Hello. My name is Samantha Gerson and I attended Logan River Academy
 from 2008-2009. When I was 12 years old, I started dealing with a lot
 of internal turmoil, and by 14 it externalized. I ran away from home,
 and was living in a GLBT youth shelter in Hollywood. I was beaten,
 tormented and raped there, which forced me out on my own. I squatted
 on the streets for a while, turned to prostitution, and got into
 drugs. After four or five months, it was clear my life was heading
 down a terrible path and my family reached out with an alternative
 option. I attended a outdoor program in the Rocky Mountains for six
 weeks; it was not wilderness, but rather a chance to camp, hike, and
 horse back ride, as well as be alone with my thoughts and a small
 group of others for a while.

            Upon my return to California, I agreed to stay with a
 family friend and resume my education at my former high school. I was
 clearly struggling from PTSD, but was not receiving any treatment or
 given any diagnosis. One morning during gym class, a security guard
 asked me to go to the front office. From there, my mother, brother and
 two large strangers met me in a closed, locked office space. All my
 belongings were taken from me, and the two strangers told me I could
 cooperate and walk silently, or be handcuffed if I fought back. At
 10:30 in the morning, I went head down, arm in arm, with these two
 strangers to Logan, Utah, and faced my worse nightmare when I had
 previously thought things couldn’t get any worse.

            Upon my arrival, I was asked to strip down to my underwear.
 They took my clothes, including the suitcase my mother had given the
 escorts, and didn’t give them back for almost two weeks. They needed
 to put my number; what I was referred to during the time I was there,
 on each article of clothing.

            I was given a “DEVO” uniform. In Logan River language, DEVO
 is a room that is host to six chairs and four beds. When you are in
 DEVO, you are to be silent for 25 minute intervals with your feet flat
 and hands on the table, while you stare straight ahead; unless you are
 given special permission to take notes from their rule book. Every 25
 minutes, if you need to use the restroom, you may raise your hands and
 someone will silently escort you and watch you do your business. You
 then return and resume DEVO. Based on your reason for being in DEVO,
 you may have to sleep in there, in which case you are watched while
 you shower and not allowed to speak 23 hours of the day. The one-hour
 you are permitted to speak is therapy; if that is even what you can
 consider the 50 minutes of your assigned Social Worker yelling at you.

            Meals are in silence and you are only given a plastic fork;
 of course all at your desk while you face forward. The DEVO uniform is
 a baggy blue sweater and baggy grey pants. The idea is to strip you of
 a unique identity. In short, DEVO is solitary confinement. Although
 there are six desks, RARELY will more than one; maybe two individuals
 MAXIMUM, be in the room.

            Fortunately, I knew how to bite my tongue and keep out of
 trouble, so I only had a few stints in DEVO. Most students get put in
 DEVO based on the infraction system. At Logan River, the punishment
 fits the crime.  There is a class I II III and IV punishment. A class
 I is minor, and three of those equal a class II. A class II is a
 literal punishment for the crime. For example, one time I wore shower
 shoes in the bedroom and was forced to wear tennis shoes for the next
 48 hours. In the bedroom, in the snow, in the bathroom-everywhere. No
 matter how wet or dirty they got, they were on me for 48 hours. A
 class III typically involves a restraint; one in which Chris, a very
 large man, takes down the student whether they are male or female.

            One class III was given when my male peer was caught
 speaking to me (Boys are NOT allowed to speak to girls ever…) and was
 restrained. Consequently, during the restraint, his leg was broken. A
 class III also equals 50 points in DEVO.

            Every 55 minutes you can earn four points-unless you cough,
 move your head, sneeze…etc… So essentially a class III, assuming you
 can earn it all in a row and not blink your eyes, takes about 3 days.
 Meals. Sleeping. Everything.

            However, if you are restrained during a class III for any
 reason, prior to being taken to DEVO, you are taken to Precaution
 first.
            Precaution is a 4x8 in the wall next to DEVO where you are
 forced to stay while a staff guards you from coming out. If you’re
 small enough, you can probably sit-if not, you must stand there until
 you are let out. This could be an hour, or it can be eight. Then of
 course, once you are finally let out, comes the strip search and
 escort to DEVO.
            A class IV is the worst. A class IV is an indefinite amount
 of time in DEVO. My best friend and roommate got caught talking to a
 boy in a room she was not supposed to be in; and supposedly kissed
 him, and was restrained, put in Precaution and given a class IV. I
 didn’t see her for two and a half months.
                       Logan River Academy requires their staff to be
 college students, and physically fit in order to restrain. However,
 they never properly teach staff to restrain, causing many broken bones
 and injury to students. Logan River believes Physical Intervention
 first, then try something else. I was once Physically Intervened (PI-
ed) by a staff when I ran away from him because I was sick of doing
 exercise. Part of the therapy at Logan River is running several miles,
 three times a day. Upon my refusal to go to DEVO, I was put in
 Precaution for several hours and then spent three days in DEVO.

               I often complained of stomach pain and nausea, but staff
 ignored me. I was never taken to a doctor and returned home to find
 out that my pain had progressed to a lifelong chronic condition. Had I
 been treated, I may not have to be on and off infusion therapy for the
 rest of my life. 
               The staff that are hired are angry, underpaid,
 uneducated kids who are only a couple years older than the students.
 The heads of each shift are the worst, including Tamra, Karen, Saui
 and Chris, but nothing can be done since they are in charge, monitor
 your every move, and listen to every phone call.

               When educational consultants come for tours, they have
 students on high status, like I once was, lead them. These students
 are manipulated to lie and are threatened to be punished or put in
 DEVO if they don’t. This is essentially the ONLY reason this
 continues. 
               Their level system is a sham, and simply exists in order
 to pin students against one another. The higher the level you are, the
 more chores and obligations you have. Since you are only paid ten
 cents an hour as a level 3, (the first level you can work on….) the
 whole dollar raise you make by level 8 (high status), doesn’t mean
 much. 
               I consistently told my mom what was happening, how we
 were being treated, abused and neglected, but she and everyone else
 failed to believe me. It was only once I found a career in Social Work
 and started working with troubled youth myself that I realized
 treatment can help youth if done properly. What happened to me and
 other previous students at Logan is a crime. 
               I completed my exit plan at Logan by lying and cheating
 the system, and pretending I agreed with everything they said.
 Ultimately, all the other students hated me because I became the rat
 who told on them in order to better myself, and completed the program
 through saying I no longer felt anger or resentment toward my home or
 California. I was never given trauma therapy, and only 8 years later
 did I receive proper treatment and a diagnosis of PTSD. Logan River
 could have helped me, but instead they traumatized me more. I left
 thinking human touch was repulsive, and was afraid to connect or trust
 anyone for years. From 16- 18 years old, I didn’t sleep in fear that
 escorts would come get me in the night and make me return.
 
               I am so grateful to have received the treatment I found
 for myself in NYC; the state I escaped to the day I graduated high
 school in order to run away from my fears and memories of home,
 because without it, I would still be in the horrible place I was in
 for almost a decade. I thought my time on the streets was rough, but I
 lost my adolescence to Logan River Academy.