Many Many Programs Abuse Kids

[shaggys]

A lot of us use that term because that's how we felt.....like we were inmates in a prison.

Well for some of us who were in prison and know damn well you never were, it is like a slap in the face. Because you don't know a darn thing about Juvenile Detention Centers, County/Town/City Jails or Prisons.
So please do not refer to yourselves as inmates. Most of you were rich snotty little kids who finally got your butts whipped and want to cry about it now or not.
I'm not judging, I'm just say'in.
Anne there was abuse in the programs on a large scale back in the day but let me tell ya, it was nothing like the peer-pressure you would have received in prison.

Just when I think Danny can't say anything more idiotic he proves me wrong. Danny, people who were familiar with both jail and Straight inc would choose jail every time. We had people in group who would commit serious felonies like assault with a deadly weapon just so they could get out of Straight and go to prison instead. I watched a guy take a steak knife to the back in group one day. He had smuggled the knife out of his host-home and stabbed another newcomer at random. Didn't even know the guy he stuck. He just kept saying he wanted to go back to jail. You have absolutely no idea Danny.  :beat:

[SUCK_IT]

Robert always exaggerates and uses loaded language.  The record needs to be set straight on this one.  HLA had residents.  HLA reopened as Ridge Creek School and has residents and inmates from the state prison system in the same facility.  Robert likes to blow things out of proportion.  Only RCS has inmates, Robert.  HLA never did.  This is always what gets me about you extremists here.

Yeah we covered this earlier.

[Son Of Serbia]

A lot of us use that term because that's how we felt.....like we were inmates in a prison.

Well for some of us who were in prison and know damn well you never were, it is like a slap in the face. Because you don't know a darn thing about Juvenile Detention Centers, County/Town/City Jails or Prisons.
So please do not refer to yourselves as inmates. Most of you were rich snotty little kids who finally got your butts whipped and want to cry about it now or not.
I'm not judging, I'm just say'in.
Anne there was abuse in the programs on a large scale back in the day but let me tell ya, it was nothing like the peer-pressure you would have received in prison.

Bullshit.  I was never in juvie, or prison, but I have been in a handful of adult rehabs and more county jails than I can remember.  NOTHING came close to that kiddie rehab I was in when I was 15.  The term 'inmate' is entirely appropriate. ' Victim ' would work too.

I agree with you 100% Shadyacres.  I've spent time in both juvie & county jail - I definately
preferred those places over the program I was sent to (CEDU).  Yes it is true that juvie &
county jail are more violent environments than Cedu was.  However, I coped with this by
not talking shit, staying out of other people's business, staying alert at all times, & making
as many friends as possible - and I left these places relatively unscathed.  

Nobody at county jail or juvie tried to brainwash me while depriving me of sleep for 30+ hours straight.  Nobody at juvie/county demanded that I constantly talk about my feelings.  I was never put "bans" from anyone or anything, or restricted from  discussing whatever the hell I wanted to.  Unlike Cedu, in county jail/juvie I could write letters to and/or call whoever the
fuck I wanted to.  Unlike Cedu, in county jail/juvie I could receive visits from anyone & everyone who wanted to come see me.  

In Jail, I wasn't forced to sit thru 15+ hours a week in raps, hearing other inmates talk about all the fucked up shit they did like sticking things up their asses, being molested by their parents, being raped in foster homes, turning tricks for drugs, fucking their siblings, trying to get head from their dogs, etcetera.  Even better, in jail I didn't have to sit through raps hearing the STAFF talk about molesting 13 year old girls, setting a homeless man on fire, killing someone while drunk driving, or jerking off into milk cartons filled with raw chicken livers -all of which happened Cedu.

At least in jail - my thoughts were my own.  I was expected to do my time - but how I felt about it and dealt with it was my own business, and no one elses.  And also my life went on,
sure I was in jail - but that didn't mean I had to be completely isolated from the world, and everyone & everything that meant something to me.  Cedu on the other hand - they took everything away from me, they completely alienated me from the real world - total isolation!

Furthermore, I went to juvie/county jail because I was arrested for and/or convicted of breaking the law.  At least I was there for a reason, and I received due process before being confined.  Most of the kids being placed in programs aren't ever arrested, charged, or convicted of anything.  They're imprisoned without even a hearing, let alone trial - in other words kids are being confined without it ever being proven that they did anything wrong!
In this respect - programs are no better than concentration camps!  In fact, while at Cedu
I met over a dozen kids who as far as I could tell, were sent there soley they weren't
getting along with their new step parent!  This is NOT a valid reason for imprisoning someone!

"Inmate", "Prisoner" & "Victim" are all entirely appropriate terms for describing people
stuck in programs.  Also for many people I knew at Cedu, adding the pre-fix "Innocent"
to any of the aforementioned terms would be an appropriate description as well.

[Anne Bonney]

Back to the topic of programs abuse kids:

If for example you attended Ridge Creek Academy and you came onto fornits and said:
I was an inmate at that Gulag for 16 months and was abused.
What does that communicate to the reader?

That the kid felt like they were a prisoner.

What we know is that Ridge Creek is not a Gulag (it’s a boarding school),

You've been asked to stop using "we" when talking about Fornits as a group.  Please stop it, seriously.  

Ridge Creek is not merely a traditional boarding school.  You know that and it may very well resemble a gulag.  I know Straight did.

the kids are referred to as students and by the state of Georgia as Residents (not inmates).

So what?  If a kid is talking about their experience and they felt like a prisoner or an inmate, then that's what they'll use to describe their experience.

 

So the person making the statement is exaggerating to get peoples attention.

You don't know that it's an exaggeration, especially when we're talking about how the child felt in the "school".

So when they say they were abused we naturally would assume they were exaggerating also.  We would read it as the kid was forced to follow some rules he/she didn’t like.

You would read it that way.  You, not we.

You cant exaggerate with inmate and Gulag and then expect people to believe you are not exaggerating when you use the word abuse.

Straight was very much like a gulag and we were definitely treated as inmates.

We understand that many kids come on to fornits and say they were abused, but how do we differentiate between the real stories and those which are written for attention purposes only?

What kind of attention do you think we're seeking?  That's a pretty odd way of getting attention.  My purpose for posting my experiences is to warn parents that the glossy brochures programs produce don't tell the whole story.

[Shadyacres]

Well for some of us who were in prison and know damn well you never were, it is like a slap in the face. Because you don't know a darn thing about Juvenile Detention Centers, County/Town/City Jails or Prisons.
So please do not refer to yourselves as inmates. Most of you were rich snotty little kids who finally got your butts whipped and want to cry about it now or not.
I'm not judging, I'm just say'in.
Anne there was abuse in the programs on a large scale back in the day but let me tell ya, it was nothing like the peer-pressure you would have received in prison.

Bullshit.  I was never in juvie, or prison, but I have been in a handful of adult rehabs and more county jails than I can remember.  NOTHING came close to that kiddie rehab I was in when I was 15.  The term 'inmate' is entirely appropriate. ' Victim ' would work too.

Shadys, your creditability is about nill around here so please go back to your fantasy world where lock ups, work programs and 3/4 houses are wonderful. No shit.
We are talking about Juvie, Prisons and large population county, city jails.  
Get with the subject.

MY credibility?  What's this I hear about you dragging a girl behind a truck?  Why do you delete all your posts as soon as they are up?

Hey, your done get off this thread, it is for real people. Your a parody of sorts. Go hang out with Anne at County and get back to us.
Oh the girl I dragged should still be on Rt. 66.

Nice talking to you too, Psycho.  Do you own Fornits now?  Who do you think you are trying to order me around?  You know where you can put those orders, right?

[Whooter]

So we should read it as the child felt like he was abused.  He felt like he was in a Gulag and Felt like he was an inmate.  But in reality he/she was not.



...

[Anne Bonney]

So we should read it as the child felt like he was abused.  He felt like he was in a Gulag and Felt like he was an inmate.  But in reality he/she was not.

No, but I'm not surprised that you would view it that way.

[DannyB II]

....

[Shadyacres]

SOS brings up many good points, one of which was that convicts have been sentenced to do time for violating clearly established laws. Speaking for myself, I had never DREAMED that my mother would put me into a place like that. Program advocates love to point out how the teens " did this to themselves ".  How can you hold the kids responsible for putting themselves in that situation if they never knew that it was a possible consequence?  Convicts generally know they are breaking the law and at least have a rough idea of the sentence they are likely to receive.

[Anne Bonney]

SOS brings up many good points, one of which was that convicts have been sentenced to do time for violating clearly established laws. Speaking for myself, I had never DREAMED that my mother would put me into a place like that. Program advocates love to point out how the teens " did this to themselves ".  How can you hold the kids responsible for putting themselves in that situation if they never knew that it was a possible consequence?  Convicts generally know they are breaking the law and at least have a rough idea of the sentence they are likely to receive.

Prisoners also have due process and the legal recourse of appeal.

[DannyB II]

.

[Son Of Serbia]

Just wanted to say something about Academy at Swift River & HLA/Ridge Creek:
As I understand it - Rudy & Jill Bentz were founding staff members at both of
these programs.  The Bentz's were by far among the MOST ABUSIVE staff members
ever to work at CEDU Running Springs.  Additionally, both Rudy & Jill were highly
prone to groping & fondling Cedu's adolescent inmates of the opposite sex.  They
made no effort to hide this fact either.  I spent my first 6 months at cedu chopping
wood on daily crews supervised by Jill, with her hands all over my ass!  I'll remind you
that I was only 14 at the time!

I don't care what Whooter, Suck It, Maxie-pad, or any other programmie says -
any program founded in part by Rudy & Jill Bentz (like ASR & HLA/Ridge Creek)
most definately abuses kids!

[DannyB II]

...

[Shadyacres]

To address the point that Whooter was trying to make, I think the reason we use words like 'gulag' is that we have no adequate words for what those places are.  'School', 'Treatment Center', 'Boot Camp' are all wrong.  They are words for different, far less damaging institutions.  The TTI model that rose up in the seventies and eighties, and is in even greater use today, is so contrary to the values this country was founded on that most people just assume that this kind of thing does not happen in this country, and anyone who says it does MUST be lying.  We use words like gulag because we have no other adequate words to use.

[Anne Bonney]

.

Deleted again??  Why even bother posting if you're just gonna delete it?  You used to do the same thing with PMs.