Lamar Reviews - "The Program" (Airdate 3/22/2024)

Netflix is the unadulterated KING of documentaries. The Program is a 3 part series that you can’t turn off.

It is about “Troubled Teen Schools or Retreats.” It goes like this, “Do you have child that you just can’t handle, can’t get through to? He or she is defiant, refuses to follow the rules, doing bad at school, a discipline problem, substance abuse, maybe even violent?” We can help. I always thought, “That seems like a good thing.” In theory it is, but after watching this documentary, in reality it can be extremely dangerous and very damaging to a child.

The Director of this docuseries is Katherine Kubler, she was a former “student” of a troubled-teen-repair institution. Her film uncovers the terrible prison like conditions of Ivy Ridge boarding academy located in the middle of nowhere in Ogdensburg, New York. I said “Prison like “but that would be wrong.

There are trained educated people who run prisons. They have to abide by rules set by society. There is outside oversight, inspections, and transparency to how prisoners are treated. That is not the case in this place, and evidently many more places like this all around the world.

Katherine had just been expelled from school when she was 15 for being caught in possession of a Mike’s Hard Lemonade. She was kidnapped in the middle of the night, handcuffed, and thrown into a van and taken to Ivy Ridge and immediately strip searched on her arrival. Her father was sure he was doing the right thing, but she is damaged in a way that might not be able to come back from. She has post-traumatic-stress and panic attacks.

Once she was processed and locked up in the girl’s wing there were pages and pages of rules you have to memorize and follow, such as: No Talking, No smiling, No making eye contact, No touching, No looking out the window, No winking, You must march in a military style, pivoting around every corner, All bathroom visits are to be monitored with the door to the stall left open with a staffer watching you, and many, many more. If you violated any rule you were subjected to physical abuse, confined in a small room and forced to stare at one block in the wall. If you took your eye off your time was extended with no limits.

Kathrine has been investigating this for 10 years since she got out. She managed to track down some fellow students and they appear in the documentary. Ivey Ridge closed in 2009 and left everything like it was. When Katherine went back to the school all the records, all the files, and all the security camera footage were there. She has complete documentation of everything that happened. None of this is hearsay. It is chilling, disgusting, and sad to watch. She does an awesome job taking us into the hell she suffered. The owner of these schools at one time had 26 locations, 17 in the US, taking in $90 million a year. This is a must watch. My Score: Full 6pk of Buds