Back to Articles and OpinionsBrat Camp - my email to the Worksop Guardian
Update: Published in the Worksop Guardian on Friday 8th July 2002
When published, some parts of my email were truncated for space saving reasons. Here is the original email, as I sent on 4th June 2005:
In this week's Worksop Guardian (3/6, page 9) you mention that Channel 4's "Brat Camp" is asking for parents to nominate their kids to appear in the next series. By contrast, I would urge all parents reading this to avoid "Brat Camp" like the Black Death!
Whatever their behavioral difficulties, there is nothing to be gained from exposing kids to such a harsh, authoritarian, verging dangerously on abusive, regime. In the last series we saw kids denied of basic comforts, punished for communicating information with each other, performing such unpleasant tasks as shoveling manure, and generally being treated as sub-human.
To make matters worse, this was not done as a result of the kids having being convicted of any offence; they were nominated by their parents, selected by a commercial TV company, and "accepted" by a private teen gulag in the USA.
You may also wish to bear in mind that child protection laws in many American states are much more lax than in the UK. For example, schools in many US states still practice "paddling", similar to the (now thankfully banned) UK practice of caning.
I am appalled that Channel 4, once seen as an "alternative" and "liberal" TV channel, is showing Brat Camp. If any readers were to use a camcorder to record kids being treated in such a miserable way, they would soon have Social Services knocking on their door. Yet Channel 4 broadcasts such images to the entire UK and beyond, along with commentary which is heavily biased in favour of "teen gulags" such as Brat Camp. You couldn't make it up!
Brat Camp is substantially worse than shows often seen as similar, such as "Big Brother". Although I am no fan of Big Brother, at least the people who take part are willing participants, not nominated by their family or anybody else. Most importantly, contestants in Big Brother are free to leave at any time - unlike the kids of Brat Camp, who are virtually prisoners there.
Subjecting kids to ill treatment, for whatever reason, is no way to correct behavioral problems. Indeed, child abuse is a common cause of psychological problems later in life, with all the behavioral problems that entails.
Since you were so kind as to print the web address for Channel 4's Brat Camp, maybe you could also mention Libertarian Rock website's section devoted to the horrors experienced by survivors of teen gulags. This can be found at: http://www.libertarianrock.com/topics/teencamps/teencampsindex.html
Regards, Anthony Karl Page
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