"MY PARENTS decided tosend me away," said Rukshan Jonny Uddin. "I came home one night and something was amiss." His room had been cleaned; a suitcase was in it. Then at around 4 a.m., he was awoken by two men who said he was going with them to a boarding school -- they would not say where. "What do you mean, you're taking me away somewhere? I'm not going." They threatened to knock him out. He went. He was not allowed to get dressed.
And so, without warning, without the slightest hint of due process, Rukshan Jonny Uddin, who had been attending one of the most academically prestigious high schools in the United States, was ripped from his home and placed in an "academy" that specialized, not in education, but in destruction.
It's called "behavior modification," and it involves two kinds of evil. The physical evil is bad: It can include being forced to lie with your chin on the ground in "isolation." It can include being physically restrained -- survivors claim that this is done in physically painful ways, and not only for safety but as punishment for such offenses as talking back.
The Government Accountability Office, in a report this month that does not name particular programs, found thousands of allegations of abuse. "In many cases," wrote the GAO, "program philosophy (e.g., 'tough love') was taken to such an extreme that teenagers were undernourished."
The GAO report tells the stories of 10 victims who can no longer tell any tales. This is one: At a program that no longer exists, but whose founder is now advising parents, one girl was marched to her death of exposure and dehydration by a staff that thought she was faking her distress to escape the program. Her parents had enrolled her, they told the government, to improve her self-esteem. She was 15 and had been date-raped.
"There was no dignity in any of us," said Quinn Bringas. One night, he said, at one of the most feared behavior-modification centers, one of his friends was hauled to a gravel pit by five of the strongest staff members. He did not see what happened then. "I remember just hearing that kid crying, like seriously screaming."
"Just to hear your friends, people that are the only people you have to rely on there ... to hear them going through that ... it doesn't do well for your head."
Ken Kay, president of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, said restraint "never should be used, and to my knowledge never was ... to hurt a child or to punish a child."
I believe the victims.
I believe them because of the other aspect of behavior modification's evil. The idea of behavior modification is to take a young person whose parents do not like the way he lives and are unable to get him to live differently, subject him to rigid controls, coerce him into changing his ways of thinking, and thereby ensure that he will act differently when he is released. To do this, the subject is held against his will until either his parents or those to whom they have given him determine that the change has taken effect -- or until he turns 18.
The essence of a person is his mind, his faculty of thinking, valuing and choosing. Behavior modification is a crime against this human essence. As Travis Hornstein, a victim of two facilities, put it, "They're trying to take away your identity as a person ... They feel that by beating it into you, they can take away your identity."
In order to accomplish their goal, behavior-modification centers dominate every aspect of their victims' lives. Even the simplest of freedoms, such as using condiments, are turned into rewards to ensure compliance. Talking to your parents is a reward that can take months to earn -- and it can be taken away if you ask your parents to bring you home.
Because what is fundamental about behavior modification is the belief that parents have the right to condemn their children to spiritual destruction, and that these kids who have been sent away by their parents need their characters crushed and new ones imposed on them, physical abuse is only to be expected.
Kay put a positive spin on the programs, saying the victims "deserve a fair opportunity to be good citizens and have strong character."
But if people emerge prepared to be good, strong citizens of a free republic, it is no credit to those who take away their freedom, assault their character, and make them live in fear. Nor, indeed, is it to the credit of a republic whose laws allow parents to condemn their children to such treatment. Structured programs may be good for some individuals, but they must respect the rights and dignity of their students, beginning with the right to decide whether to participate. The law must protect youth.
Alexander R. Cohen's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at acohen@cavalierdaily.com.
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