Unreformed

    There were always kids at Escuela Caribe whose parents had heard of the school from someone else’s- “the program” encouraged our parents to recruit. In my time, there was a group from San Diego , from Pennsylvania, and of course kids from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and other parts of the Midwest.  Before sending me, my parents…

I was fifteen. We were building the Director’s house.Our housefather would punish us if we didn’t move faster, faster, faster… What I need to tell you now is about Stockholm Syndrome and how it impacted me.I need to tell you because for the past eight years I have been working on my book about the evangelical…

Lifeline Youth and Family Services, the company which assumed control of Escuela Caribe, the abusive juvenile detention facility located in the Dominican Republic, is under scrutiny stateside for negligence.   In a recent article in the Stacey Page Online (Kosciusko County, Indiana’s only digital newspaper), writer Stacey Page reports that three commissioners of Kosciusko County…

One of the things that led me to question the validity of Caribe Mountain Academies supposed separation from NHYM was not only the use of staff from NHYM but the complete failure of Caribe Mountain Academy to mention in their staff’s work history as the reason all these US citizens were mysteriously in the DR…

   Last fall I interviewed sometime Athenian Craig Zobel about his film Compliance.     We discussed our mutual love for the work of Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram, the effect of situational forces on human behavior (and how people can be seduced into doing wrong), the exploitation of women in modern culture, working in fast…

 This summer, I signed a petition addressed to Crosswinds/ Lifeline Youth and Family Services CEO Mark Terrell.  Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres wrote the petition after requesting input from various survivors of New Horizons Youth Ministries, including myself.  In the petition, we asked Mr. Terrell to implement several changes to protect students enrolled at the…

    Several recent articles connect Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to abuse in the troubled teen industry.      Art Levine’s The Dark Side of a Bain Success details how neglect at Bain controlled-for-profit teen residential programs have resulted in patient abuse, emotional trauma, and even death.           Susie Madrak’s Child Sexual…

This past Wednesday, Kidnapped for Christ filmmaker Kate Logan, Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres, journalist Kathryn Joyce (who wrote the Roloff/Hepzibah House expose for Mother Jones), and others appeared on the Ann Walker Show (September 12 edition).  They discussed the history of New Horizons Youth Ministries and similar fundamentalist reform schools, their abuses, the lack of…

In 2011, Escuela Caribe and its parent company New Horizons Youth Ministries shut down. The property was donated to Crosswinds, a subsidiary of Lifeline Youth Ministries.  At first we celebrated. However, now we alumni are concerned.Caribbean Mountain Academy, a division of Crosswinds, is predominantly staffed by former New Horizons Youth Ministries/ Escuela Caribe employees.  These are…

  We were celebrating Beth’s birthday at the Branded Butcher, but all I could think of was Compliance.  This weekend I’m interviewing the director, Craig Zobel, and I’d just finished watching the film.  Based on true events, Compliance is set in a fast food restaurant in suburban Ohio.  A stressed manager (Ann Dowd) gets a call during a…