Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 49
adult leaders ―encouraging all the teens to have as many dates as they could with other
teens....‖ These dates involved ―any two people who wanted to [could] get together and
have sex in a room,‖ which adults made available for this purpose (Kent Interview with
Frost, 1995: 4 see Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 28 Kent Interview with Lorna,
1996: 13-14). Within five months, however, the policy apparently changed to prohibiting
teens from having sex until the males were sixteen and the females were fifteen years and
three months old (so that they would be sixteen if sex were to have led to pregnancy and
birth [Kent Interview with Frost, 1995: 58 Kent Interview with Lorna, 1996: 15 Ward,
1995: 74).
The Victor Program at the “Jumbo” in the Philippines and Elsewhere
The Family‘s largest teen Victor program seems to have been in a Filipino complex called
―the Jumbo‖ (so named because of its size). Surrounded by walls at least ten to fifteen feet
high, the Jumbo had between two hundred and three hundred and fifty people living there
from early 1988 to early 1989 (Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 1-2 see Kent Interview
with Hendricks, 1995: 18). At night armed guards patrolled the wall (Kent Interview with
Cheryl, 1996: 59 see Kent Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 19, 30), ostensibly to keep out
burglars, but their presence also ensured that no one tried to escape. All aspects of the
teens‘ lives were controlled, with leaders requiring (according to one source) that they
record the nature of their bowel movements (―hard, runny, or soft‖ [Kent Interview with
Cheryl, 1996: 64]) and restrict themselves to using only three sheets of toilet paper (Kent
Interview with Cheryl, 1996: 66).
As at other facilities, the Jumbo‘s inmates operated under a strict demerit system (Ward,
1995: 153). Early in the program, teen inmates who received three demerits in a day had to
do the diaper wash-up in the nursery, which consisted of cleaning ―nine garbage cans full of
dirty diapers‖ (Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 7, 10). Eventually the adult leader in
charge of discipline changed the punishment to a calisthenics program, involving ―the usual
sit-ups, jumping jacks..., vigorous running, running up and down stairs, push-ups, and star
jumps‖ (Kent Interview with Cheryl, 1996: 100-103 Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995:
10, 12). Most difficult of the calisthenics seems to have been the ―duck walk,‖ or ―squat
walk,‖ where the teens ―had to squat and walk around the compound‖ (Kent Interview with
Donovan, 1995: 11 Kent Interview with Cheryl, 1996: 101 Ward, 1995: 185 [for its
imposition on teens in the Victor program in Wantage, England in 1989]). Former member
Ernest Donovan [a pseudonym] remembers ―at least one time one of the boys becoming
extremely pale, and passing out while doing calisthenics‖ because ―when you were tired you
couldn‘t stop–you were forced to keep going‖ (Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 10).
The demerit system often led to teens being placed on silence restriction or being ―paddled.‖
(One informant, for example, stated that a leader paddled her after she wrote a note
indicating that she wanted to leave the Jumbo and go live with her grandparents who were
not Family members [Kent Interview with Cheryl, 1996: 92]). Some of the punishments
that adult leaders inflicted on the young people in their care were both unique and
especially harsh (or as Lord Justice Ward concluded, were ―excessively and at times brutally
applied‖ [Ward, 1995: 192]).
―Paddling,‖ or beating disobedient teens with boards, was one of the common features of
these programs around the world, but one particularly severe and degrading beating
incident in the Jumbo is especially well documented. The senior author spoke with: the teen
(now young adult) who received the beating an unfortunate young man who was sitting too
close in the front row and who got hit accidentally by the paddle as the leader swung it a
teenaged girl (now young woman) who was in the audience and a staff worker who
happened to pass in the hallway as the beating was taking place.

Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 50
The person who received this well documented beating was Sam Hendricks, who at the time
was thirteen years old. The person who inflicted it, according to our sources, was a Family
leader (for whom we use the pseudonym, Mickey), who currently contributes to the group‘s
public relations efforts towards scholars and the United States Congress (Bainbridge, 1997:
228).
Hendricks had been an irritant to leaders for some time. Consequently, in the period prior to
the beating, Hendricks recounted that Mickey sent him and some other boys into a three
day isolation program that involved fasting and reading Berg‘s writings all day. When the
others returned to the main program, leaders prohibited Hendricks from returning with
them, keeping him isolated from the others for about a month and a half of additional study
and alleged frequent beatings with a belt (Kent Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 20). Still
not satisfied with his progress or his attitude, leaders held a two-hour prayer session and
exorcism over him (Kent Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 22). Afterwards he returned to
the regular teen program, but soon got into trouble for using someone else‘s earplugs while
swimming. Leadership allegedly sent him back to solitary confinement for three months,
during which time the leaders had him read a considerable amount of organizational
literature and for one week restricted his food to bread, soup, and water (see Ward, 1995:
191 for similar procedures in Rugby, England). Every night he wrote a report about his
supposed ―victories‖ that resulted from his readings, but apparently leaders did not believe
him. The spankings continued (Kent Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 23).
Eventually Mickey brought Sam into an assembly consisting of all of the other teens–
possibly a hundred or so peers–wearing a cloth mask over his mouth and a sign around his
neck about being on silence restriction (see Ward, 1995: 189, for similar signs around
teens‘ necks in Rugby, England). Mickey publicly criticized him, then told him to pull down
his pants and bend over. Mickey then pulled out a paddle that had holes drilled in it to
lessen air resistance (see also Kent Interview with Stephanie 1997: 2, for a similar board in
Japan). In Sam‘s own words:
and I bent over and he smacked me with this thing in the butt, and I
remember it was like my entire body just absolutely exploded with, like, fire.
[It] just felt like so intense pressure and like heat and everything, you know,
it‘s just unbelievable. And the second time, it wasn‘t hot any more, it just
hurt so badly and it knocked me forward, like, three feet. I remember, like,
falling forward. He told me to stand still. And I bent over, and this went on
for probably five minutes, maybe, maybe longer. He hit me more than
twenty, twenty-five times easily with the breadboard, weighing probably five
pounds, and this time ...I‘d just turned thirteen.... And so he‘s sitting there
and he‘s spanking the crap out of me.... He spanked me so hard that I had
bruises on my butt and legs that were so hard they started to thicken up ...
and it bruised and it thickened. It was like really thick and hard, and I
remember I‘d have to sleep on my stomach ...and any time I‘d touch my
butt to anything it stung. I couldn‘t sit down during the day ‗cause it hurt so
bad. I could barely move my left leg, because, like, the bruises were so tight
it, like, hurt. I felt like I was gonna rip my skin or something. And I went
back to solitary confinement ...(Kent Interview with Hendricks, 1995: 24-
25).
Soon afterward he was sent back to the United States.
Other people spoke about this beating. Ernest Donovan, for example, was in the audience,
and he remembered Mickey‘s talk about Sam‘s ―problems, his foolishness, and talking back,
and disobedience‖ (Kent Interview with Donovan, 1995: 15). Although he only remembered
Sam being hit about four times, the beating was vivid for him because ―I was inadvertently