There once was a place just outside Atlanta with realistic jail cells, solitary confinement and a padded isolation chamber. It was a place where you used to be able to go and — for a fee — have real cops and military guys (supposedly straight, but who knows) lock you up and work you over. When they were operating under the name of the Jail Training Center, I went twice. Here is a picture during my first visit of my boots when I was locked in one of their cells, and another picture during my first visit of me hogtying a guy.
There is also some video out there somewhere of me helping restrain another guy in a straitjacket, which I have never seen. I have since lost touch with the guy who was running it, and I am not sure if the place is even still in operation. If it is still running, I am not aware of it. Before the place in Atlanta, they also had a facility in Missouri. It was also called The Academy.
Somebody asked me tonight about JTC… maybe he saw the post here.
I’ve tried to get in touch with them many times, but all I get is some discussion of a fee to talk to them on the phone or some crazy stuff.
If anybody knows anything about JTC, please let me know… they’re only about 5 hours from me.
Does this have any relation to academymen.com? That jail cell shot looks similar to others in their videos.
Jail Training Center bought Academy Men’s Atlanta HQ when Chip Weichelt decided to leave Atlanta for the west coast, which is where the Academy Men films were mainly filmed.
Academy Men’s website is currently run by Dart (internet bondage gadfly who has appeared in numerous websites). For a couple of years he kept AM the website going strong, filming new material for it along with his friend Ironhorse but around 2009, he stopped doing new material for it (and basically driving away the website’s entire fanbase in the process, as anyone daring to ask why the new video updates stopped and why he scrubbed the “monthly new feature updates” text from the website) and any new material they did went instead to Bear Bound instead (which in turn dried up after about two years, as Dart and Ironhorse fell off the face of the earth).
The guys who were involved with Chip running Academy Men and who licensed the website to Dart, ended up setting up their own website: Stationhouse Video, to sell the Academy Men DVDs and serve as a sort of counterbalance to the main website. But since Dart went MIA, it’s become the defacto face of Academy Men these days.
I believe the Academy closed down years ago but you may want to see if Bob Wingate (the editor of the classic “Bound and Gagged” magazine) might have more detailed information. He sold Academy videos through the magazine (That’s where I got my first bondage video – “Force Recon”). He has a online blog at bobwingate.com. Hope this helps!
You are confusing Bob Wingate with the guys at Drummer.
One of the writers at Drummer was heavily involved with Bob Wingate creatively in terms of befriending him after a visit to the Academy Training Center in the late 80s for an article in Drummer. He convinced Chip to start producing compilations of the training center activities, and let served as a consultant on the earlier Academy films when Chip started branching out into fictionalized scenarios.
Academy Men videos are still available for purchase at http://www.stationhousevideos.com/academy_men.htm
Should note that a couple of the videos are screwed up from their original VHS release (Cold Steel’s entire opening sequence was omitted and included on a different DVD, the Top Cops 3 bonus tape is split amongst several of the Sarge/Hunter/Rigger DVDS, the extra footage from the extended version of Academy Training 4 has yet to be put out on DVD, and Sealed Up is basically butchered beyond all belief with entire scenes missing and the existing scenes out of order).
I am “the guy at Drummer” who helped Chip start-up his video productions. For more info: http://www.DrummerArchives.com
At one time the Jail Training Center website was up for sale but do not know if it in fact changed hands or not. I still get emails from the site once in awhile trying to get me to join. When I look thru the previews I see no new material has been posted in ages. The Academy videos are still available thru Station House.
The Guy who ran the Academy first sold the place and the equipment and a little later died. The JCT is the legacy of the Academy but is run by someone else now though it does seem to hint at offering residential times.
Stationhouse sell the full catalogue of Academy videos transferred on to DVD.
GREAT post metal! hot pics the JTC dosn’t exist any more as far as i know but it sounded like an absolutely amazing place. a guy named Bind, out in anaheim california is currently constructing a similar kind of place..not as big but still a place where, for a “donation” to the facility, you can volunteer for a completely realistic prison sentence. all the info about it is on his website http://www.meninchains.com !
Yes, I’ve also visited the Jail Training Center – but only saw it from the outside!
I’d heard about JTC and been fantasising about it for a couple of years and on a business trip to Atlanta curiosity got the better of me after I found that they were listed in the Atlanta phone book. I thought about it for a couple of days and decided (very naiively as I subsequently realised) that I’d call them to ask whether I coud see their facility! My call was answered promptly by a recorded message asking me to leave my name and number and implying that somebody would get back to me – I was having none of that. So that weekend I decided to pay them a visit, having no idea what to expect.
I had a hell of a job to find the address – it was before Avis put GPS’s in their rental vehicles and, thinkig back, probably before the days of GPS anyway. Eventually I pulled in at a gas station and asked for directions. A very large-scale map was produced and detailed directions provided to, when I eventually got there, a sizeable new-ish private housing estate.
I drew up outside the address and looked at the house – it was large and on a corner plot. I sat, trying to pluck up courage and walk up to the front door. Courage failed me and by this time I was receiving quizzical looks from a guy opposite who was mowing his lawn – in fact that was the only sign of life in the area – I drove back to my hotel.
I’ve always regretted not making my enquiries at the front door ….. after all, I had nothing to lose! Well guys, it’s possible that some good might at last have come out of my boring visit to JCT as I’m now inspired by Metal’s post here and am moved to write a story. No promises though.
Yes I’ve heard about this place before but never really thought a lot about it until I saw those pictures from Metalbond. Really gets the imagination going, such a pity we can’t see the video.
Booted and legironed _ HOT! There’s a video that’s lost, any chance of a pic of booted,legironed AND handcuffed!
I believe there was coverage of the JTC (or the Academy) in the Village Voice years ago – the writer did a first-person account of being imprisoned there.
Wonder if this was the same guy who used to have quite an interesting website devoted to bondage that was in English and French. He had a lengthy and well-written first hand account of a visit there.
I should have downloaded it while I could but in those days I naively thought websites lasted forever. Of course it disappeared without a trace years ago.
hi
“There is also some video out there somewhere of me helping restrain another guy in a straitjacket, which I have never seen”
I think I have your video, how do i email it to you? I have about 60 short vids of Academy men + photos
Q
Are these the short videos that were placed on the website for awhile or other video footage not in the published DVDs? Please let me know.
I don’t know Kevin I never saw the vids myself.
Thanks Metal. I am hoping Quive has some of those. interesting. :)
Quive,
You still have these short videos from Academy men?
My longtime friend, Chip Weichelt, was the founder of The Training Center Academy. I worked as producer on several of his films, especially his first “Atlanta Knights.” As the founding San Francisco editor or Drummer magazine, I went undercover for Drummer, with Chip’s cooperation, and wrote a Drummer feature article about the Academy in Drummer 145, January 1990. This link will take you to that story plus my detailed history of Chip, his life, and how his Training Center and videos were created. http://www.jackfritscher.com/PDF/Drummer/Academy%2003.pdf More info at http://www.DrummerArchives.com
Over the last couple of weeks I have been getting emails from the JTC like crazy. Apparently it is under new management. Has anyone heard more?
I don’t know SM Boy. I have not gotten any of the emails myself, but a guy forwarded a couple of them to me. If I learn any more about it, I will do a blog posting.
Metal,
Can you expand on your experiences there you were so luck to have, twice? Thanks. :)
“EMails from the JTC”? “Under new management”?
That would be fantastic, if true.
I was at the facility in Atlanta twice as the JTC. Amazing space!! Unfortunately I never got to go while they were doing their full programs.
The last I heard, from someone who claimed to have first-hand knowledge, was that the owner of the house had died and the family dismantled everything. This was several years ago — like pre-2010.
There have been (about) 3 places started since that I know of, on a smaller scale and with varying degrees of authenticity; only one is currently operating to some extent, and not really doing the same sort of program.
I keep watching and waiting for another chance to visit somewhere interesting.