When the iRod™ isn't enough

Sometimes, even the best conservative Christian families are damned with a bad seed. You know the kind of boys I'm talking about. They appear to be untrainable in the ways of the Lord. They have no fear of The Rod or its hip new cousin, The iRod™. They've purchased a ticket on the Damnation Express, and they're not getting off until they reach the last stop in Hell.

If you have a boy who fits this description, the Bethel Boy's Academy can help. The Academy, operated by the Bethel Baptist Church of Lucedale, Mississippi, employs a Christian approach based on military discipline to turn these boys around. Here's how their website describes it:

For over 25 years Bethel Academy has been on a mission to rescue at risk, defiant, rebellious violent teen boys from the downward spiral of destructive behavior and habits. We are a military discipline, Christian based Boys Academy.

Located in south Mississippi in a small town rustic setting, Bethel Academy offers retreat from so many of the distractions modern teen boys face today. We believe depression, alcohol use, drug use and other common teen problems can be traced directly to poor self esteem, materialism and situation ethics.

How do they do it? Well until very recently, little was known about their methods, but thanks to court filings, we now know the secret of their success. They follow the model set down by The Passion of the Christ.

From the court documents:

15. In fact the Defendants operate what amounts to a private prison, in which minors are subjected to physical and mental tortures that would find no acceptance in any civilized society.

16. Cadets at Bethel Boys Academy are forced to guard, harass, mock, assault, and physically injure other cadets on command. They are not given a meaningful choice concerning whether to commit such acts against other cadets. They are forced to commit violent crimes against other cadets as a matter of survival. The choice is one between doing the beating, or receiving the beating.

17. Those who fail to comply with the orders of the Drill Instructors are subjected to loss of some or all privileges, beatings by Drill Instructors, extreme physical exhaustion, made to hold to electric fences, held underwater at the “swamp” up to and including drowning and resuscitation, loss of some or all personal belongings for an indeterminate time, beatings by other cadets, mockery by other cadets and Drill Instructors, or whatever other punishment is deemed most feared by the cadet.

18. Communication between cadets and parents is not allowed during the cadet’s first two weeks of incarceration. Secrets between parents and cadets are forbidden. Cadets are told that their parents know what is being done to them, that their parents do not want them, and that the parents approved of the abusive treatment. Thus cadets are conditioned not to say anything to their parents. They are conditioned to fear their own parents just as they do the Drill Instructors.

19. Defendants do everything possible to keep a cadet from leaving the facility. They lock all of the doors from the inside and outside in a manner requiring the use of a key to exit or enter. The buildings did not have suitable fire exits. During fire drills it was made plain to the cadets that the principle concern of the Defendants was to make sure that no cadet could escape the Defendants’ premises if a fire broke out. Bethel Boys Academy cadets are under constant danger of death from an accidental fire.

20. There are physical measures to prevent any escape or unauthorized entry into the Defendants’ compound. The office had a door, but it was locked and had a Drill Instructor member standing guard to prevent escapes. Defendants rewarded cadets who told on others who might have plans to escape.

21. Defendants in their promotional literature proclaim: "Bethel Boys Academy has a Staff Nurse." This is a fraudulent claim used by the Defendants to deceive parents into believing that Bethel Boys Academy is a quality institution with personnel and procedures to protect the health of cadets. To the extent that some person called a “staff nurse” is employed, this person does not provide the medical care that would ordinarily and customarily be the minimum care required to provide for the basic health needs of the cadets.

22. Cadets under the control of Defendants are often denied toilet breaks to the extent that they are forced to urinate or defecate in their clothing. Defendants then use this opportunity to inflict mental distress and fear on the rest of the cadets in their control.

23. The cadets who are unfortunate enough to urinate or defecate, or both, in their clothing are subjected to extreme mental and psychological abuse, by being made fun of, laughed at, and called names by the other cadets, with the approval and participation of the Defendants.

24. Defendants pursue a deliberate strategy of using retention of bodily wastes to cause physical injury and harm.

25. Defendants intentionally use the combination of fatigue, harassment, poor food, lack of bathroom breaks, and extreme exercise to overtax the immune systems of cadets within their custody, to cause exhaustion and illness. Exhaustion, illness, and physical injury are simply used as tools in Defendants’ arsenal of weapons used for coercive persuasion.

26. Defendants systematically deprive cadets in their custody of contact with the outside world.

27. The Defendants systematically deprive cadets in their custody of the benefits of education, while fraudulently representing to parents that they are trying to provide a satisfactory education.

28. Defendants deliberately use sleep deprivation to wear down and break the resistance of cadets in their custody. Defendants purposely prevent the cadets from getting to bed on time, and wake them up early. The cadets are routinely limited to 4 or 6 hours of sleep per night, sometimes to 3 or 5 hours of sleep per night.

29. Defendants lock cadets in footlockers for hours at a time, often forcing other cadets to sit or stand on top of the footlocker, to cause mental and physical torture to the cadets.

30. Defendants abuse, terrorize, and harass cadets in their care until they are so desperate for relief that they will agree to beat and torment other cadets.

31. All cadets are at all times forced to serve as unpaid guards, to beat any other cadet on command by Defendants or their Drill Instructors, and to catch and report potential runaways. This work is demanded of all cadets approximately 18 hours per day.

32. Some cadets are required to work at various jobs other than security, some of which make economic sense and some of which do not.

33. Therefore, the Plaintiffs herein who have been forced to do this work are pleading and praying for compensation at the legal minimum wage, with overtime, for 18 hours for each day of confinement at Defendants’ facility.

34. Defendants fail to maintain records of hours and wages in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq.

35. Defendants routinely pressure cadets to remain at the Academy as staff. In some cases, pre-arranged marriages are carried out, with Defendant performing the marriage ceremony and both cadet and spouse remaining as Bethel Staff Members. Such employees are given a pittance of pay, much less than minimum wage, and are expected to enforce all demands of the Defendants against any cadet in their custody. The employment of such persons is made possible only by Defendants’ brainwashing and routine deprivation of substantial age and intelligence appropriate education which might thereby render the cadet competent and confident to find employment in the outside world.

36. Defendants go to great extremes to convince parents to us their escort service to bring cadets to Bethel Boys Academy.

37. "Escorts" used by Defendants are in most cases staff members from Bethel, who arrest, detain, and transport cadets to facilities such as Bethel Boys Academy, in such manner that the child is deprived of liberty from the time that the child is seized by the escort service.

Update: The Bethel Girl's Academy does fine work as well.