I'm speechless.

[Occhidiangela]

More thoughts:

1. $40,000 a year can sustain a family of three in a modest style here in South Texas.

2.

"Messy divorce and remarriage are the norm among these parents. // This culture then creates its own logic - for once adolescence is criminalised, Tranquility becomes the obvious solution."

Interesting thought, but the split home common theme did not surprise me.

3.

"If my mom hadn't sent me here I would have died."  Might have died?  Interesting concept." 

Just like "You'll put someone's eye out with that!"

"That without Tranquility they would be dead is an article of faith among all the students."

Hmmm, does Communion and Confirmation come with that Faith? :P

4.

"Tranquility showed me that I'd have been a minimum wager,' Nick says. 'This place saved my life."  'I'd probably be living with a drug dealer or something awful like that,' speculates a girl. 'And going nowhere. Not being successful."

For folks who can afford 40,000 per year to send a kid to Tranquility base, successful doubtless means rich. Sigh, I wonder at why some people have kids in the first place.


5.

"You have to understand,' a former student, who turned 18 and walked out, tries to explain. 'The staff are constantly trying to work out what you are thinking about and constantly telling you what to think about, and then constantly checking to see if you are thinking about it. And if you're not, and they know you're not, you might as well be dead."

6.  Challenger family's meeting is the first I attend, and has the appearance of group therapy.  The girls sit in a circle on the floor, with an hour to stand up and 'share', or offer 'feedback'.

"No one else is thinking about you, why do you think anyone notices you?"  "Don't you get it? The purpose of being here, and getting consequences, is to teach you how to pick yourself up. If you don't mess up, you go home."

Gee, nice empathetic peers, just like in high school back home, except here it is face to face, not behind the back gossip.

7.

'So I just wanted to make sure,' he says, with biting diplomacy, 'that there were no other "misunderstandings" that need to be cleared up.'  His family rep stares hard at him hard, smarting. Defeat seems inescapable. The silence lengthens, and her eyes narrow. 
'You know what? I'm going to review your exit plan. It will have to go on hold.' 

'Miss! Miss, no!' He is aghast, panic-stricken. 'You can't mean that? Why are you punishing me?'

She studies him. 'I am not punishing you. You just gave me the idea. You have punished yourself.'

Hey, it's for profit, so it is obvious that a longer term must be needed, eh?

8. And just like in kindergarden . . .

"Points and privileges are awarded to students who tell on each other." 

Preparation for the New Corporate America? Foir what it's worth, West Point does the same thing, more or less, with its honor concept: Don't lie chear or steal, and don't tolerate anyone who does. If you condone it, you are tossed out as well.

9. THE KICKER!!!

" . . .parents have a financial incentive to believe and proselytise. For every new customer they can recruit, a month's fees for their own child are waived."

10.

The US legal system has more or less agreed that they are right. In a crucial 1998 test case, a Californian court ruled that a parent had the legal right to send a child to Tranquility. Parental choice was sacrosanct.  What happens inside Tranquility would be illegal on British soil, but the facility falls under Jamaican jurisdiction and parents here are as free as Americans to send their children where they like. A spokesman for the Children's Legal Centre in the UK confirmed, 'I can't see anything in the law that would stop a British parent from sending their child there. It is appalling, but it is down to the Jamaican government.'

Well, the parents will reap what they sow when the kids pay them back by sending them to Tranquility for their rest home experience in a few year's time. :D

11.

Four overseas Wwasp facilities have been closed down by local authorities in the past seven years.  The latest occurred just last month, in Costa Rica, following claims of physical abuse and squalor by an ex-manager.  But providing Tranquility meets Jamaican sanitation standards, it remains untroubled by government attention.

Yep, Jamaican sanitation standards are good enough for anyone, right? Ah, Costa Rica, that is what I heard on the news the other day.

12.

Once a year, Tranquility Bay has a Fun Day.

Can they spare it?

Is it any accident that this organization is called WWASP? You'd think they'd get why that is a screaming red flag . . .