Tranquillity Bay Scandal
Over the last few decades we have seen a strange and worrying trend in America, in which the discipline of children has been monetised.
Bootcamp style facilities for ‘troubled teens’ shot up in popularity in the US from the 90s. This is due to their no nonsense discipline-based programmes which have been proven to be ineffective. Numerous studies have highlighted that no lasting positive changes are observed after receiving treatment. In fact, it is usually common to see lasting negative impacts on young people who have attended these kinds of programmes.
On August 22 2004, the Sutton family were slain by their son Chris Sutton. Chris was sent to a one of these boot camp style facilities without his consent. The Sutton's had no idea what else to do, not able to handle Chris' increasingly worrying behaviour as a teen. Unfortunately, they were not aware that Chris would hold a grudge regarding this decision.
Chris Sutton's actions are in no way justified. In hindsight possible medical intervention, attention from his parents and a no nonsense approach to his behaviour may have provided a different outcome. It is not clear whether Chris took legal action against the facility that kidnapped him from his home.
In most western countries like America, both parents tend to work full time to maintain a household and family. Parents and children spend extremely little time together in first world countries. On average, an American child spends 6 hours at school. This isn’t including after school programmes and activities which are a major part of school life. As they get older those hours in education tend to increase due to the intensity of learning and more time allocated for studying. Adults on average spend 8 hours a day at work, this excludes people working over time, and above the traditional 40 hour work week.
This leaves little to no space for family time, socialising and fostering those important familial bonds. As a result you get a situation in many modern working families in which both the parents and children live together but know nothing about one another. Conflicts naturally arise when two parties misunderstand each other, enter Tranquillity Bay.
Tranquillity Bay in its heyday, was a tightly guarded compound in an isolated Caribbean settlement, smaller than a village. It is known to be the oldest foreign based facility of its kind as well as one of the harshest of them all. Tranquillity Bay opened in 1997 as a co-ed facility in Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica. Widely viewed as one of the harsher WWASP schools. WWASP stands for The World Wide Association Of Specialty Programs and Schools. These programmes were marketed to families all across America and has been somewhat of a lucrative business for those running ‘speciality programs’. Again I have to stress that parents and guardians are targeted by these organisations in a predatory manner as most are desperate by the time they seriously seek this method out.
WWASPS is essentially an umbrella of independent institutions for education and treatment of ‘troubled teens’. Many outside observers believe, however, that the WWASPS-affiliated institutions are actually owned either by WWASPS directly, their officials and even family relatives and friends of those in the organisation. That information alone puts the credibility of the entire establishment into question.
Back to Tranquillity Bay, this facility like many of its kind received a great deal of notoriety for their choice of punishment and discipline. Many of the methods used in the facility were physical, mental and emotional abuse enacted on young children and teenagers sent there to become ‘better’. It was these practices which led to the facility eventually shutting down in 2009 after a series of incidents, lawsuits and testimonies that later became publicised.
Tranquillity Bay was run by Jay Kay who just so happened to be the son of the WWASP President Ken Kay. No red flags there.
Parents that sent their children to Jamaica's Tranquillity Bay in a last ditch effort to turn them around would pay a hefty bill of $40,000 a year to 'cure' them. Very lucrative indeed. On top of the hefty fees attached to many of these facilities, parents can enrol their children with their consent but if kids refuse, there are other creative methods used to ensure their enrolment.
Some parents swore by Tranquillity Bay saving their child such as Jim Mozingo, a North Carolina native who sent his son to the facility for a total of 20 months. Jim however has some of the classic markers of a modern parent mentioned above. With his own insurance company and divorced, he definitely didn’t have enough time to parent due to his extremely busy schedule and the lack of a stable family home for his son. Like so many other parents, he found out about the facility after surfing the net in desperation.
"I tell you, I was at my wits' end with my son. We'd tried military school, but he got kicked out. He never got into trouble with the police. He was one step from that. What it was is, he was going through this identity crisis. Peer pressure. Pot got involved."
Decca Aitkenhead
To add insult to injury, many of the teens signed up to these boot camp style facilities are merely going through a phase of bad behaviour and most likely seeking out parental attention. Some of the young people enrolled have been in trouble with the law or have been physically and verbally abusive to their loved ones. These issues are not unique to one family nor do their actions condemn them to a life of crime. Fortunately, many of these cases can be improved with active and consistent involvement of the guardians . Unfortunately many of these camps are viewed as a quick fix when parents feel they cannot deal with the problem themselves or don’t have the time. Which is why a business model offering to fix people’s children became so popular that they expanded and created facilities all around the world. Thanks to American parents and guardians, who have been the main contributors of these facilities.
Meet Jay Kay, yes this is his real name. Jay was a college drop out that worked at a gas station, no shame there. Jay however, did not have any experience working with kids nor had he ever done so before his next position. Jay was then hired as a security guard by his father at Brightway Adolescent Hospital, one of the many facilities attached to WWASP. He was then handed the position of Director at Tranquillity Bay. A position that you assume would require years of experience with young people, education facilities as well as appropriate training and qualifications. Jay had none of these when he started. He held the position of director until the facility was forced to be shut down in 2009. Once the facility had more eyes on it, Jay admitted to only pepper spraying a resident. Judging by what was going on behind the scenes he probably did a lot worse.
The facility was at the centre of much controversy before their closure and faced allegations of torture, denial of medical care, filthy living conditions and unqualified staff such as Jay Kay. As you'd expect, this led to multiple lawsuits from former residents and their families. Survivors recount spending 13 hours a day, for weeks or months on end, lying on their stomachs in an isolation room, their arms repeatedly twisted to the breaking point. Others say the programme took them off a road to hell and saved their lives. Survivors have chosen to speak out about their experiences in many different ways. Yet many more choose to stay anonymous which is pretty understandable after going through such a traumatic experience. Here is an example below of one redditor who shares their first hand experience at Tranquillity Bay on the Ask Me Anything section of the site.
Further into the post, OP references a site for parents looking for these kinds of facilities. There is an entire directory listing all active programmes for ‘troubled teens’ as they put it. It is alarming to see just how many of these facilities exist all around America. Looking at the website’s home page it is also frighteningly obvious that the language used is very predatory. Applying the tactics of a salesman using keywords such as ‘free’ to reel in parents that are at their wits end and willing to try anything. There is a lot of emotive language used throughout, appealing to parents' emotions. This is actually a common manipulative technique used when there is an absence of solid evidence as an emotional person will most likely value feelings over facts. Seeing posts from as recent as 2021 is a sure sign that this racket is not going anywhere for now.
Not to my surprise, the industry is still thriving and many facilities still set up shop abroad in developing countries. The main reason is ofcourse the laid back approach towards foreign companies conducting business and so on. Many developing countries are happy to have a foreign company establish themselves on their land as they are also generating revenue.
As a non-American, the entire phenomenon of troubled teen facilities is a disturbing one. More so that these facilities are still alive and kicking in the present day. One wonders how so many are set up around America without breaking any laws, then again corruption is rife in many industries and this unfortunately may be another example of that. When the money is flowing, it's easier for many to look the other way.
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