These reports are nothing new. Around '79 or '80, Illinois pulled all thier "wards" out of Elan. Joe Ricci gloated in reports of how one of them, escaped state custody, in order to return to Elan. The whole issue of restraints, WAS NOT supervised by a psychologist. Dr. Davidson wouldn't have know an acting out resident even if he bit him in his arse. The decison came from whom ever was the "top dog" at the time, even if it wasn't staff. They ran into a problem back then, they ran out of handcuffs and had to start using those nylon ties that police use for riots. PO's, or personal over-seers were instructed to keep the person in corner at all costs, which sometimes got extremely violent. I even ended up having to go to Lewiston to the ER due to injuries I received while PO'n. Another problem was, running out of corners to put all these people in. From 1980-1983, I saw the medium age of resident drop from 16-17 to 13-14, atleast that was in Elan 7. I sincerely feel the concepts they were forcing upon these younger people was futile at best. They may have worked well for adult's in recovery, but not on these "kids". We even had one young man, in 7, who was mentally retarded and did not belong there. After a few weeks, they realized this and shipped him out. For all thier "Tight Houses" and other inane attempts at behavior modification, they still lost 1 house, Elan 7, to riots...... ::bangin::
A drug is neither moral nor immoral - it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary license to act like an asshole.
--Frank Zappa
