‘Reform at Victory’ is a book I recently finished writing. It is based on a true story about my year in a locked-down all-girl evangelical Southern Baptist styled reform school where I was held against my will when I was sixteen. I was taken immediately to solitary confinement where I was left for six hours in a dark room the size of a walk in closet. Jerry Falwell’s hate filled sermons played through a cassette player outside the door to drown out the sound of my crying. There I sat, in my own urine, having a nervous breakdown amidst self proclaimed born again Christians who thought this was acceptable treatment to reform an Atheist teenager. I wanted to die.
Every day for a year I was told by the preacher, who now operates a similar home in Florida, that I was a whore, a sinner, worthless and that I was going to burn in hell for an eternity. He also somehow convinced my parents I was on drugs, even though I had never tried drugs before going to the reform school. At this place, there were no visits from anyone other than our parents and siblings (after four months); there was no TV, no radio, no reading material except the Bible, no phone calls, no doctor visits, no dental visits; it was complete isolation from the outside world. We were not allowed to wear pants and instead were forced to wear culottes; perhaps the biggest fashion travesty in history. We were told it was a sin for women to wear pants or even to show their knees.
The rules were insane. We were not allowed to talk about boys or movies or celebrities. Rock music was of the devil. Sometimes, we were not allowed to talk at all and were put on dorm silence for no reason. New rules were made up daily to keep us operating in a robotic fashion. We were forced to take strange pills upon our arrival and we were forced to conform and get ‘saved’ otherwise we were threatened with being left there until our 18th birthdays. We were forced to watch movies about the rapture. The film I remember was ‘Thief in the Night.’ This film offered those left behind two choices: get your head chopped off and go to heaven or get the mark of the beast but spend an eternity in hell. I had nightmares for ages.
My purpose in writing this book, not yet published, is to inform the public about such places. It is critical for parents to know that many of these unregulated "schools" (claiming to be caring religious schools), do not have a state license to operate; are guilty of numerous safety violations; are not accredited to teach school; have solitary confinement rooms, which is illegal; and some refuse to allow fire departments, social services and health inspectors to conduct inspections of the grounds. Additionally, there have been documented deaths in some of these schools, and rape and abuse allegations are common.
Some of these schools have been shut down but many still exist. Sometimes they re-open under a different name. They get kicked out of one state by authorities and open up in another state and do the same thing. They use severe brainwashing techniques to force those inside to conform to an extreme and oppressive version of Christianity that violates women's rights, civil rights and freedom of speech. Furthermore, staff is not qualified to deal with mental health issues as they usually have no formal education. Many of the “staff” at these boot camps and reform schools are teens themselves who are also in the program and don’t even have high school diplomas. They are given the authority to put your children in chokeholds and sit on them until they can’t breathe as punishment for giving someone a dirty look or not finishing their food.
These “schools” are not teaching love like they claim; they are facilities that are in place to do nothing more than to punish your child and brainwash them. Parents deserve to know the truth before signing custody of their teen over to someone they don't know for a year, or longer, to live in a facility that may be dangerous to their teen’s emotional, mental and physical health. Many girls who have come out of such places have struggled with depression and self-esteem issues for years afterward, myself included. The only form of counseling we received was Biblical scripture.
What can the public do? Write to your representatives of Congress and log on to: www.isaccorp.org (International Survivor’s Action Committee) for more information on these types of facilities and who runs them. This non-profit site provides information about religious reform schools and boot camps that engage in questionable practices and abuse girls and boys in the name of treatment. If we can’t get them shut down, let’s try to get them licensed so they can be properly regulated. Without a license, there is no oversight and the abuse continues. This is unacceptable in a democratic society. Thank goodness we have the Freedom from Religion Foundation!
Bio of Michele Ulriksen
Michele Ulriksen was born and raised in Southern California. As an adult she moved to
San Francisco to study Film and Creative Writing at the Academy of Art College. After a memorable five year romp in SF and Marin County, she headed north to Oregon where she accepted a writing/editing position with Oregon Public Broadcasting.
After four rewarding years in public radio, she resigned to accomplish some personal goals: launch her business (www.westhillscommunications.com), finish her book and return to school. She earned an AA Degree in Business Administration and is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree. Her areas of study include English, History and Anthropology.
Her work has appeared in World Kid Magazine, Listen Magazine, the OPB Member Guide, Freethought Today, Gazette Times and The Commuter. She was recently interviewed by CNN about her upcoming book and has been invited to speak as part of a panel at a forum about reform schools. After her book is published, she has plans of making a documentary about the dangers of unregulated reform schools and teen boot camps.
Ms. Ulriksen is a student and freelance writer, and currently serves as Copy Editor for Linn-Benton Community College’s paper The Commuter. Reform at Victory is her first book. She lives in Oregon. To contact her, go to: www.westhillscommunications.com.
Reform at Victory is a book I recently finished writing. It's about an experience I lived through as a teen in a locked-down fundamentalist evangelical reform school. I wrote this book to share my personal story and inform the public about the dangers of unlicensed/unregulated reform schools and tough love style boot camps. I debated on whether to post anything about my book on my business site but I chose to for three reasons: the importance in getting my message into the world is too great to wait any longer, because people are curious and ask me questions about my experience, and because my web site is about writing and this is something I wrote. This is a cause I've chosen to champion and I hope others will join me in speaking out against abuse that is taking place under the guise of treatment.
As I type this, teens in reform schools are being denied basic rights that all people should enjoy in a democratic society. These rights are taken from them as a punishment. Like I once was, they are being denied dental visits, doctor visits, phone calls, freedom of speech, books, an education, radio, equality, access to news and information, and personal choices including when to talk and use a restroom. Verbal abuse and use of solitary confinement are used regularly to break those inside into submission and can be horribly debilitating causing a teen's emotional issues to be exacerbated. Having lived through this experience myself, I feel I owe it to teens who are currently incarcerated to alert the public about the dark underbelly of these inappropriate facilities, many of which use an extreme and oppressive version of Christianity to impose their warped, unrealistic and archaic views about life. It is subjugation to the fullest extent and it's unacceptable.
People have often asked me how these places can be legal. The answer is: many of them are not. The fate on whether these schools can operate without a license depends on the individual laws that are implemented in each state. There are a few other factors as well. I go into more detail about that at the end of my book. The reality is when these facilities are permitted to operate without a license, those inside have no recourse for help. There is no accountability and no oversight. This is of particular concern since these facilities are guilty of numerous safety violations; have solitary confinement rooms, which are illegal; and some refuse to allow fire departments, social services and health inspectors to conduct safety inspections of the grounds. Furthermore, there have been documented deaths, and rape and abuse allegations are common. What parents see when they drop their kids off and the reality that occurs after they leave are starkly different. Staff in these facilities are generally not paid well and do not have college degrees. Any health care professional will tell you that if you are dealing with teens in a locked down setting who have mental health issues you should have at least a Master's Degree in the field of Mental Health. When you have unqualified staff treating teens with depression, bipolar disorder, anorexia, sexual abuse and addiction, it is a cocktail for disaster.
The reform school I was in was finally shut down in 1991 by California Deputy Attorney General Beth Jacobs after a girl was killed and evidence of abuse was found. You can read more about the closure of the school I was in at ISAC's Victory Christian Academy page.
What can you do? Visit A START for more information on what is being done.
Then visit ISAC for more information about reform schools that engage in questionable practices and abuse teens in the name of treatment. This fact based site provides a watch list, court docs, school closures, info on documented deaths, etc. This is a non-profit and survives on donations from the public.
Click here to read my interview with ISAC's Director, Shelby Earnshaw.
Write to Congress; tell them what you think:
Honorable Members of Congress
United States House of Representatives and United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515
Here's a book I highly recommend: Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids,Help at Any Cost written by Maia Szalavitz, Riverhead Books, 2006. A must read for anyone interested in learning more.
Thanks for reading and I welcome your questions and comments. Click on the contacts page to send me an e-mail. Since many have asked: publication date for my book is TBA. I'll keep you posted.
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