PROVO CANYON SCHOOL was perhaps the worst experience I have had in my life. I am 18 and just managed to escape in April because I became an adult. Who knows how much longer I would have been held there if I had entered the place at the age of 14? My first impression of the place when I was taken there by THREE escorts (me being a 130 pound, 17 year old girl) was that it was cold, lifeless and all too prison-like. There was no warm welcome, no comforting words to help me deal with the shock of such a place at 5 in the morning. Just a cold cement room with a camera where I was told to strip down to nothing, squat, and cough. They shoved some grey pants and a shirt at me, both yellowed with other girls' sweat and who knows what else. I had been transported without shoes so that I wouldn't run from my 3 escorts, two of which were male, so they gave me a pair of sandals that were FOUR whole sizes too big. I would end up walking around in those clothes and sandals for the next 3 weeks until my own clothes arrived, 20 percent of which I actually got to keep. My shoes came even later than that, and because of those sandals, I developed temporary foot problems and could not participate in the physical program, though I was forced to do so anyway. My first upset at PCS was when I was doing my morning chores on the orientation wing. My job was to clean the hallway so, in an effort to go above and beyond, I cleaned everything but the staff desk, including some doorhandles. Little did I know that I would be accused of trying to run away through one of the doors that I cleaned and sent to the "investment" wing, which was literally detention until you earned off your points. You would eat, sleep, and study for weeks, constantly getting screamed at for something, whether you were a minute late out of the shower or you picked up a pencil off of the floor without asking. Study time came after school and on weekends, only interrupted by five minute breaks every hour, meals, and physical. You would be told to sit with both feet flat on the ground, both hands on the desk, without propping your head on your hand or crossing your legs. 8 hours of that is unbearable, yet you had to do it two days in a row on weekends. The study room was right next to the observation rooms; those cold cement rooms with one little window in the door that greeted me on my first day. Girls who just couldn't take the torture of the place were thrown in there. We could hear them scream and curse at the top of their lungs, even with both doors shut. I saw girls get restrained almost daily and one was even put into a straightjacket. It was impossible to study while listening to the horror those girls were going through. After a while we became numb to it; laughing at girls who got put in there, shrugging it off like it was an everyday thing... because it was. Thankfully they let us go to school, and that was one point in my life when I looked forward to school like it was going to disneyland. Eventually, I got off of Investment and went straight back to Orientation. Finally I got moved onto my unit where I met friends that would help me survive emotionally and keep me mentally sane for the next 5 months. They entertained me when there was nothing else to do. They gave my life interest when all I saw each day was the same, all I did was routine, and the most I could experience of the outdoors was what I saw through the windows and the fenced in tennis court. Without the other girls there, I would have lost who I was; become brainwashed and dull. I owe it to those girls, some of whom got there before me and are still there 5 months later. I write them letters when I can to help keep their minds and hearts alive in that cold institution, because I know that without them, I would not have been able to pull myself through Provo Canyon School.

im sorry...i was in the boys unit for 8 months and the things we went through we did not deserve...i dont know what we can do... im currently looking at lawyers but my case was 5 years ago and apparently out of statutes....so onward to the next day huh?
good luck
chris from california