|
December 7, 2004
Tranquility
Bay: The Last Resort
Reporter Raphael Rowe
BBC -- UK
edition
Some parents of
rebellious teenagers in the US are turning to privately-owned
correctional institutions to steer their wayward children back on
the right path. But is this tough love tactic a step too far?
At Tranquility
Bay, children have to earn the right to look at the ocean
Perched on the
edge of a cliff in Treasure Beach - a remote fishing village in
southern Jamaica - there is a hand-painted sign on the wall:
"Welcome to Tranquility Bay."
This isolated
boarding school is surrounded by security cameras, iron gates,
barred windows and high concrete walls.
It looks like a
top security prison; but it is neither a prison, nor a juvenile
detention centre.
At a cost of
between $25,000 (£13,000) and $40,000 (£20,800) a year, parents of
unruly teenagers send their children here to learn how to behave.
Hard line
Tranquility Bay
is one of several facilities run by an American business
organisation called WWASPS, the World Wide Association of Speciality
Programs and Schools.
According to
their website, Tranquility Bay exists "to challenge and motivate the
student in a structured, individualised learning environment... so
they become mature, responsible and contributing members of
society."
The teenagers
inside are typically enrolled on the programme for three years, but
this varies and largely depends on when the institution, and their
parents, think they are fit to graduate.
As I glanced
around the institution, some pupils - mostly white Americans dressed
in khaki shorts and shirts, and flip flops - walked past me in line,
military-style, with vacant expressions.
Not one of them
looked at me, not even a peep from the corner of an eye.
Rules of
admission
Shannon Levy lived in Tranquility Bay from 2000 to 2002
Fifteen-year-old
Shannon Levy's parents arranged for their daughter to be forcibly
taken from their home and escorted to Tranquility Bay.
"Three strangers
- a lady and two big men - came into my house and sat me down on the
sofa," Shannon told me.
"They said I was
going to Jamaica and they handcuffed me and said I could co-operate
or they were going to throw me over their shoulder. I was screaming
for my mom because I had no clue what was going on. I was very
scared," she said.
When I asked
Shannon's mother Jayne why she felt the need to send her daughter to
a school reputed for its harsh treatment of pupils, she simply said:
"Desperate parents do desperate things."
Shannon had
disrespected her mother, was sleeping around, drinking alcohol,
smoking pot and not doing well at school.
Arguably, most
of the children sent to the school flaunt typical teenage behaviour.
Ultimate
endurance
In order to
recondition these children, once inside, they are completely cut off
from their home life.
They are not
permitted to talk to their families until they conform to the
programme - which is a reward and punishment system.
If you do what
you are told, when you are told to do it - and do it the way the
programme says you should - you earn points.
Children must lie in silence in OP
These points
move you up to the next level in a "six-point plan", a method of
acquiring "privileges".
If you do not
obey the rules, or as one former student told me, you cannot do what
is required of you, you have to face the consequences.
One consequence
is being sent to Observational Placement, or what is known to the
kids as OP.
On my way to the
OP room I caught a glimpse of the sleeping dorms.
They were
furnished sparingly with thin, lumpy mattresses on wooden bed frames
that fold up against the wall, and wooden shelves on which children
have attempted to neatly fold the few items of clothing they are
issued.
In OP the
children are made to lie on thin plastic mats on the floor, all day,
sometimes day after day. They eat, sleep and stay in the room until
the staff members guarding them decide they can leave.
Shannon Levy
told me she spent eight weeks in OP.
Parrot
fashion
To continue
their education, the children work from text books and are partly
self-taught.
Kids are guarded during self-study
If they fail a
test exam they do it again and again until they pass.
Staff members
are not trained teachers in all the subjects they supervise and are
often recruited from the local community.
During meals,
students are bombarded with self-improvement messages over the
tannoy. They are played over and over again.
The children
must then write essays about what they have learnt straight
afterwards.
Controversy
Despite its hard
and strict methods, many parents like Megan Quinn - who placed her
son in the school - are pleased with the results.
Megan told me:
"If it wasn't for the God-sent gift of this programme you'd be going
to the lakeshore of Chicago where my father's buried, where my
sister's buried, and putting flowers on his grave. So yes it hurts
right now not to see him for 12 months but it would hurt a heck of a
lot more not to see him for the rest of his life."
Other parents
are not so convinced and taking legal action against WWASPs. "It was
an act of desperation... and we were conned," said Julie Wilkinson,
mother of ex-student Winston.
Concerns about
the school's methods have also been raised by Bertrand Bainvel, head
of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), based in Jamaica. He
wants OP scrapped, because he says: "There is a high possibility it
falls under the definition of child abuse."
In response to
the criticism, WWASPs say: "The schools have a tremendous record of
success and growth. They have helped thousands of teens and their
families and have a 97% parent satisfaction rate."
I began to
consider a conversation I had earlier with the uncle of one young
female student, as he tried to make his way past security to visit
her.
"They're
criminalising adolescence," he said, and as I walked out of the gate
beyond the high walls into the full tropical sunlight, I wondered if
he was right.
Locked in
Paradise will be broadcast on Tuesday, 7 December, 2004, at 1930 GMT
on BBC Two.
|
