven to 18 in facilities in the United States, Jamaica and Mexico.
The benign name masks a different
reality: In the past four years, five WWASP facilities, Casa by the
Sea, Sunrise Beach and High Impact, all in Mexico, Dundee Ranch in
Costa Rica, Morava in Czech Republic, and Paradise Cove in Western
Samoa, have all been shut down for child abuse and neglect.
The High Impact Mexico operation was
shut down when investigators discovered children being held in dog
cages in the desert, reported John Gorenfeld of AlterNet.
Chris Goodwin of San Francisco said
his son was forced to stay outside in his underpants for three
nights at the Mexico facility, lying on his stomach with his chin on
the ground. If he moved to try to brush off fire ants that roamed
over him, he was threatened with a cattle prod, said Goodwin. The
punishment left scars on his son’s chin, he said in a news story in
the Rocky Mountain (Colorado) News in January 2002.
Comment forbidden
The accusations are surprising,
considering they arose despite the fact that both children and
parents are required to attend gruelling, emotionally draining
multi–day training seminars where they must sign confidentiality
agreements forbidding them to reveal what goes on both during the
seminars and at the facilities.
These agreements have not stopped
numerous students and parents from coming forward in recent years to
tell about their experiences to media outlets around the world. The
latest appeared in the Miami New Times on June 22.
What is not disputed is that at
Tranquility Bay, children are placed in a points–based program with
six levels, and are organized into families. They slowly gain rights
and privileges by submitting to their superiors and admitting their
accountability for their situations.
They are held without any outside
communications with their real families for an initial period of
three to six months, treated harshly, and subjected to physical and
mental punishment, all with the objective of behaviour modification,
according to the UK’s The Observer Magazine.
Lodgings are modest. The students
have no hot water, and sleep on wooden folding beds. They learn
about obedience, courtesy, healthy eating, and do self–directed
schoolwork with the assistance of local staff. They watch
inspirational tapes.
They attend Teen Accountability,
Self–Esteem and Keys to Success seminars. They engage in group
therapy sessions where they reveal personal secrets so they can
progress through the program. Trained psychologists are only
available for an additional fee. Graduation can take years.
Charging around US$40,000 a year per
student, the institution is permitted to operate unmolested in
Jamaica as long as it abides by sanitary regulations. As for the
treatment of the children, enrolment contracts transfer guardianship
of children to Tranquility Bay, which permits staff to use physical
restraint “if deemed necessary.”
Observation Placement
At Tranquility Bay, news
documentaries and other media visits have confirmed that children
who misbehave or disobey the complex set of rules are subject to
Observation Placement.
In OP, children lie on their faces on
a tile floor in a special room for 50 minutes an hour until they
have fulfilled their allocated punishment and expressed remorse. By
2003, the restraining room record for one student was 18 months.
Organizations like International
Survivors Action Committee, Nopspank.net and Coalition Against
Institutionalized Child Abuse have documented WWASP’s progress, in
an effort to bring the issues surrounding their institutions to
light.
In 2005, 23–year–old Layne Brown told
a Missouri newspaper that during a nine–month stint at TB beginning
in 1997, staff members made him defecate and urinate in a black
garbage bag tied around his waist like a diaper, reported the
Miami New Times on 22, June, 2006. They also, he says, dragged
him across a cement floor face–down, scrubbed his genitals with a
hard–bristle toilet brush and pepper–sprayed him.
In 2003 Layne described the
mistreatment to a French film company at his home in Kanab, Utah,
for a documentary titled Tranquility Bay. The film also includes an
interview with a man identified as former TB assistant director
Randall Hinton, who stated he and Jay Kay used pepper spray. "I
think I can remember Layne being pepper–sprayed more than once a
day. I know he was pepper–sprayed more than two times a day. I don’t
think it would have been more than three times ... and from somebody
on the outside looking in, I would say it would be abusive."
Yet TB owner and director Jay Kay has
said that corporal punishment is not practiced at TB and the use of
pepper spray was abolished in 1998. "Anyone who saw inside
Tranquility would support and admire it," he said in 2003, blaming
criticism on ignorance. "Nothing has really presented things in a
way that is factual," reported the Miami New Times.
Mr. Brown spent two years in a mental
hospital after leaving Tranquility Bay and died 6 June, 2006.
In a strange coincidence, Carter
Lynn, featured in the Miami New Times story, hanged himself
at home 7 June, 2006.
What happens to students once they
leave WWASP facilities is not officially tracked, but CAICA has been
following the progress of high–profile cases on their website.
Typical WWASP students are teens who
certainly have made bad choices, but are guilty of transgressions
like running with the wrong crowd, choosing inappropriate
boyfriends, or getting caught smoking ganja.
A large majority come from
dysfunctional or divorced–parent families. Many are taken from their
beds, handcuffed, by guards who hustle them to the airport before
they can say goodbye to their parents, The Observer Magazine
reports.
CAICA claims that desperate parents,
in their haste and succumbing to a sense of hopelessness in dealing
with their wayward children, lured by slick sales pitches and
coercion techniques, are convinced to send their children to WWASP
facilities in the belief it will solve their problems.
Researchers say the coercion methods
WWASP employs on both students and parents are based on Maoist
re–education techniques used on American GIs in the Korean War.
These became popular in 1970s North America in the form of large
group awareness training, Mind Dynamics, or what psychologists call
coercive persuasion, all intended to achieve behaviour modification
by changing the subject’s perception of reality. Often, subjects
play along in order to feign progress as an exit strategy.
In response to criticism, WWASPs
says: "The schools have a tremendous record of success and growth.
They have helped thousands of teens and their families and have a 97
per cent parent satisfaction rate."
Amid the rising tide of criticism
about WWASP facilities, the Cayman Islands government continues to
allocate budget funds to send selected youth to Tranquility Bay.
Good faith
Although accounts of the sequence of
events differ in certain respects, it appears that the relationship
between the Cayman Islands government and Tranquility Bay was formed
in good faith.
House Speaker Edna Moyle was Minister
Youth in 2001. She recalled that a British Overseas Territory
inspector was concerned about the youth detention facilities in use
at that time in West Bay and ordered them closed, creating a problem
with housing and rehabilitating certain troubled youth.
Roy Bodden was Education Minister in
2001. He visited Tranquility Bay on a Cayman Islands Government
fact–finding mission with Mrs. Moyle, and Children & Youth Services
Director Deana Look Loy. He was there to assess the facility’s
educational aspects, with regard to both teaching and behaviour
modification techniques.
During the initial visit, Mrs. Look
Loy, Mrs. Moyle and Mr. Bodden met Jamaican Director of Children and
Family Services Sir Winston Bowen in St. Elizabeth.
Mr. Bowen spoke with them at length,
and spent a considerable amount of time explaining the program and
the Jamaican government’s supportive position.
The parties agreed that if the Cayman
Islands sent children to Tranquility Bay, they could be reassured
that Jamaica was monitoring the facility very closely, and that
Jamaican Department of Children and Family Services social workers
would monitor the children.
Mr. Bodden recalled that the facility
was not without controversy at the time.
“But I got a good impression during
that visit,” he said. “The facility staff were very frank and open
and I don’t think we were deprived of seeing any areas, including
the restraining room. We also had the chance to have a forthright
discussion with some of the young people there, and I liked what I
saw.”
He says that upon their return, the
group discussed their impressions and unanimously agreed Tranquility
Bay was an appropriate facility for the Department of Social
Services’ needs and produced a report for the Ministry recommending
its use.
Mr. Bodden said his decision had also
been informed from hearing that some Caymanians had privately sent
their children to Tranquility Bay with good results.
He had also received the confidential
opinions of his colleagues in the Jamaican social services, which
led him to believe the decision was the right one at the time.
No Jamaican students
Mr. Bodden said he did notice that
the facility had no Jamaican students and that the senior staff was
all American, while only the more junior staff were Jamaicans, which
he thought curious.
In fact, the Jamaican government did
not and still does not permit Jamaican students to attend
Tranquility Bay.
When questioned about some of the
allegations about Tranquility Bay, Mr. Bodden acknowledged his
awareness of cases where children claimed they were kidnapped.
“It was immediately clear to us that
there were a lot of kids from wealthy American families,” he said.
“It’s certainly possible parents were trying to avoid the publicity
and embarrassment a troubled teen would bring and they could quietly
get rid of them that way.”
Mr. Bodden said that although the
Education Department was involved in the children’s educational
welfare, Social Services made the call about sending children there,
based on a combination of certain behaviour challenges and learning
challenges.
Mr. Bodden says Tranquility Bay staff
had informed them that they would likely hear about negative
experiences, but they were told that many would be fabricated and
overblown accounts by students wishing to use one divorced parent
against the other to gain sympathy and return home.
Mr. Bodden says the team found it
reassuring that children at the facility appeared to come from good
backgrounds and the environment was beneficial.
“At the time, the Government was
convinced they were getting good value for the money,” he said.
“Tranquility Bay was tough, it was isolated, so these students, by
being separated from society, had a good opportunity to reflect on
what they had done and choose to make a change.”
Visa issues
Frank McField became Minister of
Youth in late 2001 and travelled to Tranquility Bay in 2002. As he
recalled, the Government’s relationship with the facility began
because the family of a child who would have been sent to Juvenile
Detention advocated to be sent to the school instead.
“At the time, the Cayman Islands had
a visa relationship with the US, which allowed us to send children
to reform school in the States, but regulations changed so that if
they had a prior criminal record they wouldn’t be granted a visa,”
he said
“That barred any children with
records from attending US reform schools and prevented anyone with a
criminal record from ever gaining a visa to the US, which motivated
this family to propose Tranquility Bay as an alternative.”
The family had approached the
previous Minister and the government invited a Tranquility Bay
delegation to the Cayman Islands to make a presentation.
He says that was what motivated the
original fact–finding trip with Mrs. Moyle, Mrs. Look Loy and Mr.
Bodden. “And once the decision was made that the place was fine,
they started sending kids there as part of social services
sentences.”
On his visit in 2002, Mr. McField
says he only had a visitor’s view, but what made the greatest
impression on him was the remoteness, which supported the program’s
concept of isolating the predominantly American students from
society, which he had no problem with.
Mr. McField says that it was up to
the courts to decide how to remand children. To be considered for
Tranquility Bay, they would have had to have committed a series of
offences, have really serious problems and be beyond control of
their parents, because it was such an expensive place.
“At the same time, parents who were
no longer willing to be responsible, who had given up, were asking
social services to deal with their kids for them as well,” he said.
“Of course, private people were also
doing it, but due to the high cost, only privileged children in
general were sent there privately.
“Certainly, the harsh methods they
use there are not 100 per cent appropriate for every child,” he
admitted. “But we were assured that certain people were responsible
for making sure things didn’t go too far.”
Prefers US
He regrets that better facilities in
the United States could not be used as a result of the visa issue,
as he did not find the students sent to Tranquility Bay were
completely changed.
“However, we did find that some
students had clearly learned their attitude and demeanour could be a
choice they could make when it was appropriate,” he said.
“Knowing and learning to use these
choices was key and Tranquility Bay was successful in that regard.”
Mr. McField says that while he was
only involved with high–level policy decisions for the most part, he
does remember, and regret, one case involving a girl who was sent to
Tranquility Bay.
“That school was for youth who were
acting out, aggressive or disturbed,” he said. “That was not the
case with her. The type of treatment in military–style, regimented
places like this leaves no room for other methods that would more
effectively benefit certain kids.”
Harsh words
At the recent UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child Cayman Islands workshop, Children and Family
Services Director Deana Look Loy had tougher words about the
facility.
“The children we have sent there have
not done well,” she said. “They missed their families and were
miserable.”
Tranquility Bay is intended to
reprogram children so that they have better relationships with their
families when they get out, but Mrs. Look Loy said the system is
ineffective.
“The reason why we have had to send
children overseas over the years is because our resources here are
quite limited. When these children exhaust all that we have, we have
no choice but to seek the kind of therapy and services they need
outside the Island,” she said.
“So, for some time we have been
sending them to Jamaica, and to the US, but we really would like our
own on–Island facilities and programs to address our children’s
needs.”
She said sending children away
defeats the purpose of strengthening the family relationships many
of these troubled youth lack.
“It is indisputable that it is better
for us to work with them at home, in a setting where their families
are, as they have to go back to those families anyway.”
Mrs. Look Loy says that while a
budget allocation has been made for another potential student, the
former allocation of $100,000 has been redirected to building a
Cayman–based facility that would fill their needs.
She says the Department of Children
and Family Services has already put together a proposal and
presented it to the Chief Secretary.
Minister Eden confirmed that a
previous proposal for a state of the art secure rehabilitation and
education facility he was involved with died on the table a number
of years ago. He supports the recent move and the family–based
socially–oriented rationale behind it.
“In the end, we have to work with the
parents, because a lot of the issues are between the parents and the
children, and it’s usually because of some form of family
dysfunction that the children have reached the stage where they
are,” said Mrs. Look Loy. “With a few exceptions, the majority of
children are victims of their circumstances.”
Ms. Look Loy emphasized that despite
the potential for local objections to Tranquility Bay, none have
arisen. She says the intention to eventually stop sending children
to Jamaica was a decision the department made on its own.
“It is because whatever was done with
them didn’t really change them,” she said. “Children wrote
frequently, they told the psychologist frequently, that their
parents don’t call them, they don’t hear from their parents, they
missed their brothers and sisters. If they’re troubled in that
manner, they are not going to respond to the therapy.”
TB Troubles Very Public by Isabelle Zehnder (click
here)
Do Homework on Tranquility Bay by Blanche Hardy
(click
here)
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