Any of this sound familiar to anyone

[Antigen]

http://www.pressherald.com/news/local/031016youth.shtml

(see related stories)

The last struggles of a great superstition are very frequently the worst.
--Andrew Dickson

[Deborah]

"The focus is now where it should be," he said. "It wasn't the line staff that decided to restrain a kid for 47 hours or lock him up for 87 days. It was the managers that decided to do that, yet we took the heat."
**********************

This policy obviously goes beyond restraint for "protection" and into abuse to establish control.

Although, it has happened that a facility's policies prohibit restraint and staff ignores the rules and does as they please.

[Antigen]

On 2003-10-16 20:44:00, Deborah wrote:


Although, it has happened that a facility's policies prohibit restraint and staff ignores the rules and does as they please."

No, in my experience, both in the gulag archipelago and in the working world, the line staff defer to the unwritten rules. The written, publicly acknowledged policies are only there to pacate the regulators and for PR purposes. They have nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of what it takes to deliver the goods.

The question remains, what goods are we talking about and who's buying? In this case, as with many, it's government functionaries. Do you honestly believe they don't know or get what they pay for, year after year, decade after decade?

If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs,
you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors,
shall all become wolves.  It seems to be the law of our general
nature, in spite of individual exceptions.


http://laissezfairebooks.com/product.cfm?op=view&pid=FF7485&aid=10247' target='_new'>Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787