http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/6189/page11.html

After PCS- I can tell you from experience that the PCS experience doesn't

end when they let you go. My whole life since has been an ceaseless struggle to

forget, to regain my dignity and my belief in a social system that broke its implied

promise to protect and nurture me. I committed no crime, have never been

arrested or accused, yet I spent nineteen months in jail, with bars on the windows

and guards by the doors. I was denied access to a lawyer, and letters sent to the

ACLU in protest of conditions never made it past my therapist's desk. I went for

weeks at a time without ever seeing the sun and watched boys my own age be

physically assaulted and humiliated by staff members. At one point I suffered a

nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. My wounds went untreated and

became infected during my month long stay in the "secured" unit. I have not

spoken to my father since 1987 because I cannot look at him without being

reminded of that place. I must lie on job applications and resumes because I am

afraid that someone will know what PCS is. I have reoccurring nightmares, sexual

difficulties and have become claustrophobic. This leaflet is a feeble attempt to

make sense of the senseless, a last ditch attempts to save myself by saving

others. Please, dear parent, understand that whatever difficulty you are

experiencing with your teen will eventually pass. Maybe they are making your life

a living hell, but that is no excuse for making their lives one. Before you sign any

papers, before you write a check, go to the school. Stay there for a whole day.

Pretend you are your teen and that you can't leave. Watch how the staff deals

with the students. Ask to see the secured units and don't take no for an answer.

The admissions official you deal with will offer you hope for your troubled teen,

even a cure for his or her problems. He will tell you about PCS's fine reputation

and its credentials. It is his job. He gets a commission for each admission. He

probably won't be able to have you speak to any ex-students because all the

ex-students I know of like to pretend that it never happened. Thank you for

taking the time to read this.

Thank you for your article on emotional growth schools. As a 1985 graduate of Provo

Canyon School, I am extremely concerned about the proliferation of these schools and how

they will effect these teens in the long term.

While I cannot speak for my fellow students, I can tell you that my stay at PCS has caused

me a great deal of pain over the past fifteen years. It has affected every facet of my life,

from my career to my relationship with my family, and I despair of ever being able to come

to terms with the experience. Even 15 years later, I am just so full of anger, resentment,

frustration and confusion, I can hardly stand it. So, what did I do to deserve my trip to

Utah, you ask? Not much. Like many other teens of then and now, I was sullen, asocial,

self-involved, moody. I ran away from a private school, stayed out late, defied my parents,

got bad grades. The only thing I didn't do was get in trouble with the law. I never even

spoke to a cop, much less spent time in a state juvenile facility. Regardless, without any

regard for my constitutional and human rights, my father was able to commit me to PCS,

where I spent nearly two years in complete lockdown, my phone calls and mail monitored,

my free time spent staring at a TV or standing off punishment points. It was a living death.

While my peers in public high schools explored their world and came into their own as

adults, I couldn't even go to the bathroom without permission. But I had it comparatively

easy. Some of my fellow students spent weeks at a time in a locked, windowless room for

minor offenses, while others, who dared to defy the authorities, were physically restrained

and placed in broom closet sized padded cells called "time out rooms."

When I graduated, I was not in good shape. After a year and a half, it was hard to get used

to thinking for myself again. I felt so damn isolated--I had lost touch with friends on the

outside, and the staff at PCS had taken away phone numbers and addresses of fellow

students, saying that I should stay away from them when I returned home. Who could

possibly understand what I had seen, what I had been through? No one.

I am trying to put together some type of unofficial alumni association, but it's hard. It's been

so many years, and many ex-students are embarrassed by the whole thing and want badly

to put it behind them.

Anyway, in regards to your article, I completely agree with Tom Burton when he said,

"People grow up." Yes, they do. I would have gotten though my adolescence just fine

without Farnsworth, Litchfield and PCS. But my parents had too much money, too little

time, and they were looking for a solution. PCS offered them that solution, neatly packaged

in a four color brochure and videotape, and they bought right into it.

I just want to say that, in examining the US Constitution, nowhere does it say that a citizen

must be of a certain age before these rights apply to them. The same thing goes for the

United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Parents may have the right to protect their

children from themselves, but those children have rights too. The right not to be woken up

at 4am by a pair of large men and spirited away to Utah in handcuffs, for example.

While these kinds of schools may be helpful for some children, they assuredly are not

helpful for all, despite what Karr Farnsworth says. To protect the latter group, the

admissions procedure of these schools should be highly regulated, with a 3rd party child

psychologist or other state official (one who does not profit from the admission) checking

out every kid and deciding if they truly need such a drastic solution. I only wish a system

like this was in place in 1984; if it had been, my parents would have been forced to find

another way to deal with me in lieu of sending me to what amounted to a prison without the

benefit of due process.

You have my permission to reprint any or all parts of this letter on your Web site or

elsewhere.

Thank you,