On 2004-03-17 04:51:00, Deborah wrote:
"Carey wrote:
I didn't read that anyone felt the counselor "deserved to die". It appears to be a unfortunate consequence of the hotbed created in BM facilities. It was bound to happen eventually, and could likely happen again. When you provoke someone beyond their breaking point and don't have adequate "controls" in place to suppress their potential violent reasctions to the blatant disrespect associated with BM techniques, you have a situation in which this could happen.
That's why prison have guards who tote guns.
Exactly. I remember reading about a case where a couple of boys killed a guard during an escape from some government run boot camp out in Big Cypress reserve in So. Florida. Plenty of times when I was in Straight I saw kids pushed past the breaking point and get violent, even though they knew from hard experience it would land them up on the floor underneath a half dozen of their fellow clients.
I never understood their thinking at the time. And I don't condone the way these boys went about their escape. But I can tell you that it's happened before and it will happen again, no matter how many guards they set for night watch or how thoroughly they complete their paperwork. When you work the Program on immature people, some of them will reliably respond w/ violence, no matter how many of them land up in prison.
One of the differences between adults and children is knowledge. The adults in this story, having been involved in the troubled parent industry for a number of years, should know that this sort of thing is fairly common in BM facilities. They have some culpability in this.
I do wonder why the sports equipment wasn't locked away? I wonder if the knives in the kitchen were secured?
Oh, now
this brings back memories! One of the means the Program uses to wear you down is to treat all inmates asif we were all dangerous, possibly suicideal lunatics. No shoelaces, no knives, constant surveilance. And we were constantly reminded that it was for our protection, in case we got suicidal, and for the safety of staff and other clients. It was more than just undignified. It wore on you after awhile.
After I got out, some joker on the bench in Florida actually signed an extradition order to try and force me back into the Program from Georgia (where 17 is the default age of imancipation) So, between the warrant service and their completing whatever processes they had to do, I spent a number of weeks in the Macon County Juvenile Detention Center.
The first night or two were very frightening. For years, I'd suffered all kinds of stress and privation just to avoid juvenile detention. It acatually wasn't all that bad. Just boring, more than anything else.
The reality of it all really set in one day when a guard came out and asked us girls who knew how to cut up a chicken. I and another girl said we did and we were led out of the day room and into the kitchen. There we were handed 6" prep knives, pointed to a pile of chickens and told to part them out in 8 pieces each for that night's dinner. The guard then left the room, leaving the two of us inmates armed w/ deadly weapons and only one little old lady who worked the kitchen and a pile of chickens for company.
It was just one of those epiphany moments for me. My mind shot back to all those months of refuting --clandestinely in my mind-- the suggestion that I would hurt myself or someone else if given the chance. I remembered one moment of open rebellion when a newcomer, who was like 6'2" and built like a linebacker, handed me a sharp knife to put away while we were cleaning up the kitchen in a host home. There were some graduate staff trainees there for some reason. One of them called me down for not getting all bent out of shape over a newcomer handling a knife. Don't know what came over me, except just being sick and damned tired of the bullshit and of everyone fucking w/ Kim's mind all the time. I looked at Robyn (the trainee) and just said "You know as well as I do that Kim's not about to hurt anyone. If she wanted to, she could squash me like a bug w/ one hand anyway." Robyn was shocked, Kim cried and said thanks. We all silently agreed to pretend it never happened.
And here we were, two actual inmates in a juvenile detention facility, alone w/ a little old lady, eachother and a couple of knives and no one seemed nervous or upset. The old lady (sweet old lady, I should say... she really was!) had her back to us as she finished up some dishes from breakfast. I don't remember a single violent or even tense incident in the weeks I spent at that facility.
