I used to work for PCS and would like to vouch for the stories about thought control, cruelty, excessive violence, drug injection, and so forth. I never saw anyone seriously injured there though. I would like to tell another side to this tragic story--the corruption of the employees. The system corrupts the most wide-eyed idealist. Believe me, I was one before I worked there. I am starting to excorcise the demons, but I am not the same man I used to be. You are taught, modeled, trained, conditioned, and challenged to be unreasonably punitive. The whole objective of the organization is to cripple courage, individuality, and security in the self of the child.
I started there trying to be kind to the boys I worked with, but they had been conditioned to see that as weakness and would walk all over me and take advantage of me. After that, I began the horrifying metamorphisis from a soft-hearted, compassionate sort into a Cheney-like punitive sort.
It broke my heart again and again to see these tender aged young men treated like they were the scum of the earth. And there is a constant flow of foulness in everything from language to attitudes.
One day when one of the young men was being particularly belligerent towards me, I got the Senior-On in there and we forced this boy to the ground. Because the boy had hurt my feelings, I felt pleasure in seeing him taken to the ground. That was the first time that I had felt full-on sadism in my thought process. It was then that I decided I couldn't work there any longer. The place is despicable, dehumanizing to student and staff, and it needs to be closed! There has go to be a better way to help struggling kids.
