Eric, did you ever feel that if you complied and played their game that they'd release you? Did you ever play their game or try to?

If WRA..is guaranteed monthly payment by a church run ward..there is no incentive to release you before they have to on your 18th birthday. And they are in total control of that decision..as opposed to some independent group or professional individual with no financial interest. Also your parents would have little incentive to question your progress and push to have them release you as long as the church is paying the bill.

If I remember Eric's earlier postings correctly, parents were specifically told by the camp authorities in standard briefing material that they must expect inmates to make up stories of oppression and mistreatment, and that this was a normal stage through which they had to pass on their way to recovery.

And of course, the parents should not take any notice of such complaints ...

Correct. To my surprise, it's still on their web site.

http://westridgeacademy.com/philosophy.aspx

It must happen a lot. The consequence when I was there for reporting *anything* negative to your parents was start your program over (adding 6 months to your time and a wool blanket and rope leash to your outfit).



This is what their web site says now, post Mormon gulag.com. During the Buttars administration, while I was there, they were much less PR conscious.

You would think that they would want their son home.

I know that I would be anxious for that to happen. I think that if I noticed an improvement of behavior, I would probably say, "the Hell with this, the program has done what it needed to do, let's try keeping our son home."

Of course, I would strongly question why a child would be making up abuse stories out of thin air if nothing was actually occurring.

You would think Eric would have been able to convince his parents of the abuse.

When I looked into this and read stories from people sent to these places, more often than not it seemed step-parents were involved. Perhaps step parents have less of an emotional vested interest in the well being of a step child but it may also that it is more likely that teens there are from families with parents separated or divorced. So if more there do have step parents, don't know what the cause and effect would be.

I think you're right as far as the whole step parent concept is concerned.

In any case, Eric, I am so sorry that you had to go through this. My heart aches every time I hear this story.

If your story can help prevent other children from going through this, at least something positive will have happened. No child should have to suffer from abuse. It needs to be stopped.

Eric, have your parents ever admitted that they made a mistake by sending you to this place?

This story makes me want to adopt Eric every time I hear it.

My problem was that I had a Mormon crazed step-parent who also wanted what the Utah Boys Ranch wanted -- a long, LDS funded stay.

But to answer marg's question; I did everything I could to get out. I played their game, I ran away, I shut down and went on hunger strikes.





I was just a boy when I was there, with very little exposure to seeing physical violence first hand, so it was not hard for them to scare me into submission with physical violence and threats of physical violence.



My version of this story is slightly different.

*Yes, Brent Sanderson - thirty-something-year-old staff member - wrote the incident report above. Some people asked if a three-year-old child wrote it while grasping a pencil between two toes, others asked if Penny had written it by holding a pen in her mouth, so I just wanted to be clear.


Who do you believe? Me or this guy.

Spelling not corrected Brent Sanderson writes:




Wow…..of course the response to someone asking not to be touched is to tackle them to the ground. As far as Brent Sanderson’s writing and spelling it says lots about the qualification of the people WRA put in charge of their clients. And this is medical treatment that a church ward is paying for…wow!

BTW ..I noticed you have a link to your version of events Brent writes about. This must be extremely interesting for you to see what they were saying on record about you and what things allegedly transpired.

The thing is... what drives LDS parents to commit their child to this sort of camp, and for long periods of time? At what point does the LDS parent give up and allow others to physically and mentally abuse a child? Why would a parent do this?... refusal to obey home rules? unlawful actions (theft, drug use, drug dealing, assault, etc)? skipping school? Abdicating one's parental responsibilities to the state is one thing (discipline camps in place of confinement in juvenile facilities for crimes committed, etc). Abdicating one's responsibilities to a private entity with no oversight and no ethics is just ..well.... wrong.

Have they not heard that we can't force a child to heaven?

Amen!

Also, I think this is why step-parenting should really be a "last resort". The blending of two families have a lot of complications. It can work, but there has to be a strong commitment, and I think that the step parent is often going to feel preferential affection to their own blood related son or daughter that has to take tremendous control to curtail. Unless the deepest commitment isn't made to do this, the child is going to feel resentment, and act out. Also, a young teen-ager is likely to do this anyway, just as a natural part of growing up. There are, however, positive ways to deal with this.

Having a child kidnapped and sent to another state just doesn't seem like a reasonable solution. In fact, it sounds downright barbaric. I am trying really hard not to throw judgmentalism Eric's parents' way, only because I do know that parenting is not an easy business. However, I can comfortably say that I would never voluntarily send my child away unless he was phyiscally violent to other children in the family, and we had tried every other means to control the situation. Even then, I would want to make certain that my son or daughter was receiving real medical and emotional treatment, and not a part of some abuse center. If the facility would not allow visitors, I would not allow my child to be a part of it. That is a big red flag as far as I am concerned.

Eric, again, I am so sorry that you had to go through this. Every time I hear about a child being abused, I just want to take them home wiith me. *sigh*

"to be honest I'm really tired of getting my head hit against stuff"

Sorry Eric, this is some sad, sick stuff but that cracked me up.

I hope you get every penny demanded in your lawsuit and this child abuse factory gets shut down.

I just did a search and read these treatment centers are not tax deductible. So by getting the church to pay it is a way of using after tax dollars. Eric's step-dad could for example agree to donate $2,500 per month to the church (well he's already paying tithes), claim that on tax returns and in effect given his tax rate it would cost him about 1/2 the amount. The church's payment of fees works against the best interest of the child because it encourages a lengthy stay...when the school knows the payer has no problem financially to meet payments and that the payor doesn't really care about cost. As well the cost to the parent is significantly reduced if payment is effectively with after-tax dollars...$1,250 per month is not a bad deal when one saves on paying for food and anything else a teen typically might want or require.

I can see the benefit/incentive of why the church might agree to payments to the school..but I don't see it as being ethically right.

I hope Eric's lawyer can nail them.

And when they (The Firm of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Lawyers) offer you an out of court settlement on condition of your silence I hope you tell them to shove it and publish every single piece of communication.

I don't think somehow that Eric is in this for the money.

Settlement is the traditional way for the church to resolve it's lawsuit difficulties. That and drag it out as long as possible until the people lose interest or run out of money to pay attornies.

Love it!

What would it take to buy your silence? Money? Status? Because that's what they'll offer you. What will you do about the threats that will be implied?