|
Chaos Hits U.S. Reform Facility
By Tim Rogers - Tico Times Staff
trogers@ticotimes.net
Hidalgo de Orotina - Known for its extreme discipline and strict rules, Dundee Ranch Academy - home to 200 wayward teenagers from the U.S. - was turned on its head this week, following a chaotic situation Tuesday that resulted in rioting, vandalism and 35 students running away.
The incident was sparked by a visit from Costa Rican authorities investigating allegations of rights abuse by the Child Welfare Agency (PANI), which this week released the findings of its long-awaited report on Dundee.
In addition to filing a criminal complaint against Dundee with the regional Prosecutor's Office in Atenas, PANI notified the academy that it has 30 days to make 15 necessary changes if it hopes to get legal and stay open (see box). Responding to the Prosecutor's request, the PANI on Thursday sent counselors to Dundee to ensure the protection of the children while the facility attempts to comply with to the law.
SCARS: staff member shows damage
to his car by rioting kids.
Tico Times Photos/JulioLaínez
Adding insult to injury, regional child advocacy group Casa Alianza this week requested intervention from the UN Committee against Torture, claiming: "In our opinion, Dundee Ranch Academy is the site of torture and cruel and inhumane treatment against children who are being held there illegally and against their will."
The newest affiliate of the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), Dundee Ranch - in the Pacific-slope town of Orotina - is a non-therapeutic behavior-modification program that teaches troubled teens to "identify their incorrect behavior, and stop doing it," according to owner Narvin Lichfield of Utah. Most of the students have similar profiles: teenagers with severe behavioral problems who are involved with drugs, sex, and/or criminal activity.
However, the tactics Dundee employs to help youths identify their problematic behavior - including physical restraints and solitary confinement - have been criticized by former students, parents and several ex-directors as abusive forms of punishment (TT, Oct. 25, 2002; Jan. 17, March, 14).
After a four-month investigation prompted by a Tico Times article published last October, the Child Welfare Agency (PANI) this week released its report on Dundee and requested a complete judicial probe of the academy.
Dundee's problems were further complicated Tuesday when Prosecutor Fer-nando Vargas visited the academy accompanied by police and a mixed commission of government officials. Vargas reportedly incited mob-mentality hysteria when he informed the students that they didn't have to stay at Dundee against their will.
"The situation got chaotic and crazy and out of control," said 15-year-old Miami native Johel, who was sent to Dundee seven months ago for drug addiction and gang involvement. "After living with all those rules, now you have people saying you can do whatever you want. Kids starting arming themselves with sticks and acting violent against the upper-level students who were allowed to discipline them."
Lichfield claims many of the youths started to lash out violently, beating staff members' cars with sticks, vandalizing property, stealing from each other, and having sex in the bathrooms. Yesterday, he told The Tico Times that 25 students were still "rioting" and were being held under lockdown at the facility's recently constructed "High Impact" compound. Dundee would not allow The Tico Times to visit the incarcerated students.
Some of teens decided to flee, and several of the girls reportedly flagged down passing cars and got in with strangers. Six children told PANI officials they wanted to be removed from the academy and were relocated to state-run shelters.
By Wednesday afternoon, all the Dundee students - including those remaining in PANI shelters - were accounted for, according to U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Marcia Bosshart. Lichfield, however, told The Tico Times yesterday that "three or four" students were still missing.
The Dundee owner claims he is in the process of appealing the PANI report and filing a $20 million lawsuit against the Costa Rican government for damages and revenue loss.
"Is Costa Rica a democracy ruled by law, or a bureaucracy ruled by cover-your-ass?" Lichfield demanded.
According to parents, WWASP President Ken Kay sent a private communiqué to Dundee parents on Wednesday, putting a positive spin on the events and claiming that the "non-working students" (the ones who chose to run away) will be sent to the notoriously tough Tranquility Bay program in Jamaica. "The positive is that those who stay [at Dundee] will no longer be distracted, influenced or hampered by the non-working students," Kay wrote.
Lichfield told The Tico Times yesterday that 170 students signed voluntary waivers, claiming they are remaining at Dundee under their own volition. The 30 students who refused to sign are being sent home or transferred to Tranquility Bay, he said.
Parents of Dundee students this week expressed everything from concern to outrage following reports of the Tuesday breakout. Many blamed the exodus on the Costa Rican government's "Gestapo" tactics.
One irate mother, who wished to remain nameless, accused Costa Rican authorities of "inciting a riot" and allowing minors to "walk out of there into a foreign country without so much as a penny in their pocket to call home or their passports, only the clothes on their backs.
"My son was one of the 35 boys gone from 7:30 to 4:30 a.m. He was scared and very confused when we spoke to him by phone," she told The Tico Times. "By the Grace of God and many volunteers, he is safe and back at the compound."
Advertised as a correctional boarding school that provides youth with a "Paradise for Change," Dundee Ranch does not have any operating licenses from Costa Rican authorities, and the qualifications of its staff have been questioned (TT, Oct. 25, 2002).
A visit from Immigration officials this week revealed that 100 of the 193 students had expired tourist visas, and four Jamaican staff members - including the current director - do not have valid work permits.
"If I could, I would detain and deport everyone there who has irregular visa status," Immigration director Marco Badilla told The Tico Times this week, adding that he is requesting judicial intervention.
Critics of the program also worry that Dundee's "High Impact" compound, which was recently advertised on two separate Web pages as a juvenile boot camp, is a replica of a facility by the same name that was closed two years ago by Mexican authorities, who reportedly found kids locked in dog cages (TT. March, 14).
In an interview with The Tico Times last October, Lichfield explained that students who habitually violate the academy's 100-plus rules would be sent to High Impact and remain incarcerated until they walk 100 miles around a sand-and-gravel perimeter track to win their freedom. However, he denied it would be the same as the facility forced to close in Mexico (TT, Oct. 25, 2002; March 14).
Ana Teresa León, author of the PANI's report on Dundee, told The Tico Times this week the current High Impact model would be "illegal" and Lichfield will not be able to inaugurate the compound unless he dramatically reworks the concept and has it approved by child welfare officials.
Despite Dundee's recent problems, many diehard champions defend the program's "tough-love" tactics.
Neal Nathanson of Maryland said he can't vouch for the ultimate success of the program, but insists it is working for his 15-year-old son Lee, who was sent to Dundee six months ago for drug problems.
"The program is clearly working for my son," said Nathanson, who spent last weekend at Dundee's Parent-Child Weekend at the Hotel Tirol in Heredia, north of San José. "He told me last weekend: 'I wouldn't leave now if you asked me to; I am learning the skills I need in my future life.´"
Don Babets of Shutesbuty, Massachusetts, agrees that the program has had a positive effect on his son Kenny, who has been at Dundee for 17 months.
"He loves it, and even though he is 18, he chose to stay there Tuesday when the other kids left, because he knows the program is working."
One 17-year-old sent to Dundee with severe drug addiction after several suicide attempts told The Tico Times this week he blames the Costa Rican government for disrupting a program he credits with saving his life.
"The government is saying that Dundee is violating laws by trying to fix me," he said. "I don't know if I would do so well if I were sent out into the world right now without finishing the program. I probably would have committed suicide like my father did, and I don't want to go down that path."
The 19-month-old Dundee Ranch continues to grow in enrollment. Since the end of 2002, the student body had grown by nearly 30%. Until this week, Lichfield was in the process of negotiating to buy the cozy Hotel Tirol - in the mountains above Heredia - to house Dundee's female students. But due to recent events, that plan has been put on hold, Lichfield said.
PANI's List
The Child Welfare Office's (PANI) report listed 15 problems Dundee needs to fix in the next 30 days in order to get legal and remain open:
1. Inadequate facilities: not enough ventilation or lighting in the dorms, and no privacy.
2. Inadequate food and meal portions.
3. Communication between students and their families too restricted.
4. Staff unqualified to attend to needs of children.
5. Immigration status of students not clear.
6. Some punishments qualify as physical and psychological abuse.
7. Academy overcrowded.
8. Cleaning facility should not be students' responsibility.
9. Academy has no permit from Education Ministry.
10. No guaranteed comprehensive health-care.
11. Many students held at Dundee against their will.
12. Dundee's investments in academy not directly benefiting students.
13. Management and leadership of program not professional.
14. Academic structure not clear: no lessons taught.
15. Some parents have complained that academy does not really offer what it advertises.
-Source: PANI
This article was reprinted with permission from
The Tico Times; www.ticotimes.net
|
