An American GULAG : Secret P.O.W. Camps for Teens
by Alexia ParksGULAG: The Soviet prison system described in Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archilpelago
INTRODUCTION: There are adults who perform ritual abuse on children. They believe they have a calling to change the behavior of "troubled teens." They operate lock-up Change of Heart, and Snake Pit schools and call themselves custodial parents. They can take your high risk teen and give you back a no risk teen, satisfaction guaranteed.
Behind closed doors, they can become the parent you and I never had They can impose their authority with an iron will and back it up with support staff. Their behavior changing methods include the use of: padded, locked "get right" rooms; straight jackets, wooden cagewrap mats; body bags; electric shock; behavior modification drugs; brainwashing; hypnosis; sensory depravation; enforced silence; teen bodyguards, 24-hour observation; panic locks and silent motion detectors; flashing lights and alarms.
The odd thing is, they can administer pain in a "loving" way. "You will thank me some day," they say. "This is GOOD for you," they say. The smile never fades.
These aren't the thought control camps of China. They're in America, with a uniquely American twist: they're money-makers. These high-security, private lock-up schools market their services with sophisticated brochures to doctors, counselors, educational consultants, churches, and the parents of "rebellious" teens. Their names are pass word-of-mouth through referral networks and parent-support groups..
Parent-funded lock-up schools have been called the second fastest growth industry next to the building of prisons. What makes them different from prisons is that parents call them "boarding schools" and they are filled with rich white kids. The rule of thumb in these schools is: the more money you have, the worse the abuse. Lock-up boarding schools are becoming trendy for desperate parents who can afford to pay for the private incarceration of their child.
For the most part, parents place their child in a blind way. They don't know what these schools are. They depend on the referral from so-called "friends" or "experts." The schools are part of a secret world, a Medieval underworld, that I stumbled into quite by accident when I went searching for a "disappeared child" whom I love, named "Katie."
This book describes my entry into this secret underworld of child abuse. In my search for "Katie", I learned that she had been sent by her single-parent mother to a locked, rigorous, one year, behavior-modification program. It was run by a quasi-religious group. She would have virtually no communication with family members during that year. I also learned that the combination of physical constraints and limited access would set up a cult-like atmosphere in which "Katie" might be coerced into accepting extreme religious views which were not part of the family's value system.
My attempt to gain legal protection for "Katie" enabled me to do extensive research. My research documents this fast-growing rise of an industry of child abuse. This book, then, may help build public awareness strong enough to affect political change. It shows why this emerging industry of child abuse, where children are held captive in a coercive, mind-controlling environment needs to be reformed and regulated, or shut down.
Some Previews
Introduction: Behind Closed Doors
It was once believed that if a sane person were dropped in a pit of snakes they would probably be driven crazy, and therefore, the same procedure might shock a crazy person into sanity. This primitive therapy is the source of the term "Snakepit." Now troubled teens are being locked up in modern Snakepit schools that use brutal brainwashing techniques, and worse, to change their behavior…Chapter II: A Child is "Disappeared"
Children arrive in handcuffs, in shackles, drugged, or unconscious. Behind closed doors, with no witness to their suffering, the behavior of teens is then changed in violent ways. Convicts in prison have more rights than teens imprisoned by their parents in these schools.Chapter III: Inside a "Snakepit" School
In private, Candy and her mother arranged a code word for help. If Candy wanted to leave Bethesda Home for Girls, but was unable to let her mother know, she was to write her mother a letter in which the greeting "dear" was misspelled "deer…." "Deer Mother," she wrote….Chapter VI: I’m In So Much Pain!
I was sent to a GULAG school in the late 1950’s. Now, 40 years later, I am still trying to come to terms with deep feelings of betrayal and mistrust that came from my experience there. I am still trying to overcome the long term depression created by that single year.Chapter VIII: Is Teen Rebellion a Crime?
Parents who are fearful of teen drug abuse, pregnancy, AIDS, violence, dropping-out, suicide, and hostility, may make the desperate decision to place their children in a lock-up "school" to keep them "safe."Chapter IX: The Liberation of Amiee
"At night we slept in a dorm room that was unbearably hot. Each bed has an intercom beside it, so we can't talk to each other. And we couldn't get out of bed at night, because that would set off the alarm system. It's a terrible feeling to be trapped in your bed in a room that smells like everyone’s sweat."Chapter X: Society’s Best Hope
"Today’s teens are a melting pot of dress, slang, and music borrowed from the world at large. Because kids don’t act like their parents, think like their parents, or look like their parents, many parents panic. When they do, there’s someone ready to hand them a brochure, a video, ...a sales pitch."FORWARD
We had a chance to grow up. We had a safe time to be teenagers, to rebel, to try our wings and trip and fall. Our parents were there to put a bandage on our skinned knee, pat us on the head, and send us back out to play, to experiment, to try it anew.
The GULAG schools that Alexia Parks discovered, and her story about her attempt to save a young prisoner-of-war relative, is shocking. It should shock the conscious of every parent, when children, teenagers, are interned in private concentration camps, tortured, and worse. And not by a foreign enemy, but by their own parents. Shocking is not enough. Insane, perverted, and crazy are more appropriate words, that come to mind. Teens, children just learning how to spread their wings and fly, are entitled to the protection of their parents, their schools, their communities, and their country, our country, the United States of America.
We are the country that liberated the victims of the holocaust. And we did it with the blood of our sons and husbands, and the sweat and tears of our mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. "Liberated," is the key word. We certainly didn’t do that so that anyone could enslave and torture our children, not even in the name of "behavior modification," or "attitude adjustment," or any other trendy terms. Slavery is slavery. Imprisonment is imprisonment. Torture is torture. Brainwashing is brainwashing. And that is exactly what Alexia uncovered and experienced in the search for her relative. I say, enough!
When Alexia asked me to write the forward to her book, I did some investigation. What I found out was even worse than I had suspected. Worse than my worst nightmares. Gulag-snake-pit schools do exist in the United States and abroad, and they use techniques of mental and physical torture on our children, that are outlawed by the Geneva Convention, conventions which were set up to ensure the humane treatment of prisoners-of-war. Gulag schools are also, evidently a growing "business." Incredible!
This is a very courageous woman’s story about her quest to save a child, to save her young relative "Katie." To save Katie from two Gulag schools. To save Katie from being forced to submit, to be subservient, to surrender her youth. To save Katie from being forced to be compliant, from being forced to be "good." To save a child, a 13-year-old teen, from giving up her spirit and her dreams.
Please read this story and take it to heart. Freedom to be different, to try our wings, to rebel, to learn and grow in our own way, that is liberty. That is the symbol of our Statue of Liberty. That is our birthright and each of our own Declaration’s of Independence. In this country, the United States of America, it is our inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Our men, our sons and husbands died for it. Our mothers, aunts and grandmothers toiled in the wartime factories for it. Please do not let it slip away. Please do not let anyone take it away. We must not allow any American GULAG to continue.
Review
Reviewer: Anonymous
Alexia Parks tells the truth about what happened at some of these coercive mind-control for-profit mills. It is a growing business that preys on adolescents for money. There may be some good programs out there, but as a survivor of a horrible one, I can attest personally that parents cannot be too careful about where they send their troubled teen. Lawmakers should read this and write legislation to regulate all such programs thoroughly. Many "troubled teens" in these places, such as myself, were troubled by abusive parents. I and others I've connected with in the many years since I "graduated" remain anonymous out of fear of retribution by people still involved in the cult-like group, as well as out of shame for ever having been there, even though it was not my fault. I'm a professional and a good citizen, but got here later than I would have and I'm scarred by all the abuse I endured. Bravo, Alexia, for telling this story.
More Info
Teen Liberty
Created by Alexia Parks, the author of American Gulag: Secret POW Camps for Kids. It contains a number of articles, letters, and links relating to behavior modification programs.
Where to get the book
Amazon
Alexia Parks order form
Written by: Alexia Parks
11 December 2005
