Rehabilitation Project Force

Development

The Rehabilitation Project Force developed out of a predecessor group, the Mud Box Brigade, which was formed aboard L. Ron Hubbard's private fleet in the late 1960s. The mud box is a small perforated screening box fitted to the suction pipe in the bilge of a ship, and is designed to catch larger solid waste before it can choke the pipeline and potentially damage the pump. The Mud Box Brigade was assigned to clean out the mud box as well as fuel lines, water hues, bilges and other parts of the fleet's ships.

Hubbard defined the role as being essentially a punishment duty for unsatisfactory workers: "More candidates will be appointed regularly and promptly every time I find a freeloader who is loafing on post and drifting with the wind." Hubbard later clarified that "(T)his group is the most downstat [unproductive] and one gets assigned to it by being a freeloader, invisible on post, loafing and really goofing up on one's job." Religious scholar J. Gordon Melton, however, suggested that "Hubbard understood it in terms of making retribution to the people who had been harmed by the nonperformance or incorrect performance of one's assigned tasks."

In 1969, Hubbard replaced the Mud Box Brigade with the Rehabilitation Unit, again intended for those removed or disciplined "as ineffective or trouble." Following an evaluation, the individual was to receive a set of "specific recommendations which if followed will rehabilitate the individual as a highly effective and worthwhile Sea Org member." Hubbard instructed that "(T)he unit is [to be] worked hard during the day on a rigorous schedule on jobs assigned by the Review Chief handling corrective areas and jobs needing remedy and repair. The Unit itself is thus made into an effective ship's review team. It works on a one job, one time, one place formula completing each job before moving into the next. Each individual thus earns the right to the remedial services he or she will receive."

Finally, the Rehabilitation Unit was replaced in January 1974 with the Rehabilitation Project Force, or RPF. According to Hubbard, "the RPF has been created by the Commodore [Hubbard] so that redemption can occur. That is basically its only purpose." He identified four categories of people who were to be assigned to the RPF: "rockslammers" (people deemed to have hidden evil intentions, as detected by the E-meter); people who were unproductive and scored poorly on the Oxford Capacity Analysis personality test; "repeated stat crashers", people who were held responsible for declines in Scientology organizations' productivity; and "overt product makers", people who produced poor-quality work. As before, the unit was to work on "one job, one place, one time." A five-hour study period was to be implemented each day to improve the individuals' knowledge of Scientology. According to David G. Bromley and Douglas E. Cowan, the RPF involves a daily regimen of five hours of auditing or studying, eight hours of work, often physical labor, such as building renovation, and at least seven hours of sleep.

The RPF was originally intended to last no more than a couple of months, where the assignee would learn Scientology auditing, if he or she was not already an auditor, by the "read it, drill it, do it" method. RPF members would then co-audit each other to better themselves and make each other more ethical and productive.

As punishment, RPF members are often made to wear black boiler suits.

Controversy

Critics of Scientology, including former Scientologists, have compared the RPF with the gulag system of the Soviet Union. Leaving the Sea Org, even from the RPF, results in what Scientology calls "freeloader debt" or a "freeloader's bill": retroactive billing for any auditing received or any Scientology training received while in the Sea Org, which can run into tens of thousands of dollars. While this "freeloader debt" is not legally binding, many former Scientologists have reported that they felt trapped by the "freeloader debt" policy.

In his book The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology, ex-Scientologist John Duignan describes RPF members living in a rat-infested basement, engaging in degrading jobs for years at a stretch, while denied visits with spouses or children.

Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley state that various scholars and observers have come to radically different conclusions about the RPF and whether it is "voluntary or coercive, therapeutic or punitive". In 2009, Dr. Frank Flinn, Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at the Washington University of St. Louis, undertook an in-depth study and report on the RPF for the court in Headley v. Church of Scientology International. He concluded, "(T)he communal life and activities of the Sea Organization within the Church of Scientology fully conform to the communal life and activities of traditional religious orders, East and West, in the past and in the present."

Castile Canyon School

One location, known as the Castile Canyon School or "Happy Valley", has been identified as a former RPF facility. It was located east of San Jacinto, California and southeast of Gold Base, near the reservation of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians,. This site was sold by the Church in 2002 to the Soboba Band, who turned it into a resort.

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