Tranquility Bay not so tranquil

ST. ELIZABETH, Jamaica — Tranquility Bay is a troubled paradise.

A tightly guarded compound in a lovely Caribbean hamlet, it is the oldest foreign outpost in a booming network of behavior-modification programs for American teenagers. Tranquility Bay has a reputation as the harshest of them all. Tranquility Bay's parent organization is the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, known as Wwasps, one of the biggest and most lucrative businesses of its kind.

Many who have been there describe a life of pain and fear. They say they spent 13 hours a day, for weeks or months on end, lying on their stomachs in an isolation room, their arms repeatedly twisted to the breaking point. Others say the program took them off a road to hell and saved their lives.

Tranquility Bay's methods have spawned fierce supporters and critics, none more passionate than the children who have been through the program and the parents who sent them there.

The children say their parents have no idea what goes on behind the walls. The parents say program directors tell them to ignore all accusations of abuse.

"They tell your parents, 'Your son may say he's been beaten, but he's lying,' and that, to me, is the greatest manipulation they pull," said Andrew Emmett, 16, of Washington, Pa.

Enrollment at Tranquility Bay, founded in 1996, has grown in the past two years from 140 to 300 youths, most of them 12 to 19 years old. It is becoming a battleground for the warring camps of parents and children, a growing number of whom oppose the program.

That fight may shape the future of Wwasps.

In a statement sent to parents last month, Ken Kay, Wwasps' president, wrote: "The accusations are from students. The parents may believe them, but the parents weren't there." He continued: "The teens making the allegations generally have a long history of lying, exaggerating and dishonesty."

By telephone, he said that he did not welcome new requests for comment, as Wwasps had signed a television contract to tell its story in its own words.

Kay's son, Jay Kay, director of Tranquility Bay, said in an e-mail message declining a face-to-face interview that criticisms come from "one-tenth of one percent" of past clients — a few people with "axes to grind."

There is little question that Wwasps programs — including two in Mexico and at least eight in the United States, with a total of roughly 2,300 children — fill a crying need for parents unable to cope with their children.