When I was fifteen, my parents sent me to Escuela Caribe, a fundamentalist Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. At this school students were forced to exercise for punishment, sometimes until they vomited or collapsed from exhaustion. Students were beaten with a leather strap for minor infractions. Staff members would slam students into the wall if they thought we were out of line. It was a school where students of color were punished more severely than white students, a school where it was taught that homosexuality was immoral, equated with pedophilia or bestiality, and a school where we girls were taught that having sexual feelings meant we were whores.
I had never been in trouble with the law. I was well-liked by my teachers and grandparents. Yet the Republican platform, which supports “the rights of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children,” would support my parents’ decision to send me away.
You would think a place like this couldn’t exist in 2016, but even now, 27 years after I was sent away, the troubled teen industry is not regulated. Furthermore, Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence is directly tied to Escuela Caribe, a school which, due to negative publicity arising from Julia Scheeres’ memoir Jesus Land, has been since reorganized and is now known as Caribbean Mountain Academy. Pence appears in a fundraising video for Crosswinds, the parent organization of Caribbean Mountain Academy, thanking the audience for “standing behind all the vulnerable families…and behind this extraordinarily important ministry.” He encourages the audience to reflect deeply on the work that Crosswinds does, and to think of ways they can become more involved.
Pence doesn’t just fundraise for Caribbean Mountain Academy. Pence’s former deputy finance director and one time assistant to Indiana first lady Karen Pence is Brenda Gerber Vincent. She is now Vice President of Development at Crosswinds. Pence also appointed Mark Terrell, the director of Crosswinds, to Indiana’s Allen Superior Court Judicial Nominating Committee. This panel selects judges who may decide what kids to send to Crosswinds’ boarding schools or to its detention center, the Pierceton Wood Academy.
Understand, even though Caribbean Mountain Academy initially kept five of Escuela Caribe’s staff members to assist in the takeover, it is not the same organization as Escuela Caribe. Based on interviews with former students, CMA is not overtly physically abusive. However, it is located outside of the jurisdiction of the United States, it operates on a level system, and it restricts communication between students and the outside world, all warning signs of abusive programs. Most disturbingly, to be employed as a houseparent at Crosswinds, which entails supervising several “at-risk” adolescents on a daily basis, one only needs a personal relationship with Christ, references attesting to this personal relationship, and a high school diploma or a GED.
Having untrained staff leads to abuse. One alum reports of being sexually assaulted by Crosswinds staff and then being blamed for it. Another told me about a fellow runaway student who was captured by Dominicans wielding machetes and taken back to campus in the trunk of a car. Both incidents happened in 2014. Abuse like this happen because there is no oversight at off-shore facilities like Caribbean Mountain Academy in the Dominican Republic. No one is there to speak up for the children when abuse occurs.
When I think about the children enrolled in Crosswinds and in faith based schools, and when I think of all the faith based schools for troubled teens which would be empowered to open under a Republican administration, schools which are to this day unregulated by Democratic administrations, I feel overwhelmed. Tough love tactics such as isolation, humiliation, and emotional attacks are regularly employed at troubled teen institutions, even though most psychologists agree that these tactics should only be used as a last resort. In-state facilities have little oversight. In 2005 alone, the last year statistics of abuse at troubled teen facilities were recorded, over 1,500 children in 30 states reported abuse. At least 28 states had deaths occur in one or more facilities the same year.
In the years that followed my graduation, I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. I spent years silent about the abuse that happened to me because I was ashamed, because I felt like no one would believe such abuse could happened to me at a Christian institution. I’m not alone. Many of the thousands of graduates of the troubled teen industry suffer long term trauma. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I read accounts of former students on message groups, alumni wondering “Does it ever get better?” Alumni wanting hope not just for themselves but for their children.
I moved to a supportive community and created a wonderful family and a fulfilling life. I have scars, but consider myself to be lucky. Yet I worry about the children, children who are caught in the crossfire of a country with leaders like Mike Pence, who prioritize strengthening an authoritarian concept of families as opposed to actively protecting children.
Am I reading this correctly, our Christian Vice President, who is against abortions, praying away gay, and a lot of other issues, thinks these reformed Christian schools are good for teenagers, and the ones outside the USA, are better, because there is no regulations, if he is involved and thinks this is good, he is definitely praying to a different God, than the one I pray to, how do we stop this, these are the kinds of stories that should be in the news, not the fake ones, absolutely disgusting
I HAVE HEARD MANY ABUSIVE STORIES ABOUT PENCE AND THIS SEEMS VERY MILD COMPARED UNFORTUNATELY 🤦🏼♀️
Would you care to expound?
I was in Straight Inc. in 1990 – similar program, very abusive and also linked to lots of high ranking Republicans. It’s terrifying to know these programs are still around.
Mike Pence made a speech at The Hudson Institute recently criticizing China for torturing and brainwashing Xinjiang Muslims.
“…And in Xinjiang, the Communist Party has imprisoned as many as one million Muslim Uyghurs in government camps where they endure around-the-clock brainwashing. Survivors of the camps have described their experiences as a deliberate attempt by Beijing to strangle Uyghur culture and stamp out the Muslim faith…” Vice President Mike Pence
Mike Pence recently made a speech at The Hudson Institute criticizing China for brainwashing and torturing Xinjiang Muslims.
Also, child abuser Melvin Sembler, founder and owner of Straight Inc. & The Seed is on President Donald Trump’s “Victory Team”.
“…And in Xinjiang, the Communist Party has imprisoned as many as one million Muslim Uyghurs in government camps where they endure around-the-clock brainwashing. Survivors of the camps have described their experiences as a deliberate attempt by Beijing to strangle Uyghur culture and stamp out the Muslim faith…” Vice President Mike Pence
Great work here! I lived in the DR and had heard about this school. I’m glad you are publishing so much about it so the truth is known.
I worked at a school called Squaw Valley Academy in Tahoe, CA, and there’s no board and it’s a for profit school with some unethical things going there. An employee said I should report what’s happening when I leave. The headmaster said he was ‘cleaning house’ at the end of the year for his 80% staff turnover rate each year. I emailed you about this and seeing your work gives me strength to do the right thing when witnessing unethical practices with teens.
Hey Karla, I must have missed your email. Sorry! I’m glad my work inspires you. It’s up to us to speak up for the kids:). <3
God bless you. I pray you did report the wrong doings. It takes courage and strength, but it is the RIGHT thing to do.
One world power,control,abused teens,grow to do abuse…….evil Christian belief…..devil in God’s house of prayer…
Is there sexual abuse happening here ? It sounds like a highly organized institutionalized child abuse scheme :-/
When I was there…yes. I cannot speak for CMA.
I was in Escuela Caribe and I am now 26 years old…. I left in 2012. I don’t remember leaving or much of my time and have no recollection of the last two months in the D.R. In a hospital where I was constantly given morphine in my arm every time i made a noise or moved. I was told my counselor Ms. Hundley called my family and told them to get me out of here now or I will die, that I was not well and she could get me on a plane but I would need help upon arriving as I would arrive drooling in a wheelchair at 16. I was immediately brought to the hospital where I had water around my heart and was heavily addicted to morphine. I got off that all while trying to adjust to this country and a family life that was worse than when I left 4 years ago… my story is too much to put in here in a comment but I sure would love for you to contact me. I also went to Marion and Canada and two previous boarding schools for “troubled teens” all shut down all impacted me more than i understood until recently when my life totally and still is fallen apart. I am not okay and the trauma I endured makes it impossible to heal as my family only believes in faith based programs usually free because they went broke sending me to facilities as they say. My trauma is serious and my life is seriously affected.
I’m so sorry to hear of your experience. Feel free to contact me here or on Instagram @djsugi1. <3
Are you familiar with an article written in 2019, called “The Wetterling Factor”?…..
…( Imagine someone running for the office of The President of The United States, when this was published, because Amy Klobuchar, was implicated, by the author of the article?)
The facts are, that every federal, state, and local governments nationwide, are involved, in one way or another. There is NO government agency that will look at anything anyone has to prove about child abuse, pedophillia, or trafficking in children or anyone else, for that matter.
Every agency is corrupt, with ‘their door guards’, installed through the Senior Executive Service that Jimmy Carter initiated in 1979…. There is no ‘Republican-Democrat’ paradime. They ALL sleep in the same bed!
( It’s what happens to politicians after they’ve left a government office…. they’re recycled through the SES in obscure government positions, to detour any potential threats that may pass through any given agency, and to keep the wheels of ‘private political enterprise’, rolling along)
Now we have Mike Pence’s brother, Greg Pence, sitting in Congress. Elected in 2018. He’s a dirt ball, too. Greg Pence ran the family business, ( many gas stations in 3 or 4 states) into the ground. He sat on the banking board, mustered up an unsecured loan, and defaulted, when the EPA came in to clean up the leaking mess, to the tune of 20+ million tax payer dollars.
( that article was scrubbed by AP news…. I made screen shots)
Then there’s video’s made by a guy, who claimed Mike Pence used MK Ultra on him and others in a ritualistic way. The man died from what he was injected with, in early 2019. From trying to tell all about Mike Pence and the things Tory witnessed Pence did to children…
Maybe you’ve seen these articles. I can say without a doubt, the author isn’t what the ‘judicial system’ of Minnesota branded him as… I watched it as it was unfolding, and your story connects another link to the dots that I have.
If you’re interested in talking more, send an email. We’ll discuss if you need anything I have in the ‘Pence’ line up.
Have a good evening!
I want to know all about Mike Pence’s dealings with children.
Me too! I know nothing except that he openly supports a program where children were abused.
I am a person who was gang raped and raped and to read what these kids now adults have said this man Pence has abused mentally, sexually and physically there are so many red flags about this so called counselor school or camp it is sick how the rich and powerful prey on the young and innocent