Aaron's WWASP Article

On July 6, 2001, the day after my 18th birthday, there was an incident involving (name withheld, staff member) and myself. The staff member talking to another student had seen me. The staff member had called me up to where he was sitting in the classroom and he asked me why I was talking. Before I could respond to him he told me that I was on "talking restriction" and that if I were seen talking I would be given a Category Three consequence. My one and only response to him was, "Yes sir, I will not talk anymore."

The staff member then told me to go get my water bottle because I was going to "Observation Placement (OP)". He took me to the room which held observation placement, made me lay on the filthy, bare tile floor and sat on my back. He then told the staff overseeing observation placement that if I were to speak that I should be "restrained". I stayed in observation placement for twenty-one days for saying "Yes sir, I will not talk anymore." For this whole period of twenty-one days I, being a legal adult, had the right to leave, and my parents would not make the arrangements for me to leave because they wanted to come down to the facility in Jamaica to try and convince me to stay. While in observation placement (op) you must lay down on the floor for the majority of the day, only getting up to shower, use the restroom, or for a five minute break every two hours. You were made to lie flat on your stomach with your head to the side, hands at your side, and legs flat on the floor. You could not have any padding under your head, or you would be given a consequence. You could not get up without the permission of the staff or you would be given a consequence. One day, we were threatened with five thousand jumping jacks if we were caught sleeping, and two people in the room were made to do this. The conditions of the room were horrendous. It was hot and humid enough, being July in Jamaica, and the "privilege" of having the windows was determined on the student's behavior, which basically consisted of not speaking. The floor in the room crawled with what could only be described as pubic hairs, and we had to lie face down on the floor. We could not read any books at any time, and we were never allowed to do any school at all. The bathroom of the room was even worse. I have seen leeches swimming in the pool of water on the floor of the bathroom during my time in op. We were not allowed to close the door while we were showering or using the toilet. One night during my time in op, all the students in op were given the privilege of sitting up and because I had asked the staff who was supervising us a question and he told me to lay down. I asked him why and he called staff to come and restrain me. These staff took me to the next room, there were five in all, but I can only remember two of them (name withheld), and (name withheld). In the next room I was told to lie on the floor. When I did one staff pulled my feet together so my inner anklebones were flat on the floor and got sat on them using his knees, grinding my ankles into the tile floor. Two other staff grabbed my arms, put them straight out from my body and sat on them. It was like this for nearly fifteen minutes. These are methods used to control someone who is going out of control and may hurt themselves or others, not for asking a question. I had told the staff who restrained me before we had even gone into the room that I am eighteen and that they cannot touch me. They laughed at this. Every night in OP we were made to do fitness. This was led by the staff who supervised OP. Every night, the usual fitness routine would start with 3000 to 5000 jumping jacks, with a 30 second break to drink water after 1000 jumping jacks were completed. After this we were made to do about 1000 sit-ups, with a 30 second break after 100 had been done. The finale was to do anywhere from 300 to 1000 pushups, with breaks at every 100. Before we began fitness, the staff supervising the room would close all the windows and turn off the fan. The humidity and heat generated in the room would turn into a cloud of steam that only dispersed when all fitness was done, when the staff would open the windows once more. In the spot that I would do fitness at there would be a puddle of my own sweat where I was standing before fitness was done. While doing pushups, I would slip on my own sweat onto the tile floor, and have to get up and go on. My clothes would be drenched in my own sweat by the end. I had to do this for twenty-one days because I said, "Yes sir, I will not talk anymore."

One night, as my group and I were leaving the dining hall, I asked my group's supervisor, or father, if I could go see the nurse. He said yes and I turned right to go down a breezeway to the nurse station. Behind me I could hear screams and sounds of what could only be called rioting coming from the female side of the facility, which is separated from the males side. One of the female staff members came running down the breezeway. She was crying and ran into (name withheld), and began speaking very fast. All I heard was "Get the nurse". They got the nurse and began to run to the gate, which separated the female's side from the males. I could not see what had happened for the females side is also blocked by the female dorms. I walked out into the male's inner courtyard and I soon made way to my group's line. I was standing near the front of the line, which was near a small set of stairs leading to the playing field and the clothes line area. A group of staff ran by and down the stairs towards the line area. At this time I noticed that four groups, nearly 120 students were left completely unsupervised. The staff that had ran down the stairs was now running back with armloads of towels. They ran through the courtyard and back through the gate to the female side of the facility. About five minutes later, the staff that was supervising our group came back and led us out to the field. On the field I had a clear view of the female inner courtyard and I saw a large spot of blood on the ground. One of the female students had jumped from the roof of the building and killed herself. A student on the higher levels named (name withheld) was standing about fifteen feet away from me with an armload of about five or six towels. One of these towels was mine. He gave it to me and on it was a spot of blood about the size of a dinner plate and some hair of the girl who had jumped. The staff had used my towel to pick her up and put her in a car to go to the hospital, and gave it back to me to use. Later that night, I went to my group father, and informed him of this. He told me to not worry about it and did nothing about it. This was my only towel. For three weeks I had to use that towel to dry myself off and staff would not do a thing about it until my mother got the letter I sent her the day after the girl jumped and told my case manager to get me another towel. This was three weeks after the girl killed herself.

The worst part of being in this program was isolation. When you enter the program you are on level one. You are not allowed to talk to your parents until you are on the third level, which may take from 3 months to years. Then, you are only allowed one fifteen minute phone call with them a month. You can get one letter a week, and one e-mail that is read by the staff before it is given to you. When I reached the third level, I was told that I could have a phone call with my father. My father was also told this, but it never happened because my case manager convinced my mother that it would be a negative thing to allow me to talk to my father. My father is one of my best friends and closest confidantes. Before I entered the program I spoke to him on the phone every day, and continue to do so now. This affected me greatly and caused a lot of pain during my year in the program. While on the first two levels of the program you are not allowed to speak to anyone other than staff and students that are levels three and up. You could not do this unless you had permission from staff. If you were not given permission from staff to speak you could go through your whole day and not be allowed to say a word for fear of being given a consequence. We were given consequences for speaking. This is the worst punishment I have ever received in my life and it was regular procedure. The staff usually did not give you permission to speak when you asked permission to. During my year there, I was completely blind to anything that happened outside of the walls. We were not allowed to listen to the radio, read a newspaper or a magazine, or watch television. The parents of students are discouraged to tell the students of any current events of any nature. I did not hear of the 9/11 attacks until September 14.

In November of 2001 I had a large number of abnormal blisters covering my hands and feet. We were only allowed to wear sandals, and because of this, when these blisters would puncture, they would get infected, and would not heal. When I went to the nurse about this she would not tell me what they had come from. These blisters did not heal for nearly a month after they began. There were times when I would go to the nurse and she would turn me away and tell me to come at a different time, even though she was not tending to any other students at the time. This happened on at least fifteen different occasions. These sores became infected and I got a fever. The nurse would not allow me to go on sickbed. I became sick there on about five different occasions and she would do nothing about it but turn me away. They were very cold and uncaring towards any medical problems I had even though that was there job. There are places on my hands and feet where it appears that something has dug into my skin and tunnels in. I still do not know what that could have possibly been. They would never tell me.

The area where we washed our clothes was at the lowest point of the facility. Under the concrete in which we would wash our clothes was the facilities sewage well. In the middle of this area there was an opening for this well that was covered by a metal plate. There have been many times when the sewage would overflow and come up through this hole. I washed my clothes in a bucket for a year next to this opening. Right next to this is the clothesline. The ground there is covered in gravel. The sewage pump would pump sewage from the well to an area past the line. When this area overflowed the sewage would flow back down to the line area and flow under our clothes. The showers there were outside, and there was only cold water. I did not have a hot shower for a year. The floor of the shower was all-concrete and it was filthy. It was covered in dirt and crawling with parasites. When the water would go out we would take showers with buckets of water from a well nearby. I have seen, in this well, a frog swimming around. After I saw that, I took a shower with that water, I had to for fear of being given a severe consequence. When the power of the facility would go out, which happened often, we would all have to go to the basement. This basement was about the size of three two-car garages. We would go in there, with no power, and have to sit on the floor, not moving, not speaking, not reading, nothing, until the power came on again, or until ten o'clock, when we would go to sleep. There would be from 160 to 210 kids in there for hours. Every morning we would have to clean our rooms. The rags that they provided to us to do this were disgusting. They were covered in visible dirt and grime, and may have just been used by another student to clean the toilet in their room. The mops were just as disgusting.

One of the things that sicken me most about this program is the way they are able to manipulate parents into their methods. I see this with my own parents still, even though I am out of the program. If I had not been 18, my parents would have left me in there for years. I personally know kids there who have been there longer than three years and still have at least two more to go until they turn 18. Students can be admitted into the program as young as 12 and if their parents choose to not let them come home, they can be there until they are 18.

When you are given a Category Two consequence you must go to "study hall". In study hall you are made to write a 5000 word long essay and cannot leave until you have finished it. I have served seventy-two essays during my year there. These consequences can be given for almost anything. I've been given them for looking at a female, for talking to another student, for not eating half of my meal, for speaking in a hallway. The list of reasons I've had to write a 5000 word long essay is long and the reasons not worthy of this type of punishment.

On three separate occasions I have found a pig's penis in my soup. When I brought it to the staff on each time, all they did was laugh and tell me to sit down.

One night as I was getting into bed a student was restrained right outside my window for nearly an hour and a half. Right outside my window there was a breezeway, and right as I was getting into bed a student was beginning to be restrained. They did not just hold him down. The staff that was restraining him went through a series of different sorts of what can only be called torture. When the staff would restrain a person, they would pull his arms behind his back and super-extend them to inflict pain. They would grind their ankles into the ground and target major pressure points all along the student's body. The student, who could not have been more than three feet from my head, was screaming in pain the whole time. He was begging for them to stop. He was yelling for someone to come and help him, and this only made them restrain him harder. This sort of thing happened every day. It got to the point when I was used to the sounds of screaming while I was doing school or trying to sleep. It happened every day. The students that were being restrained, whether male or female, were screaming at the top of their lungs. It sent chills down your spine to hear them. They were not screaming in a half-hearted way. They screamed for mercy and were not shown it.

The staff of the facility that I was in was supposed to be caring, supportive, and loving towards the students. This is what parents are told about them, but it couldn't be farther form the truth. The staff there treated us worse than animals. They did not care. They pushed our limits and we could do nothing about it. We were given no form of comfort and we were constantly given more and more to put up with. This program is meant to instruct, and the only thing it has given to me is pain, thoughts that I want to erase, and a year in hell. I want to be repaid for the crimes of humanity that have been laid upon me. I want to see this program end. All parent please know, that when they know you are visiting, "we, the students" prepare for your visit, cleaning and prepped on what to and what not to say. Or we would suffer the consequences. They fool so many parents. I really hope I have saved at least one kid by my truths. I know I did in court.