Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: Ursus on July 23, 2009, 03:36:29 PM
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LAYNE R. MEACHAM may have been another one of Miller Newton's protégés, possibly training with him at some point in Hackensack, New Jersey (mid-late 1980s?).
Meacham subsequently set up shop in his home state, Utah, and ran into problems with Utah, right around the same time that KIDS of Greater Salt Lake (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27534&p=337988#p337970) did (Director of the latter being Kimball DeLaMare of Island View, Oakley, NATSAP, and Proficio fame).
Meacham founded two programs that I know of, PROCTOR ADVOCATE and YES FAMILIES, both based on the Straight prototype with group confrontation as a method for behavior modification by day, and with kids being housed by host families at night. He was sued a number of times for program-related abuses, and he himself sued various officials and state entities several times for attempts to curtail the excesses of his programs.
He wrote a book titled Never give in, never give up!: Choosing the right program for your out-of-control and/or drug-involved teen (http://http://www.amazon.co.uk/Never-give-never-out-control/dp/B0006QZSU0), published in 1996. Nowadays, he seems to make his living as an abstract artist, although he is apparently as litigious as ever, judging by the number of lawsuits that continue to crop up on a google...
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Your statements about Mr. Meacham are libelous per se, he has never been sued for abuse or convicted of any crime whatsoever. Many out of control youth who are using drugs, having sex with their dealers for drugs and generally conduct disordered have harbored resentments towards program providers. Isn't it time they grew out of their resentments and went on with their lives. Usually they can't move on because they are still dependant on marijuana, meth and or alcohol and therefore they protest too loudly. However they have a right to say whatever they want as long as it is true, but to accuse someone of child abuse without the evidence is libelous per se under the law. So continue with your libel from this point forward, we will be watching you and copying future written statements for evidence to be used in the Third District Court of Utah, regardless of where you are hiding.
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:roflmao: :rofl: :roflmao: :rofl: ::) :rofl:
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Your statements about Mr. Meacham are libelous per se, he has never been sued for abuse or convicted of any crime whatsoever. Many out of control youth who are using drugs, having sex with their dealers for drugs and generally conduct disordered have harbored resentments towards program providers. Isn't it time they grew out of their resentments and went on with their lives. Usually they can't move on because they are still dependant on marijuana, meth and or alcohol and therefore they protest too loudly. However they have a right to say whatever they want as long as it is true, but to accuse someone of child abuse without the evidence is libelous per se under the law. So continue with your libel from this point forward, we will be watching you and copying future written statements for evidence to be used in the Third District Court of Utah, regardless of where you are hiding.
Thank you for your concern over the wayward youth of today. I can assure you that my own usage of and dependency on "marijuana, meth and or alcohol" is well under control. Moreover, allegations or intimations of my sexual relations with my "dealers for drugs" and general state of being "conduct disordered" are just that: allegations and/or intimations. You will have to be more specific if you expect me to take you seriously. :D
On the other hand, the following statements from my previous post are, to the best of my knowledge, true and factual. I welcome your evidence to the contrary.
- Layne Meacham founded two programs, PROCTOR ADVOCATE and YES FAMILIES, which both appear to be based on the Seed/Straight prototype with group confrontation as a method for behavior modification by day, and with kids being housed by host families at night.*
- Layne Meacham may have trained with Miller Newton in Hackensack, New Jersey, at some point in the mid-late 1980s.* Miller Newton is a former administrator of Straight, Inc.
- Layne Meacham ran into difficulties right around the same time that KIDS of Greater Salt Lake did (KIDS was another Straight spin-off, founded by Miller Newton).
- Layne Meacham and/or his program were sued a number of times for program-related abuses, and he himself sued various officials and state entities several times for attempts to curtail the excesses of his programs.
* Allegedly according to evidence given by Layne Meacham himself during one of the abuse trials.
Here are two other threads which mention Layne Meacham and/or his programs to help get you started:
- i was very disturbed:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4756 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4756)
- two posts in the Proficio thread, starting here:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27534&p=337970#p337970 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27534&p=337970#p337970)
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Cool. Utah has some pretty good anti-SLAPP statutes. I recommend you check out Benchmark Young Adult School v. Michael Crawford. It might prove enlightening in this particular area.
You're probably going to have a fair amount of trouble in the following ares:
1. Meacham is most likely a limited purposes public figure. If he's like most program folk, he's been unable to keep his mouth shut regarding this issue. He's written a book for crying out loud. Please note that this general issue of the troubled teen industry *has* been under discussion by the legislation. There have also been congressional hearings and investigations by the GAO. This is very much a matter of public concern. Since your client has spoken on the issue, that makes him a limited purpose public figure. As i'm sure you know, thanks to New York Times v. Sullivan you'll then have to prove actual malice as well as false statement of fact.
2. "Abuse" is opinion, especially in this context. I can't recall the name offhand but there is a vetenarian case involving this in which a scientist was accused of abusing his orangutans by an animal welfare activist. It's not hard to argue that, for example, a suit for "intentional infliction of emotional distress" could be interpreted on this site as a suit for abuse.
3. Harm. Good luck trying to prove with admissible evidence that Ursus's words have caused any actual harm. Even if the court finds abuse to be a false statement of fact, your SOL without any damages. Keep in mind that a mere decrease in profit, for example, does not prove harm. You have to prove that it was Ursus's words themselves which caused it and not, for example, the economy.
4. intimidation does not work here. It only stokes the fires. In that regard, i'd have to thank you. By your threat you've guaranteed this thread a lot more attention than it otherwise would have gotten.
5. The last time one of you folk tried to sue a survivor it turned out very badly indeed for the plaintiff. Please see the results of Benchmark V. Crawford.
Sincerely,
Another Alleged Druggie by Assocation
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As attorney for the Plaintiff you have been doing a good job helping me with discovery. This is what I need for you to demonstrate your limited knowledge of the law. First of all Mr. Meacham has never met Miller Newton and has never modeled any progam after his program. Why is it that none of you will ever detail your juvenile histories. Your drug and alcohol dependencies, sexual problems and previous violence towards your parents. Your problems with authority and with the school system and what it is you are doing with your lives now. Your hatred will continue to eat you up and no parent will be affected by the information they receive from this site. If they are mislead by you and this site they would not have augured well in treatment and their kid will probably end up like you, just staying the same and making the family continue to suffer because of you.
Second I appreciate the legal theory on public figures you better go back to the books, Mr. Meacham does not qualify.
You also better go to the Courts and see if there is any convictions before you continue your libel. Mr. Meacham is hardly a public figure I'm sure when I tell him this he will be elated with the elevated status you have given him. You people are not a legitimate newpaper you are just the remnant of the program that didn't work for you and your family. You are angry even though you cannot identify one shred of evidence that would would hold up pursuant to the rules of civil procedure. Heresay and a lot of gossip and heresay upon heresay. Remember hell hath no fury as a former drug and conduct disordered kid who failed in treatment. In light of your past and current behavior the jury will not regard your testimony as truthful. Part of the diagnosis for conduct disorder is that you lie. It appears that some may have continued with this diagnosis and your former medical records up for subpoena. I am sure we can establish via your treatment history that you are not an honest person and therefore why would anyone allow you to serve up this kind of pig slop and then actually ingest any of it. No rational parent is going to see you as credible because of your current unresolved conduct disorder and general hatred that spues out with every word and phrase. Study Marx, your little rag was the thesis and now there is an antithesis the Antidefamation Association of parents and professionals.
So lets keep the mean speach and virtual deposition rolling and see what happens, as long as you are talking I can use this discoverable evidence for my clients who have the means to defend themselves against your unfounded defamations . The Antidefamation Associalion is also looking at a class action federal suit as you have obviously crossed state lines. You are acting like you did when your Mothers and Father's first put you in treatment. You believe you are invincible, 10 feet tall and bullet proof, and that your peer group made up of all the troubled youth that will not admit they had a problem,will spend their time on this rag trying to get revenge rather than a future and higher education.
The main thing here is injunctive and declaratory relief. Damages are a jury matter and we will see what they think of your language and attitudes displayed in the last few years. It is a subjective jury matter. However there is always declaratory and injunctive relief, so maybe your parents can help you with the funding for counsel to defend an action which I believe could also be in the Federal Court. Please by all means keep up the mean spirited attacks going as this is all discoverable and will be the best evidence to prove the case. It gets to the heart of your motivations your willingness to defame a myriad of individuals without any admissable evidence in a court of law. It will also alert the others that have sued you to come together just like you have. You will help organize the members of the class and provide a forum for them to get together as a class to sue you an those who have defamed them. You have mentioned some of the former litigants. Of course many conduct disordered program failures end up as antisocial, narcissists that have no introspection or ability to see where their illegitimate and hateful actions are going to take them. Revenge is a meal best served cold.
Antidefamation Association
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Counsel for the persecution misappropriated the term hearsay and misspelled it. Were you thinking of heresy?
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Counsel for the persecution misappropriated the term hearsay and misspelled it. Were you thinking of heresy?
:roflmao:
I would expect no less from someone who aligns themselves with someone who calls himself "The Equalizer."
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Second I appreciate the legal theory on public figures you better go back to the books, Mr. Meacham does not qualify.
Crawford here from the above mentioned case. If Jayne Longnecker of Benchmark Young Adult School qualified, your client probably does as well. I'd be happy to supply Ursus's attorneys with all the legal research my attorneys did (90% of what they need on that point). Our argument on this point was airtight the point where the plaintiff didn't even bother arguing Jayne was not a limited purpose public figure. And she didn't even write a book on the topic (like your client did)... Do your research.
You also better go to the Courts and see if there is any convictions before you continue your libel. Mr. Meacham is hardly a public figure I'm sure when I tell him this he will be elated with the elevated status you have given him. You people are not a legitimate newpaper you are just the remnant of the program that didn't work for you and your family.
Legitimate newspaper or not is irrelevant. You shoudl know that if you are indeed an attorney.
You are angry even though you cannot identify one shred of evidence that would would hold up pursuant to the rules of civil procedure. Heresay and a lot of gossip and heresay upon heresay.
State of mind exception. Even if the evidence you claim is inadmissible in relation to the truth of the statements, they are admissible to show his state of mind at the time typed what he did.
Let me ask you this. Even if you truly believe that Ursus made a false statement of fact, do you believe he intended to? Ursus is probably the most careful, accurate and unbiased researcher around here.
Remember hell hath no fury as a former drug and conduct disordered kid who failed in treatment. In light of your past and current behavior the jury will not regard your testimony as truthful.
Only an anti-slapp motion ends the case before it even gets to that point. It also immediately halts discovery (at least in california). Do you have any proof of harm? Any proof Ursus's statements are false statements of fact? Any proof they were made with actual malice. You want punitive damages, I assume.
Part of the diagnosis for conduct disorder is that you lie.
Wow. Now that is libel per-se all over the place. Have you one shred of proof any of us, including Ursus specifically, failed treatment or were even diagnosed with the medical disorder you specify? I'm leaning towards thinking you are not an attorney considering how careless you are with your words, unless you are under the sadly mistaken opinion that none of us can or will defend ourselves. Me, personally, I clear the air openly and use the forum to address false allegations... but others on this forum might not take so kindly.
It appears that some may have continued with this diagnosis and your former medical records up for subpoena. I am sure we can establish via your treatment history that you are not an honest person and therefore why would anyone allow you to serve up this kind of pig slop and then actually ingest any of it.
Um. I'm pretty sure the judge would not allow that. But hey. Some of us still want to get ahold of our records so you might as well be of use.
No rational parent is going to see you as credible because of your current unresolved conduct disorder and general hatred that spues out with every word and phrase. Study Marx, your little rag was the thesis and now there is an antithesis the Antidefamation Association of parents and professionals.
Wow. You have a website? I googled and could find absolutely nada. that sorta like the Zombie Anti Defamation League (http://http://zadl.org/) (4th google result)? Are you aware "antidefamation" is not actually a word?
So lets keep the mean speach and virtual deposition rolling and see what happens, as long as you are talking I can use this discoverable evidence for my clients who have the means to defend themselves against your unfounded defamations.
What? You mean you can use my words and those of the guest against Ursus?! WOW. I was unaware the law allowed that... unless you're planning on suing us all! I didn't even make any statements directly about your client and neither did the Guest above.
The Antidefamation Associalion is also looking at a class action federal suit as you have obviously crossed state lines.
You're funny.
You are acting like you did when your Mothers and Father's first put you in treatment. You believe you are invincible, 10 feet tall and bullet proof, and that your peer group
Nice phrase there. You aware of it's specific origins?
made up of all the troubled youth that will not admit they had a problem,will spend their time on this rag trying to get revenge rather than a future and higher education.
I actually have a college degree, FYI, as do many others on this forum. You want to sue this forum? Go ahead and do it. We could use the publicity. It's not the first time it's happened.
The main thing here is injunctive and declaratory relief. Damages are a jury matter and we will see what they think of your language and attitudes displayed in the last few years. It is a subjective jury matter.
No. At least in CA, punitive damages are only allowed when there is proof of malice, actual malice, or willfull disregard for the truth (means had some doubt in the truth of the statement). You'll have to prove with admissible evidence that if Ursus meant to make a false statement of fact if he did. Otherwise, you're stuck with actual damages (which you cannot prove).
And if you think the judge is going to buy that crap you're sadly mistaken. Benchmark's critical mistake was in trying to prejudice the judge with irrelevant (and i would allege, false) crap... And that case took place in a *very* conservative jurisdiction.
However there is always declaratory and injunctive relief, so maybe your parents can help you with the funding for counsel to defend an action which I believe could also be in the Federal Court.
Probably better in Federal Court anyway. If you sued locally, my guess is Ursus would petition for removal rather than stay in some backwoods Utah court where the judge wears magic underwear and thinks god lives on planet Kolob.
As for funding, my attorneys took the case on a partial contingent fee basis. They got paid when the anti-slapp motion succeeded and the plaintiffs paid us attorneys fees and court costs. Any court costs for Ursus could be happily gathered by a defense fund. I'd help out, and I know a lot of others would as well. We're hardly helpless round here and survivors tend to stick together.
Please by all means keep up the mean spirited attacks going as this is all discoverable and will be the best evidence to prove the case.
LOL. You are without a doubt one of the funniest programs supporters i've seen here in a long time. Let me get this straight. You're going to use my words and that of the guests against Ursus? You sure you are an attorney?
It gets to the heart of your motivations your willingness to defame a myriad of individuals without any admissable evidence in a court of law.
If you are referring to entire of the forum you are referring to yourself as well. Anybody can and probably does post here. The group is only as unified as you imagine it to be.
It will also alert the others that have sued you to come together just like you have.
Aha. I see. Well. Go right ahead. The more the merrier. I'm not kidding either. I have been sued and was happy when it happened. You'll find most others on this forum will see it as an opportunity rather than a setback.
You will help organize the members of the class and provide a forum for them to get together as a class to sue you an those who have defamed them. You have mentioned some of the former litigants.
Former litigants from the cases you allege do not exist you mean? Or am I mistaken?
Of course many conduct disordered program failures end up as antisocial, narcissists that have no introspection or ability to see where their illegitimate and hateful actions are going to take them. Revenge is a meal best served cold.
I can respect the klingon proverb. The rest is pure crap.
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Second I appreciate the legal theory on public figures you better go back to the books, Mr. Meacham does not qualify.
Crawford here from the above mentioned case. If Jayne Longnecker of Benchmark Young Adult School qualified, your client probably does as well. I'd be happy to supply Ursus's attorneys with all the legal research (90% of what they need on that point) my attorneys did. Our argument was airtight on this to the point where the plaintiff didn't even bother arguing Jayne was not a limited purpose public figure. And she didn't even write a book on the topic (like your client did)... Do your research.
You also better go to the Courts and see if there is any convictions before you continue your libel. Mr. Meacham is hardly a public figure I'm sure when I tell him this he will be elated with the elevated status you have given him. You people are not a legitimate newpaper you are just the remnant of the program that didn't work for you and your family.
Legitimate newspaper or not is irrelevant. You shoudl know that if you are indeed an attorney.
You are angry even though you cannot identify one shred of evidence that would would hold up pursuant to the rules of civil procedure. Heresay and a lot of gossip and heresay upon heresay.
State of mind exception. Even if the evidence you claim is inadmissible in relation to the truth of the statements, they are admissible to show his state of mind at the time typed what he did.
Let me ask you this. Even if you truly believe that Ursus made a false statement of fact, do you believe he intended to? Ursus is probably the most careful, accurate and unbiased researcher around here.
Remember hell hath no fury as a former drug and conduct disordered kid who failed in treatment. In light of your past and current behavior the jury will not regard your testimony as truthful.
Only an anti-slapp motion ends the case before it even gets to that point. It also immediately halts discovery (at least in california). Do you have any proof of harm? Any proof Ursus's statements are false statements of fact? Any proof they were made with actual malice. You want punitive damages, I assume.
Part of the diagnosis for conduct disorder is that you lie.
Wow. Now that is libel per-se all over the place. Have you one shred of proof any of us, including Ursus specifically, failed treatment or were even diagnosed with the medical disorder you specify? I'm leaning towards thinking you are not an attorney considering how careless you are with your words, unless you are under the sadly mistaken opinion that none of us can or will defend ourselves. Me, personally, I clear the air openly and use the forum to address false allegations... but others on this forum might not take so kindly.
It appears that some may have continued with this diagnosis and your former medical records up for subpoena. I am sure we can establish via your treatment history that you are not an honest person and therefore why would anyone allow you to serve up this kind of pig slop and then actually ingest any of it.
Um. I'm pretty sure the judge would not allow that. But hey. Some of us still want to get ahold of our records so you might as well be of use.
No rational parent is going to see you as credible because of your current unresolved conduct disorder and general hatred that spues out with every word and phrase. Study Marx, your little rag was the thesis and now there is an antithesis the Antidefamation Association of parents and professionals.
Wow. You have a website? I googled and could find absolutely nada. that sorta like the Zombie Anti Defamation League (http://http://zadl.org/) (4th google result)? Are you aware "antidefamation" is not actually a word?
So lets keep the mean speach and virtual deposition rolling and see what happens, as long as you are talking I can use this discoverable evidence for my clients who have the means to defend themselves against your unfounded defamations.
What? You mean you can use my words and those of the guest against Ursus?! WOW. I was unaware the law allowed that... unless you're planning on suing us all! I didn't even make any statements directly about your client and neither did the Guest above.
The Antidefamation Associalion is also looking at a class action federal suit as you have obviously crossed state lines.
You're funny.
You are acting like you did when your Mothers and Father's first put you in treatment. You believe you are invincible, 10 feet tall and bullet proof, and that your peer group
Nice phrase there. You aware of it's specific origins?
made up of all the troubled youth that will not admit they had a problem,will spend their time on this rag trying to get revenge rather than a future and higher education.
I actually have a college degree, FYI, as do many others on this forum. You want to sue this forum? Go ahead and do it. We could use the publicity. It's not the first time it's happened.
The main thing here is injunctive and declaratory relief. Damages are a jury matter and we will see what they think of your language and attitudes displayed in the last few years. It is a subjective jury matter.
No. At least in CA, punitive damages are only allowed when there is proof of malice, actual malice, or willfull disregard for the truth (means had some doubt in the truth of the statement). You'll have to prove with admissible evidence that if Ursus meant to make a false statement of fact if he did. Otherwise, you're stuck with actual damages (which you cannot prove).
And if you think the judge is going to buy that crap you're sadly mistaken. Benchmark's critical mistake was in trying to prejudice the judge with irrelevant (and i would allege, false) crap... And that case took place in a *very* conservative jurisdiction.
However there is always declaratory and injunctive relief, so maybe your parents can help you with the funding for counsel to defend an action which I believe could also be in the Federal Court.
Probably better in Federal Court anyway. If you sued locally, my guess is Ursus would petition for removal rather than stay in some backwoods Utah court where the judge wears magic underwear and thinks god lives on planet Kolob.
As for funding, my attorneys took the case on a partial contingent fee basis. They got paid when the anti-slapp motion succeeded and the plaintiffs paid us attorneys fees and court costs. Any court costs for Ursus could be happily gathered by a defense fund. I'd help out, and I know a lot of others would as well. We're hardly helpless round here and survivors tend to stick together.
Please by all means keep up the mean spirited attacks going as this is all discoverable and will be the best evidence to prove the case.
LOL. You are without a doubt one of the funniest programs supporters i've seen here in a long time. Let me get this straight. You're going to use my words and that of the guests against Ursus? You sure you are an attorney?
It gets to the heart of your motivations your willingness to defame a myriad of individuals without any admissable evidence in a court of law.
If you are referring to entire of the forum you are referring to yourself as well. Anybody can and probably does post here. The group is only as unified as you imagine it to be.
It will also alert the others that have sued you to come together just like you have.
Aha. I see. Well. Go right ahead. The more the merrier. I'm not kidding either. I have been sued and was happy when it happened. You'll find most others on this forum will see it as an opportunity rather than a setback.
You will help organize the members of the class and provide a forum for them to get together as a class to sue you an those who have defamed them. You have mentioned some of the former litigants.
Former litigants from the cases you allege do not exist you mean? Or am I mistaken?
Of course many conduct disordered program failures end up as antisocial, narcissists that have no introspection or ability to see where their illegitimate and hateful actions are going to take them. Revenge is a meal best served cold.
I can respect the klingon proverb. The rest is pure crap.
I'm sure the "antidefamation" guest is a joke, psy. Do you really think it's genuine?
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I'm sure the "antidefamation" guest is a joke, psy. Do you really think it's genuine?
Genuine attorney? No. Genuine program supporter? Absolutely. Meacham himself? Good possibility. Wouldn't be the first time... but that's just what I think.
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I'm sure the "antidefamation" guest is a joke, psy. Do you really think it's genuine?
Genuine attorney? No. Genuine program supporter? Absolutely. Meacham himself? Good possibility. Wouldn't be the first time... but that's just what I think.
I read it as a faceitious bit of play on Ursus's mention that Meacham is litigious. If antidefimation is really in Meacham's camp sincerely trying to scare Ursus into scilence with threats of a lawsuit--jeez.
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I'm sure the "antidefamation" guest is a joke, psy. Do you really think it's genuine?
Genuine attorney? No. Genuine program supporter? Absolutely. Meacham himself? Good possibility. Wouldn't be the first time... but that's just what I think.
I read it as a faceitious bit of play on Ursus's mention that Meacham is litigious. If antidefimation is really in Meacham's camp sincerely trying to scare Ursus into scilence with threats of a lawsuit--jeez.
In fairness, the tactic would work on most audiences... just not here. If it's a troll, i tip my nonexistant hat.
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Warning this presentation may have some mispelled words or poor grammer, but it is not likely to rise to the level of a violation of Tort Law, furthermore this document has not been spell checked.
ANTIDEFAMATION ASSOCIATION
OK were rollin now. As Saul Alinsky would put it, use the enemies own system to gain power. The Antidefamation Association has begun. Lets see first of all I have learned that Ursus is a male. Is his name Elberg. And who the heck is Warbis and Elberg--and this Sue Scheff woman.
Why aren't you willing to disclose why the treatment program was indicated for Ursus or Warbis anyone else. Why are you not making that public. Has any of the folks you defend assaulted their parents ? Were they put in programs for missing sunday school or for coming home so ripped on meth and alcohol that they could be diagnosed as legally dead. Have any of your defendants been charged with theft, distribution and sale of narcotics (we'll exclude a little weed here and there).
Could you please furnish me with a case number from Benchmark? Also who is the Sue Scheff? Maybe she can help with the case law and discovery related to the Ursus case. Remember Ursus (who you say is a man) is fearless as a grizzley bear and as mean as a wolverine (remember that show when the Wolverine high school students stood off the Communist take over)?
I have chosen to represent Mr. Meacham because you are a bigot and don't want your religion or race to be persecuted and yet you belittle others religions like the LDS Church. Are you prejudice against all Mormans or just the ones that run programs. Are all Mormans in favor of the brutilization of kids?
Your prejudice disallows you to consider people as individuals, bigots are not rational clear thinking people they close out the possibilities for any rational discourse.
Maybe you should do some checking about this Meacham which you have done your little witch hunt on, and black listed in your little irrelevant web site.
Did you know that he was locked up in a Juvenile state reform school just for running away from home and being ungovernable (and doing a few doobies and brewskies once and a while). They routinely beat him with a clip board to the head, slapped him in the face. When he finally escaped he ran up a half frozen canal and fell into the freezing water, caught pneumonia and then was placed in the hole where the windows were broken and the snow would blow in on him. He had to sleep on a steel strapped cot with no mattress and just a dirty old army blanket in his skivies (sp?) He spent the rest of his life trying to close state institutions and reform schools. He was admitted at Colombia University and studied community organizing from the same folks that mentored Obama. He worked for the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives and got them funding to close Utah's 100 year old reform school where kids as young as eight had been sexually molested by staff. But we never here you mouthing the state Gulag's only the private ones.
You prejudged him, and the Mean Old Bear said that he had been sued for abuse, if you are such a thorough investigator or legal mind check out the court dockets and find a civil action against Meacham for abuse. Also while your at it check out any final disposition of guilty and a criminal background check to see if he has any convictions for abuse.
Finally I would like to know and I am sure that many others would also like to know, what your preferred type of intervention is for a severely acting out conduct disordered chemically dependant kid. Is it to just send them over to a former Straight alum and get cookies (laced with weed) and milk and groove and watch the sun come up. What are you proposing as an alternative for treatment that is efficacious and relevant. Nobody believes you should ever hit a kid or waterboard them etc. But you seem to have no proposal to help a chemically dependant kid that won't go to school and won't go to 12 step and steals his parents car and even kicks granny down the stairs (true story). So Mr. Elberg or who ever you are what's your recommendation for the above kid? Do you have one? Or are you just fighting the whole world and everyone in it and becoming the problem rather than the solution.
By the way I appologize for the spelling errors. At least I am willing to admit when I am wrong and promptly admit it.
So please get me the above discovery soon as possible because the big bad bear is willing to "kill all of the scumbag Mormans and Yuppies. Maybe the bear will come for the Jews some day just like he is for the Mormans and the rest of us scumbags who you have lynched. Kind of reminds me of Hitler and the Jews, and pisses me off that you as an attorney have no room for open dialogue. You might find that some of the people you have lynched prematurely have been misjudged just like Ursus was when they put him in that shit hole called straight (I never understood all that arm flapping stuff that I saw on T.V. recently) But anyhow lets move this thing along, get me the names and addresses of Warbis, Elberg, Scheff and anyone else that has supported the libelous statements of the Grizzley Bear. (Is that how you spell Grizzley).
Carry on dude,
Antidefamation Association.
P.S. Mr. Meacham has never met Mr. Newton. (Remember when you are wrong promply admit it counselor).
(find us everyday on this Fornits deal, we'll soon have an e-mail for donations for a civil action, note we will not support any program that has proven to hit, kick, sexually abuse or deprive food, water etc.) Or which violates most states DCFS statutes pursuant to child abuse etc.
Lets all come together
Anyhow I think this can be fun. Please give me this Sue Scheff's phone number and a list of cases against the site or the Big Bad Bear or anyone so that we can get underway.
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I could reply rationally to that screed, but I'm just going to sit here and laugh at you instead.
:roflmao: :roflmao: :rofl: :beat:
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This thread is kinda silly, good laughs, Klingon proverbs, idle threats with misused legal jargon, and a wild bear.
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It's either one of the dumbest program folk or one of the funniest trolls i've ever seen. Bravo. 10/10.
Yes. Ursus = Phil Elberg. Go sue him and see what happens! Sue Sue Scheff as well while you're at it!
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Why aren't you willing to disclose why the treatment program was indicated for Ursus or Warbis anyone else. Why are you not making that public.
It is. Use the search feature. Pretty much everything you've asked can be found with the search feature or through google. The case number for the Benchmark case can be found on the initial complaint which you can search for on the forum. All the court documents are up here as well as most of the declarations and so forth.
Also, if you've read carefully, i've said next to nothing at all about Meacham and have not commented as to the truth of Ursus's statements other than to make some legal notes on them. Stop accusing me of being prejudiced while simultaniously accsuing everybody on the forum of being drug users or having conduct disorder. It makes you look bigoted.
I also make fun of all religions or any faith without reason in general, including atheists. It's all in good fun. Magic underwear is funny. If you can't take a joke...
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magic underwear is very funny.
Um...Psy, FmyI boxers or breifs?
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HEY PSY, are you there? My name is Anti Defamation and I am an alcoholic....now its your turn Psy, who are you and why are you here, be honest and brief.
What is a screed? Hip me up dude. Do you mean like screeding cement, or that I am just too wordy for a little pseudo elitist like you. Do you have low self esteem. Did you know that prisoners have the highest self esteem in the population at large? Your photo looks a little narcisistic and arrogant. You won't respond because you are a worm not a big bad bear like ursus. You guys remind me of some pseudo intellects I use to know down in the Haight in the 60's that just hung around doin a little weed and trying to get someone to stroke them for their ridiculous poetry. Are you a poet Psy. Do you use a French address to try to impress your buddies on this site. Have you developed a whole jargon around this deal in between playing video games and trying to be part of the fornits culture. Does Fornits make you feel like you belong to a big family of like minded folks. Do you have a degree in English or are you just putting on a big facade wanting us all here to believe you are brilliant. Come out and speak up Psy. Emerson stated that to be a man is to be a non conformist. Are you a non conformist or just a coward? The problem is if you respond, I might respond and make you feel bad. If you were a "troubled kid" maybe your ego is too fragile to take me on. Maybe you and your Fornits bigotted buddies are better hidden away where you can witch hunt and black list people without ever having to look them in the eye. Come out of your hole and share. Were you a kid in a program or not? Emerson stated that you should one day state strongly your beliefs and then the next day exclaim just as strongly an opposite belief. Why don't you share some of your poetry with us and your contemporary volcabulary. Have you published? Will you ever or do you have a little circle there in France that puts you at the center of the discussion at the Cafe while you guzzle double lattes. Cmon Psy let me have it, be a little bit more of a bear. And as far as the big bear being a thorough researcher, let me know when he posts the dockets of plaintiffs who have sued Mr. Meacham for abuse. Also let me know when he demonstrates that Mr. Meacham ever met this Newton dude. I just noticed there is a phone number for this Newton. I am going to call him and see if he know any of you cats and maybe we can (with your written permission) publish your histories. Does anyone have this Newton guys phone number, I would like to meet my old Mentor for the first time.
Carry on dude
(p.s. why were you placed in treatment? Was it for marijuana fun? Do you still use Marijuana? Cmon share, my name is Anti Defamation Association and I am an alcoholic......there, now its your turn psy, cmon the first step is to just admit it......this little farse you have carried on for 2-3 years is only a cover for your unresolved issues. Why won't you give us all some background that will let us have insight into why you hate non abusive treatment programs for drug dependant persons.
ANTIDEFAMATION ASSOCIATION
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Nah, none of that was worthwhile.
Boxers or Briefs is a good question, though.
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HEY PSY, are you there? My name is Anti Defamation and I am an alcoholic....now its your turn Psy, who are you and why are you here, be honest and brief.
Hi, i'm Michael Crawford and I am not nor have ever been an alcoholic or addict. I am here because I was placed in a facility on false pretenses based on false advertising. There was no due process so anything I was accused of doing is pretty much irrelevant. During the time in the facility I went through some bad things (detailed on my website). I'm here because it's still happening both at Benchmark and elsewhere and i'd like it to end.
What is a screed? Hip me up dude. Do you mean like screeding cement, or that I am just too wordy for a little pseudo elitist like you.
I don't remember using that word, don't know what it means (if anything), and if I used it it was most likely a typo.
Do you have low self esteem. Did you know that prisoners have the highest self esteem in the population at large? Your photo looks a little narcisistic and arrogant.
Really? I just liked the image composition and tonal balance. I'm told I look cute in that picture. You can infer what you wish but it doesn't make it accurate, as with any interpretation of any piece of art.
You won't respond because you are a worm not a big bad bear like ursus.
No. I won't respond to questions that are answered elsewhere or stuff you can find on your own very very easily.
You guys remind me of some pseudo intellects I use to know down in the Haight in the 60's that just hung around doin a little weed and trying to get someone to stroke them for their ridiculous poetry. Are you a poet Psy.
If I write poetry or something like that it's likely going to be something i'll keep to myself.
Do you use a French address to try to impress your buddies on this site.
No. I have a french address since I live in France currently.
Have you developed a whole jargon around this deal in between playing video games and trying to be part of the fornits culture.
No. I try to discourage use of any jargon if anything. It creates a sense of elitism which I don't like since it's not very welcoming to others.
Does Fornits make you feel like you belong to a big family of like minded folks.
Sometimes. I have friends here, yes.
Do you have a degree in English or are you just putting on a big facade wanting us all here to believe you are brilliant.
I have an associates in computer programming and a BA in Arts and Visual Technology with a concentration in digital art. My portfolio is here (http://http://michaelcrawfordportfolio.com).
Come out and speak up Psy. Emerson stated that to be a man is to be a non conformist. Are you a non conformist or just a coward?
Well. That's a false dichotomy but I like to think that I think for myself. I listen to others opinions but ultimately I make up my own mind.
The problem is if you respond, I might respond and make you feel bad.
That's very very hard to do. You have no idea what false things have been said about me on this site and elsewhere on the web. The best reaction is just to ignore it. People who say hurtful things are usually fishing for a reaction. It's that realization that keeps me calm.
If you were a "troubled kid" maybe your ego is too fragile to take me on.
You can try me.
Maybe you and your Fornits bigotted buddies are better hidden away where you can witch hunt and black list people without ever having to look them in the eye.
I'm not the anonymous one here. Why not state your name. Hell. Give me a phone call at 571 277 5341 or 802 332 6472.
Come out of your hole and share. Were you a kid in a program or not?
Yes. Benchmark Young Adult School.
Emerson stated that you should one day state strongly your beliefs and then the next day exclaim just as strongly an opposite belief.
My opinions have changed over the years, yes, but I don't believe Emerson is correct if he was implying you should state you believe something simply to be provocative.
Why don't you share some of your poetry with us and your contemporary volcabulary. Have you published? Will you ever or do you have a little circle there in France that puts you at the center of the discussion at the Cafe while you guzzle double lattes.
No I have not published, do not have a circle in french cafés, and espressos are more my style, unless i'm at home where I brew the coffee that is roasted and ground at a little place around the corner.
Cmon Psy let me have it, be a little bit more of a bear. And as far as the big bear being a thorough researcher, let me know when he posts the dockets of plaintiffs who have sued Mr. Meacham for abuse.
I'm sure he'll get around to it.
Also let me know when he demonstrates that Mr. Meacham ever met this Newton dude. I just noticed there is a phone number for this Newton. I am going to call him and see if he know any of you cats and maybe we can (with your written permission) publish your histories.
Sure. Sounds like yet another opportunity to sue Miller Newton.
Does anyone have this Newton guys phone number, I would like to meet my old Mentor for the first time.
Use the search function. His phone number and address are on this forum.
(p.s. why were you placed in treatment? Was it for marijuana fun?
Two sentences explanation: My parents and I were having some rough times due to different opinions on religion, sexuality and politics. They were convinced by an educational consultant that Benchmark was a boarding school. It wasn't quite what any of us expected but by the time I was there communication was cut off and... well read my website and my full story is elsewhere on this forum. Search my posts and look for the older ones.
Do you still use Marijuana?
No. Not that what I choose to put in my own body is any of your business.
Cmon share, my name is Anti Defamation Association and I am an alcoholic.
Good. Go have a drink on me. Remember. You're powerless.
there, now its your turn psy, cmon the first step is to just admit it.
Admit what? You want me to admit to a problem I don't have so you can then treat that nonexistant problem.
.this little farse you have carried on for 2-3 years is only a cover for your unresolved issues. Why won't you give us all some background that will let us have insight into why you hate non abusive treatment programs for drug dependant persons.
I have no problem with treatment as long as it's done with fully informed consent. My full opinions on this topic are all over the forum. Use the search function.
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Psy you, like the man before the saducees and pharasees have impressed me. I'm no longer pissed off at you, but I will not make you my David Koresh like some of the others have on this site. You honestly forthrightly responded to a perfect stranger and gave me private information. This tells me you do have introspection and probably are a very interesting guy. Now I can tell you who the real masked man is....I am Meacham. But I have never been so knocked on my ass with the honesty you respond with and how open you are. I hate lock ups. If they would have put me in Benchmark when I was 15 instead of the state Juvenile Prison (Utah Territorial Reform School) I would have torched the place and helped guys like you run! We could have taken the staff's car and headed for the Haight, which I did. They could not of held me and lock ups should not exist except for a very small percentage of kids that are going to really put a hurt on someone like the dudes I worked with in Maximum Security prisons in the condemned men's unit. I will say that I have never laid a hand on a kid, or sexually or physically abused a kid. I have cussed a lot around them and used a lot of peer pressure, but never tried to take their dignity. And I have been wounded by the false accusations coming from kids but also healed by kids that accredit my 12 step oriented program (harsh but not abusive) with helping them fulfill their dreams. last month a prominent 36 year old woman was presenting to the legislature, she is now an important real estate broker and millionaire and came right out of the committe room and hugged me over and over. I admire your tenacity and if the Bear is as forthright as you and he has his motives in the right place he is ok too.
When I am wrong I admit it and I believe I was wrong about you and I appologize.
I was selected as one of Utah's 100 most honored living artists by the 2002 Winter Olympics Cultural Olympiad. You can google Utah Artist Project to see some of my work. I have murals in Westminster College, Utah State University, Utah Museum of Art, the Springville Museum and other county and state facilities. Check it out and let me know what you think. I am heavily influenced by Dubuffet and James Havard.
I will be heading for Cartegena Colombia in a few years so I can leave it all behind.
Bien, amigo me despido por ahora,
Layne Meacham LCSW
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Psy you, like the man before the saducees and pharasees have impressed me. I'm no longer pissed off at you, but I will not make you my David Koresh like some of the others have on this site.
Well. I try to discourage that sort of thing as Antigen did to me. I once tried to put her up on a pedestal until she made it clear that she had no interest in being any sort of leader and would rather I come to my own conclusions.
You honestly forthrightly responded to a perfect stranger and gave me private information. This tells me you do have introspection and probably are a very interesting guy. Now I can tell you who the real masked man is....I am Meacham.
NO... really?!! LOL.
But I have never been so knocked on my ass with the honesty you respond with and how open you are. I hate lock ups. If they would have put me in Benchmark when I was 15 instead of the state Juvenile Prison (Utah Territorial Reform School) I would have torched the place and helped guys like you run!
A cynical mind inside me wonders whether that is an attempt to empathize and incite reciprocity. Interrogation tactic.
We could have taken the staff's car and headed for the Haight, which I did. They could not of held me and lock ups should not exist except for a very small percentage of kids that are going to really put a hurt on someone like the dudes I worked with in Maximum Security prisons in the condemned men's unit. I will say that I have never laid a hand on a kid, or sexually or physically abused a kid. I have cussed a lot around them and used a lot of peer pressure, but never tried to take their dignity.
I have no doubt what you say is accurate. I'm not one to claim that all program directors have nefarious intentions. What I question is whether good intentions can be even worse sometimes.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis - The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment
And I have been wounded by the false accusations coming from kids but also healed by kids that accredit my 12 step oriented program (harsh but not abusive) with helping them fulfill their dreams.
And I have no doubt you believe you've helped kids and maybe you have in some cases. However, I would pose you the question as to whether some of the kids could conceivably been scarred by the harsh treatment? Maybe you consider it acceptable risk? I would also question whether what you call "harsh" could be interpreted as abuse those who might have been hurt. Confontational, Synanon style attack therapy doesn't have a good reputation in that area. I believe that treatment should be consensual and without even a remote possibility of causing harm.
This sort of sums up what I think about that:
"To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better’, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image." - C.S. Lewis - The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment
I believe that people should be judged by their actions and not what they put in their own bodies. I see it as irrelevant. I'd rather see punishment (even jail time) than forced treatment. Forced treatment is basically just incarceration plus a re-education component anyway. Messing with free will under such circumstances with such tactics used in many programs is not something that rubs me the right way. I also believe in the Harm Principle (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle) and self ownership.
"That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right... The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." - John Stuart Mill - On Liberty
If you think i'm just angry or whatever, you're wrong. I was a good while ago but i've dealt with it. All i'm trying to do now is to facilitate discussion on the issue which I believe will eventually bring change.
last month a prominent 36 year old woman was presenting to the legislature, she is now an important real estate broker and millionaire and came right out of the committe room and hugged me over and over. I admire your tenacity and if the Bear is as forthright as you and he has his motives in the right place he is ok too.
He does have good motives, as do most here. The way I see it, most on both sides want the best for the kids. We just have differing opinions on how to go about doing that. If Ursus made a factual error, i'm sure he'll correct it.
When I am wrong I admit it and I believe I was wrong about you and I appologize.
Well. Apology accepted.
I was selected as one of Utah's 100 most honored living artists by the 2002 Winter Olympics Cultural Olympiad. You can google Utah Artist Project to see some of my work. I have murals in Westminster College, Utah State University, Utah Museum of Art, the Springville Museum and other county and state facilities. Check it out and let me know what you think. I am heavily influenced by Dubuffet and James Havard.
Cool. I'll check that out.
I will be heading for Cartegena Colombia in a few years so I can leave it all behind.
Bien, amigo me despido por ahora,
Layne Meacham LCSW
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Ah, mannnn... now why'd ya have ta spill the beans so soon, Layne? Guess I better get down to business right quick, eh? :D
Might as well start somewhat at the beginning; how about here:
Maybe you should do some checking about this Meacham which you have done your little witch hunt on, and black listed in your little irrelevant web site.
Did you know that he was locked up in a Juvenile state reform school just for running away from home and being ungovernable (and doing a few doobies and brewskies once and a while). They routinely beat him with a clip board to the head, slapped him in the face. When he finally escaped he ran up a half frozen canal and fell into the freezing water, caught pneumonia and then was placed in the hole where the windows were broken and the snow would blow in on him. He had to sleep on a steel strapped cot with no mattress and just a dirty old army blanket in his skivies (sp?) He spent the rest of his life trying to close state institutions and reform schools. He was admitted at Colombia University and studied community organizing from the same folks that mentored Obama. He worked for the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives and got them funding to close Utah's 100 year old reform school where kids as young as eight had been sexually molested by staff. But we never here you mouthing the state Gulag's only the private ones.
I hate lock ups. If they would have put me in Benchmark when I was 15 instead of the state Juvenile Prison (Utah Territorial Reform School) I would have torched the place and helped guys like you run! We could have taken the staff's car and headed for the Haight, which I did. They could not of held me and lock ups should not exist except for a very small percentage of kids that are going to really put a hurt on someone like the dudes I worked with in Maximum Security prisons in the condemned men's unit.
As to Layne Meacham's infamous difficulties with Utah's reform school system: yes, I did know. And I found it rather telling that ADA choose to relate said paragraph ... just after I made reference to "The Equalizer."
I'm not sure how frequently Layne Meacham chose to refer to himself that way, but he did so in an article from 1988 which also discussed these same events from his youth.
My guess is that these events colored Meacham's take on ... what best might be done for other kids in same or similar shoes. Care to share some more insight on these watershed years, Mr. Antidefamation Assoc./Meacham?
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The question comes down to what would you do with your 16 year old son or daughter that was having sex with a meth dealer that was was 33 years old and giving her venereal warts and keeping her strung out on meth. A little one on one with a empathic counselor usually doesn't do the job. So you as a parent are realistically looking at options. Do you put them in Benchmark or with the wing flappers in Straight. I say neither. I say you leave them home and do in home support with therapists, rec therapists, tutors and good LSAC's that understand 12 step. However where some of the Fornit philosophy goes south is the idea of purely and solely voluntary treatment for adolescents. If you do nothing other than one on one counselling each week your kid is going to probably going to end up in Youth Corrections which is not good. They will then through the force of the Court put them in a State Lock Up with a lot tougher kids, they are mini prisons. Undergraduate for the Prison. Soooooo we have to look at community based alternatives that work and don't hurt the kid. But if your philosophy is just do nothing, you give all the credibility to the PURE folks. When I worked for the National Center out of Boston we showed the state how to deal with the toughest kids in the community, but sometimes you literally have to hold a kid. Not beat him, or call him dirty names but set some limits. If Fornits is not advocating limits the only audience you will have is disgrundled former inmates of the horse shit wilderness and private lockups and of course the Straight alum. (remember I still didn't get the arm flapping). So we have PURE and Fornits on the extreme side of the continuum. We need to see what treatment is acceptable. I cannot accept that you have to have treatment purely voluntary for an addicted 15 year old. They developmentally cannot cognitively have enough introspection. On the other hand I don't believe you should lock a kid up for being gay or for being a communist.
What do you think
What kind of white paper could you deliver at a US conference that would protect the kids 14 amendment rights and yet save his life without the State slamming the kid into a lock up shit hole for a year or two.
Carry on,
Dubuffet (new name)
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The question comes down to what would you do with your 16 year old son or daughter that was having sex with a meth dealer that was was 33 years old and giving her venereal warts and keeping her strung out on meth. A little one on one with a empathic counselor usually doesn't do the job. So you as a parent are realistically looking at options. Do you put them in Benchmark or with the wing flappers in Straight. I say neither. I say you leave them home and do in home support with therapists, rec therapists, tutors and good LSAC's that understand 12 step.
I think most on this site would agree with you, though i'm partial to non-12-step treatments. 12 step treatment sees drug use as a disease in itself. I see it as a symptom of deeper problems. If you deal with the cause you get rid of the effects. I think an empathic counselor can go a long way in that regard, even if you don't.
However where some of the Fornit philosophy goes south is the idea of purely and solely voluntary treatment for adolescents. If you do nothing other than one on one counselling each week your kid is going to probably going to end up in Youth Corrections which is not good. They will then through the force of the Court put them in a State Lock Up with a lot tougher kids, they are mini prisons. Undergraduate for the Prison. Soooooo we have to look at community based alternatives that work and don't hurt the kid. But if your philosophy is just do nothing, you give all the credibility to the PURE folks.
Opinions on this site vary wildly on what to do but personally, my phillsophy is not to do nothing, but to convince a person that change is a good idea. That can be done in any number of ways and I don't think it requires any sort of harsh intervention.
See. The way I see it, and 12 step would probably agree, is that you can't force a person to admit they have a problem and doing so will likely only be temporary. True change has to come from within.
When I worked for the National Center out of Boston we showed the state how to deal with the toughest kids in the community, but sometimes you literally have to hold a kid. Not beat him, or call him dirty names but set some limits. If Fornits is not advocating limits the only audience you will have is disgrundled former inmates of the horse shit wilderness and private lockups and of course the Straight alum. (remember I still didn't get the arm flapping). So we have PURE and Fornits on the extreme side of the continuum. We need to see what treatment is acceptable. I cannot accept that you have to have treatment purely voluntary for an addicted 15 year old. They developmentally cannot cognitively have enough introspection.
I'd have to disagree there. I think that teenagers are often impulsive and wild, but I don't think they're incapable of looking at themselves and realizing where they might be headed. I think it is possible to convince a person that change could be a good idea... and if they don't agree... Well. Some kids just have to learn the hard way. The way I see it programs only postpone that and give the kids an identity as "sick".
Here is sort of how I feel about the whole issue in terms of what is a good idea to help the kids:
http://www.peele.net/lib/panic.html (http://www.peele.net/lib/panic.html)
On the other hand I don't believe you should lock a kid up for being gay or for being a communist.
Yeah, but there is no due process to prevent that from happening and many facilities are more than happy to comply.
What kind of white paper could you deliver at a US conference that would protect the kids 14 amendment rights and yet save his life without the State slamming the kid into a lock up shit hole for a year or two.
Well. My argument would be controversial, even here. I think that if kids harm others they should be punished for it, not treated. If a kid steals a car, don't say the disease made them do it and give them an excuse. Punish them for the choice while encouraging them that they can change. The criminial justice system is no picnic for kids, sure, but at least it respects a person's self determination, something that forced treatment generally does not.
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Well, I'm not sure that I can address everything in your post at the moment, Dubuffet, but I do wish to clear up a misconception ya might be having about the PURE folk. Maybe ya don't have a misconception, and I'm simply misreading ya. At any rate, it bears repeating in case someone totally new to this is reading along...
If I recall correctly, that acronym stands for Parents' Universal Resource Experts, and they are about as lily-white as the evil stepmother was, not at all like Snow White.
PURE used to stand for Parents' Universal Referral Experts, and that is precisely what they actually do, both back then as now. You could say they are bounty hunters of a sort, referring parents to programs which then give PURE a (substantial) "finder's fee" for directing said parents their way.
Psy has a nice site (http://http://www.sueschefftruth.com/) on Sue Scheff's shenanigans in case you want to check that out some more...
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However where some of the Fornit philosophy goes south is the idea of purely and solely voluntary treatment for adolescents. If you do nothing other than one on one counselling each week your kid is going to probably going to end up in Youth Corrections which is not good. They will then through the force of the Court put them in a State Lock Up with a lot tougher kids, they are mini prisons. Undergraduate for the Prison. Soooooo we have to look at community based alternatives that work and don't hurt the kid.
Here is where you touch on some of what I wanted to pick your brain about. What was going on in Utah during the 1970s that made you try to create a Straight-based program (sans the arm flapping) as an alternative? From what I've read, you were not exactly alone in thinking that the brutal "prisons for kids" of the juvenile justice system were not getting the job done.
"Community-based" or not, what was so substantially different about your programs than juvie when it came to the coercion level employed? In fact, it would appear that your programs were more coercive (albeit perhaps less physically restrictive) than what went on in juvie.
Ironically, or perhaps not, Utah today seems to be a mecca for coercive programs of every shade and hue. It is home to more programs than any other state by a landslide.
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Ursus, I am think I can offer some history and insight into the evolution of the treatment philosophy and so on and will be happy to answer any question you may have. However I would ask that like Psy you give me a little back ground on yourself, afterall I don't want this to be a deposition or a Bill OReiley interview.
A lot of the treatment folks would say you are seeking revenge and are angry because of your own experience as a former Straight or Kids alum or Wilderness escapee or whatever. Psy was so forthcoming and open I completely changed my perspective about him and I don't think he was working me. The original trigger that started all this was your definitive statement that I had been sued (civil action) for abuse. So we need to dispose of that matter, but even more importantly are you willing to share as Psy and I have about your treatment experience. You seem way to passionate about all this stuff to just be a guy that found a cause he liked and jumped on the band wagon. Have you ever been in Straight or another program or has your kids or what?
I think some positive stuff can come from this as I have over 45 years experience of either being in the system or working to keep kids out of the system, so can you share a little about your background and prior history with programs?
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Psy you, like the man before the saducees and pharasees have impressed me. I'm no longer pissed off at you, but I will not make you my David Koresh like some of the others have on this site. You honestly forthrightly responded to a perfect stranger and gave me private information. This tells me you do have introspection and probably are a very interesting guy. Now I can tell you who the real masked man is....I am Meacham. But I have never been so knocked on my ass with the honesty you respond with and how open you are. I hate lock ups. If they would have put me in Benchmark when I was 15 instead of the state Juvenile Prison (Utah Territorial Reform School) I would have torched the place and helped guys like you run! We could have taken the staff's car and headed for the Haight, which I did. They could not of held me and lock ups should not exist except for a very small percentage of kids that are going to really put a hurt on someone like the dudes I worked with in Maximum Security prisons in the condemned men's unit. I will say that I have never laid a hand on a kid, or sexually or physically abused a kid. I have cussed a lot around them and used a lot of peer pressure, but never tried to take their dignity. And I have been wounded by the false accusations coming from kids but also healed by kids that accredit my 12 step oriented program (harsh but not abusive) with helping them fulfill their dreams. last month a prominent 36 year old woman was presenting to the legislature, she is now an important real estate broker and millionaire and came right out of the committe room and hugged me over and over. I admire your tenacity and if the Bear is as forthright as you and he has his motives in the right place he is ok too.
When I am wrong I admit it and I believe I was wrong about you and I appologize.
I was selected as one of Utah's 100 most honored living artists by the 2002 Winter Olympics Cultural Olympiad. You can google Utah Artist Project to see some of my work. I have murals in Westminster College, Utah State University, Utah Museum of Art, the Springville Museum and other county and state facilities. Check it out and let me know what you think. I am heavily influenced by Dubuffet and James Havard.
I will be heading for Cartegena Colombia in a few years so I can leave it all behind.
Bien, amigo me despido por ahora,
Layne Meacham LCSW
Did you know ever someone called Mel Wasserman or Charles E. Deidrich?
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Ursus, I am think I can offer some history and insight into the evolution of the treatment philosophy and so on and will be happy to answer any question you may have. However I would ask that like Psy you give me a little back ground on yourself, afterall I don't want this to be a deposition or a Bill OReiley interview.
A lot of the treatment folks would say you are seeking revenge and are angry because of your own experience as a former Straight or Kids alum or Wilderness escapee or whatever. Psy was so forthcoming and open I completely changed my perspective about him and I don't think he was working me. The original trigger that started all this was your definitive statement that I had been sued (civil action) for abuse. So we need to dispose of that matter, but even more importantly are you willing to share as Psy and I have about your treatment experience. You seem way to passionate about all this stuff to just be a guy that found a cause he liked and jumped on the band wagon. Have you ever been in Straight or another program or has your kids or what?
I think some positive stuff can come from this as I have over 45 years experience of either being in the system or working to keep kids out of the system, so can you share a little about your background and prior history with programs?
Ursus are you there? I was waiting for your reply as to what drives your compulsion to clean up the lock-up industry?
Did you have a kid in kids or straight? Are you Phil Elberg the attorney that sued Straight. Golly I feel like the big bully in Tomstone (Billy Bob Thornton) when Doc introduces him to Wyatt. However I am dying to know why the obsession. I can see why with Crawford or someone else that has been unduly locked up, but what the hey with the Bear? Oh and I forgot to tell you, I have seen attorneys misspell words on pleadings, its just that I am ADD and tend to need a lot of editing.
Dubuffet (still never have met Newton or been sued for abuse)
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Dubuffet (still never have met Newton or been sued for abuse)
What about Charles E. Deidrich? 'Ever lay with that dog?
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Who is he?
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Who is he?
Charles E. Dederich was the founder of Synanon.
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Who is he?
He's the guy who popularized the peer confrontation tactic at his cult, Synanon.
Mel Wasserman imported it to "CEDU," the sort of prisons you oppose. Don't worry, knowing them does not make you tainted; I'd just like to know what they were like, if you did know them or anything about them.
They murdered many, many young people at their respective gulags, and drove others insane.
Synanon
http://www.rickross.com/groups/synanon.html (http://www.rickross.com/groups/synanon.html)
Mel Wasserman, CEDU
http://liamscheff.com/daily/cedu-documentary/ (http://liamscheff.com/daily/cedu-documentary/)
http://www.heal-online.org/cedu.htm (http://www.heal-online.org/cedu.htm)
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Mel Wasserman imported it to "CEDU," the sort of prisons you oppose. Don't worry, knowing them does not make you tainted; I'd just like to know what they were like, if you did know them or anything about them.
Layne Meacham doesn't oppose Mel Wasserman's "sort of prisons," Guest. He founded two programs of his own, based on Seed/Straight models of peer group pressure and host homes.
Layne Meacham has issues with juvenile justice lockups, the type that have actual bars on the windows and alarmed doors and big fat guards with jingly keys, where you are locked in a jail cell for most of the time, and which are funded and run by the state.
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Psy was so forthcoming and open I completely changed my perspective about him and I don't think he was working me.
Lol, but you're not working me, no? ::evil::
Suffice it to say that I was in a program, or two, or three ... the ultimate reason for which should have been illegal to incarcerate anyone at the time. Perhaps it was. I'm sure that you can find some of that should you care to peruse my posts, such as I've chosen to tell. As for more than that, you'll just have to take it on faith. I find it prudent to deal with this at my own pace.
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Mel Wasserman imported it to "CEDU," the sort of prisons you oppose. Don't worry, knowing them does not make you tainted; I'd just like to know what they were like, if you did know them or anything about them.
Layne Meacham doesn't oppose Mel Wasserman's "sort of prisons," Guest. He founded two programs of his own, based on Seed/Straight models of peer group pressure and host homes.
Layne Meacham has issues with juvenile justice lockups, the type that have actual bars on the windows and alarmed doors and big fat guards with jingly keys, where you are locked in a jail cell for most of the time, and which are funded and run by the state.
I wish that that debate could be reserved for after Layne is kind enough to share any info he has about these creeps.
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MR. BEAR, DID YOU FIND ANY EVIDENCE RELATING TO CIVIL ACTIONS BROUGHT AGAINST ME OR TYING ME TO MR. MILLER?
I am getting confused on this deal who is speaking. And what the hell is all this jargon, like what is a thread, screed on so on? One so called guest (another phantom) said I was not opposed to this waserman dude and that I founded a program based on Straight. The Program I founded was based on a model that Yitzhak Bakal of North Eastern Family institute started in Boston (Yitzhak lives in Marblehead Mass) give him a call the program was called Proctor after a program also in Mass in New Bedford Mass. A lot of the programming came from a friend and professor of mine at Colombia University who wrote a book on positive norms, his name was Howard Polsky. Now you can all call Yitzhak and see if I am the terrible monster that the "guest" or whoever the hell is speaking. Howard passed away but I don't have any idea what the hell Straight does other than what I have seen on the news. And I am not part of a fraternity of nefarious evil lockup providers like this Wassman or Steinberg or who ever the hell you are associating me with. It is a lot like a Hitler stigmitization type of deal. This Meacham is one of them and therefore he should not pass go he should go straight to Aushwitz (sp) without first giving him due process. Kind of an Oxbow incident type of deal.
Ursus you and the gang are all talking about your 14th amendment rights to due process before your liberty interests are taken, and yet you stigmatize and black ball me with no evidence whatsoever. You are doing the exact same thing your parents or who ever had custody of you did. Take away your liberty without due process. What due process have you given me Ursus before you libeled me. You still have not offered any evidence e.g., case #-s or whatever to prove that I have ever been sued for abuse. Psy said that you are a solid researcher and he believes you have integrity and I guess would not try to take anyones dignity without the evidence. But you have not listed any cases or other citations regarding this or that I am good buds with this Newton dude. Give me his damn number and I will call him and have him sign an affidavit that we have never met!
It was my understanding that Newton started Kids, not Straight. What-s up with that. I believe that you all have a point about due process before they lock you up, but you never want to offer it to anyone else, before you stigmatize someone. In federal case law that is known as the stigma plus doctrine, but it has to be a state employee acting under the color of state law.
Now if it is come clean time hear from now on lets all admit where we were punished and what the charges were. Psy stated his charge was for political reasons and sexual preferences and Ursus you have not revealed your reasons for institutionalization. You all always say look it up. Where how? What the hell why not just tell us.
Well so much for this site it appears that your detractors like this PURE deal (what a bogus handle that is) and others may have a point that you are just loose cannons making allegations about people that cannot be substantiated. Your'e all just way pissed off about having to endure your PTSD from being denied due process. Hell I have PTSD from Khe Sahn Vietnam, but I don't go around beating up Vietnamese dudes. In fact I love Pho Hoa.
Now then Ursus I have a proposal for you and your followers. Why don't you and I find a radio or television network that we can debate on and record. You can publicly slander me or whatever and I will argue that some sort of programming may be indicated for kids who are blasted to the gills every day on Meth and who are into other types of serious distructive behavior. These will be non straight non Benchmark, CADU, or any of the places you were put in. Will you accept the challenge, how can you turn it down. We can cover the whole spectrum of deinstitutionalization. By the way Psy the C.S. Lewis quote is not applicable as it refers to treatment of SPMI clients (Seriously and Persistently Mentally Ill). I believe Kant's argument on rights is more fitting. Check out Kant on Wikipedia, he argues its ok to bring your kid back physically if he runs away. Ursus wouldn't you stop your four year old from zooming out into the freeway on his hotwheels or would you first demand some procedural and substantive due process before you physically restrained him from colliding with a semi.
MR. BEAR (WYATT) WHERES THE EVIDENCE
Anyhow, lets get a national forum going on this you take the side of radical non intervention regardliess of what the kid does and the PUREE folks can take the Charter or Benchmark Behavior Health lock up approach and I will take the antithesis and you and me and the pure girl can all go on Keith Oberman or a local radio station. Then you can really lay the wood to me with all the language and jargon I have seen on this site. Call Yitzhak first and see if he thinks I am for locking up kids or brutilizing kids. He was Miller's deputy in the late 70's when Miller closed all the reform schools in Mass. While the legislature was out of session.
Can you get me the case numbers tonight or by tomorrow morning. Surely you are not relying on the newpaper, sometimes the newspapers have tended to distort the truth from time to time.
Carry on dude,(an old Neal Cassity saying to Kerouac, only without the Dude)
Oh and the same disclaimer applies about my ADD no gaurantees about spelling or grammer as there is no evidence to support the notion that intelligence and spelling have any relationship (Dr. John Atzet Ph.D., M.D)
Dubuffet [/b](formerly the Anti Defamation Association)
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Call Yitzhak first and see if he thinks I am for locking up kids or brutilizing kids. He was Miller's deputy in the late 70's when Miller closed all the reform schools in Mass. While the legislature was out of session.
Are you referring to Miller Newton here, or Jerome Miller (former Commissioner of Massachusetts Department of Youth Services)? If the latter, those reform school closures were in the very early 70s. By 1972, that was allegedly already a done deal. In reality, I believe there may have been a few who lagged behind schedule.
Some of those kids who would have previously ended up in reform schools, languished in detention centers or got sent to psychiatric institutions instead. Some lucky son-of-a-guns who straddled that changeover got sent to both in tandem. Hardly a time to celebrate "de-institutionalization," if you ask me...
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Here are some of the references that I dug up, allegedly tying you to Miller Newton:
First, here is what Wes Fager wrote (http://http://www.wesfager.com/reports/barbero.htm):
In 1989 Layne Meacham, founder of Proctor Advocate, another Utah program based, in part, on the Straight model, was charged with abusing a 16 year old girl in Proctor Advocate. He was convicted of a misdemeanor but a judge overturned the conviction citing that the jury had made errors.[/list]
Next, from the 1989 article 'Tough Love' may be child abuse (http://http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2AwQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eosDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6992%2C1501576) by Mike Carter (Associated Press):
And Proctor Advocate founder Layne Meacham faces charges he permitted the abuse of a 16-year-old girl by peer counselors. Meacham has testified he based his program partly on the teachings of the founder of KIDS.[/list]
Of course, getting the actual transcript of that case to see exactly, word for word, what you actually said in your testimony at that time, would clear this up in short order.
But here is another matter, perhaps of less interest to those in the camp of a Synanon/CEDU connection, but of great interest to me, and that is your use of the group confrontation by day/host homes by night modality. This has heretofore always been attributed to a Seed/Straight, Inc. source, but your usage of same has got me wondering...
Could you elaborate on that modality and your sources of inspiration for your programs?
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I'm interested too, Layne. I've heard your program used host homes and certain other Straight hallmarks. What was the program like, exactly, if you can describe it? Were there multiple phases? Were there "oldcomers" and "newcomers"? Did kids write MIs on a regular basis? Was the group style confrontational?
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But here is another matter, perhaps of less interest to those in the camp of a Synanon/CEDU conspiracy theory,
?
The Sananon CEDU connection is not 'conspiracy theory;' at this point its established fact.
I'm not trying to find out if Wasserman or Deidrich had influence on you, Lance. Just if you know anything about them.
They were your contemporaries, had similar interests(not saying you abused kids, just that you claimed an interest in helping kids through similar interventions) and you were in the basic same physical location physically, for awhile.
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Many out of control youth who are using drugs, having sex with their dealers for drugs and generally conduct disordered have harbored resentments towards program providers. Isn't it time they grew out of their resentments and went on with their lives.
I am SO sick of pro-program people using the fact that there ARE troubled people, and DRUG addicted people as a maligned justification for the existence of these unethical behaviour modification programs.
Stop them ALL now so the focus can be on legitimate health centered facilities that help sick people instead of raping their entire existence.
You suck!
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Counsellor Phil Elberg Esq. its one thing to hurl all over the lock-ups, and money grubbing fraudulent program people, but when you start mouthing Dr. Jerome Miller DSW and his life's work which has been to advocate for kids in real 100 year old snake pits and hell holes 100 times worse than the little bourgeousie rich kid lock ups, you have gone over the top. You have really exposed your ignorance to the system and the real advocates for kids. On the national seen you would be a fool and if you ever started to mouth Jerry's contribution in Mass, you would really get some hits on your sight...what is it you call it threads? What the hell is a thread and who made up that word? This only reaffirms my belief that you really are ignorant about the treatment field for conduct disordered addicted kids and about the legitimate youth work business (which Jerry or I believe should not include lock-ups for about 90 percent of the convicted Juvenile population). You like Psy believe a kid should never be restrained and should be able to come home loaded to the gills everynight, steal their parents money and car, and if the old man and old lady can't take it the kid might knock em on their ass. I know all the boys and girls who have survived the Phil Elberg Gulag's kiss your behind and believe that the big bad bear has survived Auschwitz. But Phil it is time to put up or shut up!
NOW Phil WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE THAT I WAS EVER SUED FOR ABUSE.
Your little pooper scooper has dug up Michael Carter's article, but you did not emphasis the fact that the prosecutor and the judge dismissed the case. Why is that Phil? Your little Waco bourgeousie following of survivors you daily court and teach to spray the area with "threads" of your bull is getting old. ?Why didn't you hoof it the out of Hyder or where ever you were interned if it was so bad. Some of us had the balls to run. You didn't and now you are attacking Jerry, Me, and the whole world. Don't you ever grow out of that crap? You know Phil Che Guevara finally got up from the coffee shop and said he had done enough talking and left to do something. Why don't you get off your butt and get some national legislation that would provide for some degree of due process before a kid is placed in a certain level of lock up. Preaching to the choir and stroking each other each day is just a type of masterbation that Che was sick of...he said as much. Oops the only problem is if you were to get some national legislation you would probably need to get the support of Jerry Miller and you have already written him off as a looser who destroyed the Massachusetts system.
Now then MIchael Crawford you are worried about words. You want to know if I tailored my program after Miller Newton and if we called them host homes, did MI's what ever the they are. We used the term Proctor's from John McManus' Proctor Program in New Bedford Mass. He gave me permission to do so. I may have said that our program is like Kids before I even really new what kids was. So is that a third degree felony Phil? Of course you have never misspoke like when you bad mouthed Jerry and the Massachusetts movement. Of course your little Spanish Inquisition has no tolerance. If you use the word host home you are a very evil person in the Cult of Fornits (what is a Fornit, sounds like a little bug or something)
Phil as far as Mike Carter your sacred source for info, you could not bear to emphasize that the case was thrown out!
Now dig a little deeper because the statement you made was that I have been sued multiple times for abuse. Now Counselor sueing is a civil process not a criminal matter, you do know the difference? All of your followers are counting on you to know the difference because you are the BEAR the big mean grizzley that is going to get all the dirty scum that think that sometimes some kids need some sort of limits for their distructive behaviors. Please let us know when you get a case number!
And I might ad Phil if you ran a program and was in the field for over 30 years you would have a good chance of getting a false allegation thrown at you from time to time. M.D.'s Psychotherapists and even members of the Bar receive allegations when their customers can't pay or when the customer is a borderline personality or have their feelings hurt. Has anyone checked your bar file. Please give me you Bar License Number and let me know what state you are in because I gaurantee I am going to download it on this site.
I realize that you are the acting David Koresh for all of the little rich kids who feed off of your bull everyday because you need to keep them hooked into your cult. You have to have their dependency on you, like Miller Newton did with the parents that relied on him. Your the man, the great white father who is going to get them justice! But you mouth Jerry Miller even though his contribution to the world is mega, postitive. He is soft spoken and loved. He is unyeilding when it comes to locking people up. People are drawn to Jerry because he doesn't try to be the big bad bear (you need a new handle dude, you aint that tough). Some of us had to fight some bugger every day just to be able to take a shower. You on the other hand had a nice buffet at Hyde School or wherever, you are not willing to say yet, I guess it kinda embarrases you huh. You also had clean sheets and and a daily therapist if necessary. I had a clip board to the cheek every day from staff. if some 20 year old future prisoner wasn't kicking the crap out of me with his grapes of wrath boots (like the Jobes wore) a staff member was hitting me in the back of the head. We all wore state boots, levis and levi coats, T-Shirts with a number right under our little chinny chin chins. You don't even know what 1940's looking state school boots look like because you were wearing $200.00 tennis shoes and clothing from the GAP (MIchael did you know there is a GAP on the corner of Haight and Ashbury now).
Now Mr. Elberg I want all of your following to consider this. Why won't Phil debate me on national T.V. Grizzley Adams Elberg can take the anti Kantian position that a kid should never have any limits no matter what! He should be able to do doobies in the living room of his home, shoot up crystal in his room, steal the parents money and I guess Counsellor Elsberg would think that someone who rapes his sister should not be restrained in any manner. I will argue that there are many ways to work with kids with the above problems without locking them up or brutilizing them. Now when Phil grows some cojones and sets up the debate you groupies can all watch on T.V. or hear on radio the debate and we will see who is full of crap. But your Great Grizzley Bear leader Phil Elberg will not take the challenge. All of you that want to can come. We can even have the PUREE folks there to argue the Wilderness and Provo Canyon School or Hyde School line. If they don't show they will be considered cohojone challenged and I will publically call them cowards who misdiagnose kids as dysthymic disorder just to get the insurance money.
So here is your home work Phil. Get the case numbers for the suits you said existed against me, or be man enough to admit you were wrong on that one issue. Find a hotel receipt with me and this Newton guy sharing a room. And Psy don't sweat the small stuff as to whether I have ever referred to Kids, Straight or Newton. I have never met him and if over 20 years ago I referenced a program I had read about or seen on T.V. I am sorry. The 23 year old reference to that type of programming was before anyone new of any alleged abuse by Kids or Straight etc. Go over to Germany and see if any Arians were ever killed for identifying with Jews.
Now Mr. Elberg will you meet for a debate, you can slander me all across the country. All of your underlings and followers can tune in and we will see just what kind of guy you really are. Maybe I will take off your Wizard of Oz Grizzley Bear facade and expose you for the little wounded kid who is spending his life getting even. You choose the time and place and because I am not part of your beourgeosie class I will have to get air fare or do it through public television or something.
'
Finally all Grizzley Adams Phil Elberg followers. I am willing to with your support initiate a movement to get a national law that will require that all State's must provide substantive and procedural due process to youth who are about to be placed in a private facility or program with a high degree of security or restraint, like Benchmark or Hyde if that is what Hyde was. Each state would have to have a predeprivation hearing that the parents would have to go through that would prove that there is no less restrictive alternative to lock up or a Newtonian or Hyde type of program. Each state could contract out the administrative hearing to a third party who is disinterested and the Parents would be required to prove at the clear and convincing level of evidence that the proposed level of lock up or programming is warranted. Maybe we can even go as far as to envoke Miranda or some sort of Mathews v. Eldrege or Loudermill type of thresh hold (Phil have your para legal look up these cases) for a hearing which would allow representation from a third party, not necessarily a Phil Elberg at $350.00 an hour, just even dumb social worker like me for $50.00 an hour or whatever.
Now, doesn't that sound better than to just sitting around win Phil's Wayne's World around and slandering these lockup PURE people. Wouldn't it be much more rational to cut off the head of the snake and at the same time educate the parents that Hyde or Benchmark or Cinnamon Stick or Wilderness World is to restrictive and not necessary?
Only problem is Dr. Phil has already bad mouthed the number one dude that could pull it off and that is Jerry Miller. He can likely get an audience with Kennedy or Feinstein et al. Phil can stay home and play with himself and call all the providers poo poo heads and waste thousands of man hours on this Borderline Personality Site. Enough awareness and mouthing, lets like Che get off our butts and make some real change. Phil I recommend you read Alinskys rules for radicals and George Brager's book community organizing which I have memorized.
So the machine is in place we just need to find a legislator and I will donate all of my time and 45 years of experience to get er done!
Phil if you don't come up with the case numbers, or a smoking gun to tie me to Newton and don't have the balls to debate with me, I don't have the time or inclination to play in your sick little sand box any longer. If any of you want to codify your anger and philosophy of treatment into national legislation I would be willing to talk with you. Please only serious and real people I'm too old to take telephone harassment and I have heard all the nasty words in reform school, the Marine Corp and the condemed men's unit at Ely State Maximum Security Prison where I worked, and it is a crime, check with the law offices of Phil Elberg Esq. My cell is 801 419 0824 don't call after 8pm Utah I will be sprawled out on my bed and eating fig newtons and bouncing the channels between O'reiley and Keith Oberman or watching red box B movie, thats all I can afford. By the way Phil I am not just an Abstract Artist as you stated, I am the clinical director of an alcohol and drug program for adults, no false allegations of abuse there, but it is early, maybe you can defend me when it happens.(if any of you are interested in art just google Utah Artist Project Marriott Collection and you can see what's in my ADD mind)
Carry on Dudes,
Layne
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Now now, give me a break the new rules are honesty, honesty, honesty. So you like Michale Crawford and Phillip Elberg have to tell us all where you were interned and what you did. If not as Michael says we cannot take you serious, this is not a drive by cuss hurling contest where you throw a tantrum. Come clean, now were you ever locked up and what for.
And do you really know anything about me other than what you have read or been spoon fed by your big daddy Phil? Do you have a mind of your own?
Didn't you just hate it when the program people falsely accused you of stuff. It pissed you off didn't it. By the way will you throw in a few bucks for the National Legislative drive for due process or do you just want to use the dirty little words and then run back an play your video games.
Dubuffet
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you are the BEAR the big mean grizzley that is going to get all the dirty scum that think that sometimes some kids need some sort of limits for their distructive behaviors
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Of COURSE kids need limits, and of COURSE these facilities prey on vulnerable families in crisis.
I am SO sick of pro-program people using the fact that there ARE troubled people, and DRUG addicted people as a maligned justification for the existence of these unethical behaviour modification programs.
Stop them ALL now so the focus can be on legitimate health centered facilities that help sick people instead of raping their entire existence.
You suck!
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Phil I just wrote CBC and asked them why they gave you the pass they did. You had unfettered time to blatther your self righteous B.S. I told them if they want to see a real 5th Element Cult to tune into your Fornit deal and see how your little mind control of all your little groupie cry babies are worshipping and defending you far more than any one did Wasimer, Newton or Steinberg or even Koresh.
You remind me of that old broad on the movie DOUBT where the Priest was falsely accused by that old heater nun. You should watch that movie, it will enhance your witch hunting skills and show you how to really crucify a youth worker. After all , all youth workers are satan, right Mr. Phillip Elberg . I wonder if your law firm knows the extent to which you are libeling the world. Maybe they would see a "thread" of a conflict of interest or maybe the New Jersey bar would question your wholesale libel as being violative of the cannon of ethics. I will check with them..
Now call the CBC people and tell them you agree to debate me, don't punk out in front of all your thousands of teddy bears.
They are counting on you to distroy people like me, just like the priest in DOUBT (Psy what is his name he played Truman Capote)
Carry on,
Dubuffet
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I think a guy named Layne tried to give me a rim job in Beijing once.
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Phil I just wrote CBC and asked them why they gave you the pass they did. You had unfettered time to blatther your self righteous B.S. I told them if they want to see a real 5th Element Cult to tune into your Fornit deal and see how your little mind control of all your little groupie cry babies are worshipping and defending you far more than any one did Wasimer, Newton or Steinberg or even Koresh.
You remind me of that old broad on the movie DOUBT where the Priest was falsely accused by that old heater nun. You should watch that movie, it will enhance your witch hunting skills and show you how to really crucify a youth worker. After all , all youth workers are satan, right Mr. Phillip Elberg . I wonder if your law firm knows the extent to which you are libeling the world. Maybe they would see a "thread" of a conflict of interest or maybe the New Jersey bar would question your wholesale libel as being violative of the cannon of ethics. I will check with them..
Now call the CBC people and tell them you agree to debate me, don't punk out in front of all your thousands of teddy bears.
They are counting on you to distroy people like me, just like the priest in DOUBT (Psy what is his name he played Truman Capote)
Carry on,
Dubuffet
Layne, I just wanna know if you have any info about Charles Dedrich or Mel Wassermen. You haven't said yay or nay about that. If you have any, we'd love to hear it-- whatever it is.
help us out, if you can. thanks
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Call Yitzhak first and see if he thinks I am for locking up kids or brutilizing kids. He was Miller's deputy in the late 70's when Miller closed all the reform schools in Mass. While the legislature was out of session.
Are you referring to Miller Newton here, or Jerome Miller (former Commissioner of Massachusetts Department of Youth Services)? If the latter, those reform school closures were in the very early 70s. By 1972, that was allegedly already a done deal. In reality, I believe there may have been a few who lagged behind schedule.
Some of those kids who would have previously ended up in reform schools, languished in detention centers or got sent to psychiatric institutions instead. Some lucky son-of-a-guns who straddled that changeover got sent to both in tandem. Hardly a time to celebrate "de-institutionalization," if you ask me...
when you start mouthing Dr. Jerome Miller DSW and his life's work which has been to advocate for kids in real 100 year old snake pits and hell holes 100 times worse than the little bourgeousie rich kid lock ups, you have gone over the top. You have really exposed your ignorance to the system and the real advocates for kids. On the national seen you would be a fool and if you ever started to mouth Jerry's contribution in Mass, you would really get some hits on your sight...what is it you call it threads? What the hell is a thread and who made up that word? This only reaffirms my belief that you really are ignorant about the treatment field for conduct disordered addicted kids and about the legitimate youth work business (which Jerry or I believe should not include lock-ups for about 90 percent of the convicted Juvenile population).
...Some of us had the balls to run. You didn't and now you are attacking Jerry, Me, and the whole world.
...Oops the only problem is if you were to get some national legislation you would probably need to get the support of Jerry Miller and you have already written him off as a looser who destroyed the Massachusetts system.
...I may have said that our program is like Kids before I even really new what kids was. So is that a third degree felony Phil? Of course you have never misspoke like when you bad mouthed Jerry and the Massachusetts movement.
...Only problem is Dr. Phil has already bad mouthed the number one dude that could pull it off and that is Jerry Miller.
...But you mouth Jerry Miller even though his contribution to the world is mega, postitive. He is soft spoken and loved. He is unyeilding when it comes to locking people up. People are drawn to Jerry because he doesn't try to be the big bad bear (you need a new handle dude, you aint that tough).
Mr. Meacham, I fail to see what on earth in my post caused this tremendous outpour of invective and presumption of ill will. My grumble, such as it was, concerned a particular case that I happen to be familiar with.
My post, quick frankly, was a serious question, asking for clarification as to the identity of "Miller." I guess I got my answer.
Btw, I don't believe I ever stated or intimated that I was Phil Elberg, Esq.
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I'd like to go back to some things you said earlier regarding ideological roots.
Yitzhak Bakal, as far as I can make out, is heavily connected to the juvenile justice system. He studied under Howard Polsky, as did you, at Columbia University's School of Social Work. It is hard for me to believe that Polsky, who wrote Cottage Six: The Social System of Delinquent Boys in Residential Treatment (1962), was unaware of Lloyd McCorkle's seminal work The Highfields story; an experimental treatment project for youthful offenders (1958; co-authors Albert Elias and F. Lovell Bixby). In fact, both of these scholars are oft found in the same assortment of references for investigations of others in the field...
McCorkle was based just 'cross the Hudson river in the New Jersey penal system, and Highfields was an evolution of his ideas on using a therapeutic community modality in the penal system. He had also published on a similar experiment in the adult penal system in 1949. He called his method "Guided Group Interaction." Ever hear of it? Care to comment?
"The peer group acts as a leveler or "equalizer," insuring that its members do not stray too far from its ranks."
Source (http://http://shelness.googlepages.com/Guided_Group_Interaction.pdf)[/list]
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Counsellor Phil Elberg Esq. its one thing to hurl all over the lock-ups, and money grubbing fraudulent program people, but when you start mouthing Dr. Jerome Miller DSW and his life's work which has been to advocate for kids in real 100 year old snake pits and hell holes 100 times worse than the little bourgeousie rich kid lock ups, you have gone over the top. You have really exposed your ignorance to the system and the real advocates for kids. On the national seen you would be a fool and if you ever started to mouth Jerry's contribution in Mass, you would really get some hits on your sight...what is it you call it threads? What the hell is a thread and who made up that word? This only reaffirms my belief that you really are ignorant about the treatment field for conduct disordered addicted kids and about the legitimate youth work business (which Jerry or I believe should not include lock-ups for about 90 percent of the convicted Juvenile population). You like Psy believe a kid should never be restrained and should be able to come home loaded to the gills everynight, steal their parents money and car, and if the old man and old lady can't take it the kid might knock em on their ass.
Not sure what anybody else feels about it but no, I do not agree with that. I think there should be stiff punishment and maybe even criminal prosecution if there is harm done to another person or his/her property. I'm just not in favor of forced treatment since I consider it far more cruel than incarceration on it's own... especially the sort of treatment you see discussed on this forum, regardless of whether you choose to believe it or not.
One problem I have is that it's a treatment that causes permanent change (not necessarily the change intended) that the manner of this change is a process that is completely devoid of informed consent. I've never had a problem with treatment somebody consents to so long as what the treatment entails is honestly and openly represented. More often than not, such is just not the case.
It seems that folk like you would rather incarcerate a person and convince them that their actions were not their fault but a product of their "disease". I'm sorry. I feel that's a cop out. If you hurt somebody, the substance didn't make you do it. People are responsible for their own actions and should be punished accordingly. Like C.S Lewis said:
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better’, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.
It's much easier to say "i'm sorry for what I did. I was sick. I'm doing amends for this program in order so that I'll feel better about myself" than it is to say "I'm sorry, it was my fault and there is no excuse. Let me make amends.".
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If you use the word host home you are a very evil person in the Cult of Fornits (what is a Fornit, sounds like a little bug or something)
...
I realize that you are the acting David Koresh for all of the little rich kids who feed off of your bull everyday because you need to keep them hooked into your cult.
Fornits is an open forum which is pretty much the polar opposite from anybody's definition of a cult. Cults use thought reform which requires control over communication (among several other things). Here:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/brain ... ing19.html (http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing19.html)
You're free to use the term any way you choose, but using it incorrectly just makes you look ignorant.
PS: the term "fornit" comes from a Stephen King novel. It's a tiny creature that lives under your keyboard and ghostwrites things when you aren't looking.
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some program fuckwad waste of oxygen said: You are doing the exact same thing your parents or who ever had custody of you did. Take away your liberty without due process.
No, dipshit, no one here is doing anything like what was done to us at the teen mindfuck mills of which you are so enamoured. For you to equate a vigorous challenge, or even a hypothetically slanderous accusation, with what was done to any of us who actually went through one of Miller Newton's/George Deidrich/Vause, etc. teen torture camps, is insulting.
Kill yourself now and save millions from the pain and suffering you continue to create.
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Well, so now the Big Bad Bear wants anonymity, and Michael Crawford wants no treatment regardless, kind of an anarchist, or nihilism type of deal. You have all gone back to hiding and taking cowardly pot shots. You have now mouthed Howard Polsky, Yitzhak, Jerome Miller and me and others who have genuinely tried to move the system along to be more humane. Nobody knows what you want you are like little Armidinijads or something. All you want to do is try to terrorize 'program' people as if they were lepers. You want the immediate closure off all programs. You have no alternative and you cannot back up your slanders. The last Asian guy ,cowardly little comment on 'RIM JOB was intelligent, he's the dude you need put out front to sell your proposition, you will get a lot of mileage out of him. He says nasty little words and then runs like a punky coward back to his video game without identifying himself. Real impressive in the real world of adult politics.
Now Ursus am I getting too close and you don't like it, I will be calling your office in a few minutes to see if you are still the Phil Elberg, Crawford said you were, maybe you have just turned to chicken shit. You haven't proven a damn thing as far as your libel e.g., that I have been sued multiple times for abuse and I was a Newtons underling. In stead you send in Mr. Chin's dirty little adolescent mouth to give you cover.
So Psy you did not respond to the Che action idea of getting something done in congress so I know who and what you are now, a damn cry baby that only wants to have tantrums and maybe you do need some time out, hell maybe your parents put you in Benchmark for more serious things than you were not willing to admit to. If your parents saw this site just before they admitted you, they sure as hell would not have been hindered in their decision, they would have been encouraged! I know you are cajone challenged because you go along the the ambulance chasing Elberg with the mouthing of Yitzhak, Jerry and Howard, people that moved away from lock up. As far as all this group peer pressure you are all horrified about, what the hell do you think this Stephan King Bug sight is doing, its pure liquid synanon. You use obscene language towards anyone you suspect of being a program person. You all gang up and as a group confront the hell out of the 'program person'. Its Hollywood Blacklist time in Fornit World. There is no intellect or alternative to PURE, just dirty littl resentful bad mouthers who hide under their worn out computers. Can't you just see the Asian dude sitting down with Harry Reid. Sen Reid did me some favors and wrote some letters, do you think we should take Rim Job along (kind of sounds like a chinese restaurant RIMM JOB. Can't you get some impressive thinking people or is Rim Job it.
Phil Elberg hasn't done shit. All he wants to do is malign and mouth good people and the news is, in case you are so closed under your keyboards like fornits, parents with acting out kids aren't going to take you seriously as you put it. In fact the more cry baby mouthing and drive by anonymous little Rim Job remarks you post the more the parents will gravitate to Benchmark, and Cinnamon Stick. The parents know how to read and will look at the immature dirty little remarks on this rag talk to the woman at PURE. Now what do you think is going to be the outcome. YOU psy with this bug crap site are literally putting kids into Cinnamon Stick, Jeckle and Hyde School and Benchmark. Can't you see that. You need to hurl this site into the toilet and come up with a site like PURE has with a list of reasonable rational alternatives to Benchmark. And I know you look up to Phil but he is not helping. He's too busy looking for a Plaintiff! I know, I have been out in the world a little longer than most of you and Elberg would not turn down a lushish Plaintiff with the prospects of he and his firm netting millions. Of course it will all go to charity and not to remodeling his house or trips to Nassau.
By the way Phil what was your lawfirms cut on the $4,500,000. Arn't you just fishing and ambulance chasing to try to find another plaintiff so you can net another $2mil. Bet you never thought you had been used like that Psy. This Phil dude is trying to find another program with insurance that has brutilized some kid and who he can make another big publishers clearing house jack pot. He really is, you may not be experienced or old enough to see the obvious conflict of interest. Phil Elberg is ambulance chasing and you are his lead dog to sniff out possible cases. I'll say it to his law partners face in a few minutes.
Now Psy, maybe you can be salvaged. The fact is there is no smoking gun on Meacham. No dockets no Miller Newton sleep overs like with Captain Kirk and the other dude in Boston Legal.
I'll give Bear Elberg's office a call in a few minutes Elberg if you have the guts to talk to me and come out from behind your stupid little bear costume and come to the phone it will be interestin. And Crawford why don't you give me your cell in France and I can talk to you. But I don't believe any of you are going to get off your asses at the coffee shop, game room, or from behind your computers and introduce legislation.
Your too wounded, handicapped and too full of hate and resentment. So party on, my professioal prognosis is that the PURE folks will continue to thrive even more with this little Fornit buzzing around with the total effect of a misquito without malaria.
By the way if Phil can muster up the courage you still owe us the evidence of the civil actions against me as well as the tie to Newton. But we all know by now he is full of crap and that you were a damn lier on that deal.
I hope I hear from the CBC on our debate as Elberg was given a complete pass to cry his eyes out without self revealing anything. We all know that Elberg is gutless and won't debate me publically. He will just keep on his little bear suit on like the fast food company mascots and have his little Fornits like Chin use dirty little language against everyone like 'rim job' maybe he will grow some cojones.
Now watch all the little Fornit Bugs come out from under their computers and attack me because the truth is just too painful, and let their little dirty mouths rail with 'you suck dude', you got a rim job', f'--- off, Eat me, and so on. PURE WILL JUST PRINT THEM ALL AND GIVE THEM TO THE PARENTS AND THEN OFFER AN ALTERNATIVE LIKE BENCHMARK AND CINNAMON STICK OR JECKLE AND HYDE OR WILDERNESS WORLD. They will be professional, dressed to kill and empathic and very smooth. Hell look at the alternative, 'talk of Rim JOBS and Gulags and other negative crap that the parent doesn't want to hear. Psy, you have just increased the intakes to Cinnamon and Benchmark, by 10 fold!
Call me when you are ready to make permanent real change in due process. Only thing is we can't show Yitz or Jerry how Dr. Phil ambulance chaser mouthed them or they won't give us the contacts we need with the White House or Congress.
Let me know, you have my number, now I need to call the big bad Grizzley and the New Jersey Bar.
Carry on,
Dubuffet.
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:feedtrolls: :feedtrolls:
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interesting
http://archive.deseretnews.com/archive/ ... ENGED.html (http://archive.deseretnews.com/archive/484410/REGISTRY-OF-ABUSERS-IS-CHALLENGED.html)
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, Layne R. Meacham asserts his name was placed on the registry following "dubious" and unsubstantiated reports of abuse. As a result, he has been denied employment working with children, youths or the elderly for up to 20 years.Meacham, the former president and director of a private youth program called the Proctor Advocate Foundation or YES Families, is asking the federal court to declare the registry practices unconstitutional and stop the state from disseminating allegations of abuse "unless (the person) has been convicted."
He is also seeking $342,200 in special damages and $1 million in punitive damages from defendants Patricia C. Kreher, director of the office of licensing; L.J. Dustman, licensing specialist; Bart Hopkin, Department of Human Services; Gary Dalton, director of Youth Corrections; Linda Luinstra and Carol Verdoia, office of the attorney general; and 10 "John Does."
Filed by former Utah Attorney General Robert B. Hansen, the lawsuit says one girl enrolled in the YES program accused Meacham of calling her a name while another girl alleged he kicked her and forced her to hold a revolver during therapy.
...
Meacham denied the allegations and said he informed the state he wasn't even in the county when the incidents supposedly occurred but "the attorney general would not and did not consider any other exculpatory evidence whatsoever."
A task force that subsequently investigated the program turned up no evidence or corroborating witnesses, and no criminal charges were ever filed, the lawsuit said.
Nevertheless, "In a closed secret meeting, the `task force' all agreed that (Meacham) should be put on the statewide child abuse registry as a substantiated child abuser," the lawsuit said.
According to Meacham, he was denied a license and kept "under a cloud" as retaliation for challenging the Department of Youth Corrections and "prior political confrontations" going back 15 years over issues of "waste, mismanagement and illegal bidding procedures."
Now... either there was some huge conspiracy against you or the task force truly felt you were a danger to kids. How did the lawsuit go?
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Now... either there was some huge conspiracy against you or the task force truly felt you were a danger to kids. How did the lawsuit go?
Oh, he won a settlement in that one, as he rightfully should. It was simply egregious how Utah was going about assuming everyone was guilty by accusation alone. And distributing that judgment to any interested party. It wasn't just Meacham that was affected by that policy, there were thousands of people on that "secret registry" that didn't even know it, but it was Meacham who had the cajones to go up against Utah's old boy network of social service professionals. That much I'll give him.
Of course, my saying that doesn't address any of the other background issues this case involved... He did have to give up his right to practice social work for a short period of time.
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You have now mouthed Howard Polsky, Yitzhak, Jerome Miller and me and others who have genuinely tried to move the system along to be more humane. Nobody knows what you want you are like little Armidinijads or something. All you want to do is try to terrorize 'program' people as if they were lepers. You want the immediate closure off all programs. You have no alternative and you cannot back up your slanders.
Part of the problem, Layne, is you fail to address anyone's questions directly. Instead, mere mention of anyone even remotely connected to you brings forth a torrent of invective and accusations of libel. Believe it or not, I am really trying to wrap my brain around the mindset of what was going on back then when you set about creating your programs Proctor Advocate and Yes, Families.
Could you say a bit more about the host homes or host families? How were they chosen? What was the criteria for training these parents?
I'd also like to hear your thoughts regarding this earlier post:
I'd like to go back to some things you said earlier regarding ideological roots.
Yitzhak Bakal, as far as I can make out, is heavily connected to the juvenile justice system. He studied under Howard Polsky, as did you, at Columbia University's School of Social Work. It is hard for me to believe that Polsky, who wrote Cottage Six: The Social System of Delinquent Boys in Residential Treatment (1962), was unaware of Lloyd McCorkle's seminal work The Highfields story; an experimental treatment project for youthful offenders (1958; co-authors Albert Elias and F. Lovell Bixby). In fact, both of these scholars are oft found in the same assortment of references for investigations of others in the field...
McCorkle was based just 'cross the Hudson river in the New Jersey penal system, and Highfields was an evolution of his ideas on using a therapeutic community modality in the penal system. He had also published on a similar experiment in the adult penal system in 1949. He called his method "Guided Group Interaction." Ever hear of it? Care to comment?
"The peer group acts as a leveler or "equalizer," insuring that its members do not stray too far from its ranks."
Source (http://http://shelness.googlepages.com/Guided_Group_Interaction.pdf)[/list]
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Found some more in the archives:
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT) - February 23, 1996
JUDGE UPHOLDS DECISION TO CLOSE YES FAMILIES
A controversial center for troubled teens will likely have to close its doors now that an administrative law judge has upheld the Utah Department of Human Services' decision to revoke its license.The state Office of Licensing issued Yes Families a license revocation notice in October, citing violations state officials have described as life-threatening to 24 teenagers in the program.Administrative Law Judge Debbie L. Hann agreed in a ruling this week that Yes Families...
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT) - January 9, 1996
JUDGE TO DECIDE TEEN CENTER'S FATE
The future of a Pleasant Grove program for troubled teens that the state wants to shut down rests with an administrative law judge after two days of testimony at the Utah Department of Human Services.The state Office of Licensing issued Yes Families a license revocation notice in October, citing violations state officials have described as life-threatening to 24 teenagers in the program.The four-page notice says Yes Families violated fire-safety codes by having deadbolt locks on...
Wow. Now that sounds like Straight for some reason.
Well shit. That article sounds like so much fun i'll just purchase it.
JUDGE TO DECIDE TEEN CENTER'S FATE
Author: Dennis Romboy, Staff Writer
Article Text:
The future of a Pleasant Grove program for troubled teens that the state wants to shut down rests with an administrative law judge after two days of testimony at the Utah Department of Human Services.
The state Office of Licensing issued Yes Families a license revocation notice in October, citing violations state officials have described as life-threatening to 24 teenagers in the program.
The four-page notice says Yes Families violated fire-safety codes by having deadbolt locks on doors, failed to provide criminal and child-abuse background checks on employees, allowed ``host families'' to take in more teenagers than the law permits and teaches teenagers to subdue program peers with a physical ``four-point restraint.''
Yes Families appealed the revocation, leading to the hearing Monday and Tuesday before Administrative Law Judge Debbie L. Hann. Hann will review testimony rendered during the informal proceeding, at which hearsay is admissible, and issue a ruling in about a month.
Much of Monday's testimony centered on how a state licensing team conducted a 1995 review of Yes Families, a daytime drug-and-alcohol treatment and behavior modification program for teenagers.
Layne Meacham, who founded the program under the name Proctor Advocate eight years ago, contends the state's review was carried out in retaliation for lawsuits he has filed against the Department of Human Services. He also said the state misinterprets laws he believes are vague and poorly written, especially regarding the use of deadbolt locks and teenagers physically restraining other teenagers.
``I want to obey the rules and the code, not somebody's philosophy or belief,'' he said. During a break in the hearing, he described the state's license review team as a ``hit squad.''
Carol Verdoia, an assistant attorney general arguing the state's case, said Meacham's resistance to the Office of Licensing's review comes down to one thing.
``The bottom line is you just don't want anyone scrutinizing your program,'' she told Meacham during the hearing.
State licensing specialist L.J. Dustman testified that he was initially refused entry to the Yes Families building on the three times he and other review team members showed up unannounced.
State officials have the right to visit such programs without warning. Each visit resulted in a shouting match with Meacham or other staff members. Dustman, who says he was threatened with bodily harm, said the encounters hindered the state's ability to review the program.
``(Meacham) was irritated we showed up unannounced,'' Dustman said.
Meacham said he has no problem with surprise visits, but that state officials promised him in late 1994 or early 1995 that they would make appointments before showing up. He said the state rushed to judgment in trying to close Yes Families.
``The didn't give us a chance to comply,'' he said.
Yes Families director Yvonne Villanueva, who quit in November, said that in response to the state's complaints, deadbolt locks were removed from doors, the number of teenagers staying with host families was pared to four per household and that she provided the state with criminal background checks of employees, host families and program board members. Vil-la-nueva did admit the teenagers are taught to use ``four-point'' holds - a prone, spread-eagle position in which a teenager is held down.
``We feel like it was the better way to handle the situation,'' she said.
Dustman said Yes Families has yet to comply with the violations the state has identified. He testified that he believes Meacham is unable to adequately run the program and that he can't verify the health and safety of teenagers in it.
Diana Hollis, an investigator with the state criminal justice division, testified that Meacham intimidated teenagers in the program just before she interviewed several of them during a September visit. She said she heard Meacham in a ``loud and overbearing voice'' say, ``What are you going to tell them, that I abused you?''
Meacham admitted Monday that he does have a temper and that his conduct is sometimes inappropriate, but has earlier denied all allegations of abuse.
I'll probably search some more. If I find anything interesting I'll post it here for discussion.
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Heir Direktor, (Layne/debuffet)
You’ve stated a lot judgmental presumptions about the people gathered here. You have projected some rambling confabulations based on your narrow minded speculations about individuals you’ve chosen to target. (Right down to how Psy might take his coffee?!)
You even make dismissive remarks of a classist nature that have absolutely nothing to do with anything, other than reflecting derivatives of the limitations of your own prejudgments.
You didn’t bother to take the time to notice the area of the Fornits Forum that is dedicated to the government run gulags, before deciding erroneously that this was an excluded topic.
Your demands for disclosure have been politely been responded to. It has been pointed out that all of the pertinent information you have requested/ demanded is available to you within the forum. Yet, still you imply that there is some reticence.
You have decided that your time in a prison cell has given you some exclusive insights? You peel off insults about pampered programs as if unwilling to attempt to understand that the concept of building the prison within a person’s mind is no less harmful than physical brutality.
You seem to think you’re “reform position” against how juvenile justice is dealt in this country makes your program alternative something harmless or even helpful by comparison. That’s pretty damn reductive and self serving reasoning to say the least. By the content of your posts I can see that such is an area you’re in need of some introspection on.
As you may well know, many of the earliest TC’s in this country were built on the shaky ground of “good intentions” and employed with the harshest qualities of the ends justifying the means. The poison you’re peddling isn’t new. It’s just been repackaged to suit your agenda.
If you really intend to have a proactive discussion about what changes are needed to be brought, and how to best approach that, there’s a better way. You should state your case as openly and passionately as you believe (without the snarky little asides). Allow the exchange of ideas to emerge with reciprocal respect.
Empfang, Wir hören zu
(Edited a redundant sentence)
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Many out of control youth who are using drugs, having sex with their dealers for drugs and generally conduct disordered have harbored resentments towards program providers. Isn't it time they grew out of their resentments and went on with their lives.
If I wanted to hear from an asshole, I'd fart.
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A few more articles.
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)
March 1, 1989
Edition: Utah Central
Section: News
Page: A8
USED FORCE, LOVE IN THERAPY, DEFENDANT SAYS
Dateline: WEST VALLEY CITY (AP)
Article Text:
Layne Richard Meacham, accused of abusing a patient in his Proctor Advocate program for troubled youths, acknowledged that his therapy involves force but said his methods were based on love.
Meacham, a licensed social worker and founder of the controversial program, testified in his own defense after prosecutors rested their case in his misdemeanor child abuse trial in 3rd Circuit Court.
A 17-year-old former patient accused Meacham of forcing her to stand lock-kneed for 90 minutes during a therapy session while other teenagers called her names. The session ended after the girl became so ill she vomited blood and was taken to a hospital, she said.
Meacham, describing himself as a child advocate, said his program combines tough love and reality therapy - a mix of philosophies he derived from other programs across the country and from books accepted by social workers.
``The only way you're going to get kids better is to put a kid in a reformer role and give them authority. So we set up a pro-social reformer environment that is essentially run by kids,'' he said Tuesday.
Force and involuntary involvement are a necessary part of therapy, Meacham said, and requiring patients to stand at attention during confrontational sessions enables them to assume control of themselves.
He said the confrontations are supervised, but he acknowledged he was not present for most of the session involving the alleged victim.
However, he said he never forced her to stand and did not direct anyone else to do so. When told the girl had vomited, he said, ``I didn't think vomiting was that big a deal because usually when kids come in after running away they are drunk.''
But he said he became alarmed when he learned the girl was coughing up blood and telephoned her mother. The woman told him she couldn't leave work and he promised to take care of the situation, Meacham said.
Meacham said he began working in state youth corrections after he returned from service in the Marine Corps in Vietnam in the late 1960s. He also admitted being an alcoholic, but said he has attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings regularly and has not had a drink in 21/2 years.
Another defense witness, Melroy B. Harward, testified he worked with Meacham while the defendant was employed by the state and Harward was a social worker at the Provo Canyon School.
He said Meacham has ``no reputation of being a child abuser,'' and that his practice of having youths stand at attention was not unusual.
``Standing is an accepted method of gaining control. . . You have to use confrontation with youth regularly,'' Harward said. However, he said the atmosphere requires warmth and concern and should be non-judgmental.
``If a program or an individual doesn't indicate love or make them feel love you are not going to be successful,'' he said.
Meacham said during his testimony that he loves all his young charges, including his accuser.
``I probably told every kid in there I love them,'' he said.
During cross-examination by prosecutor Keith Stoney outlined a series of controversies involving Proctor Advocate, at one point confronting Mea-cham for allegedly bragging to his patients that he could ``beat'' the court system.
Copyright (c) 1989 Deseret News Publishing Company
Record Number: 8903010143
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)
November 18, 1990
Edition: Metro
Section: News
Page: B9
COUNSELOR TO DELAY LICENSE BID AS STATE AGREES TO DISMISS ABUSE CHARGES
Author: Matthew Brown, Staff Writer
Article Text:
The founder of a controversial youth counseling center has agreed not to apply for a clinical social worker license until 1992 in exchange for the state dismissing charges he abused teenagers under his care, a stipulation and order said.
The stipulation issued by the state Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing said Layne R. Meacham can have a petition to sanction his social work license dismissed if he abides by conditions of the agreement.
The petition filed in 1989 accuses Meacham of physically and verbally abusing youths placed in his former South Salt Lake counseling program, Proctor Advocate. The petition details incidents of Meacham tackling and wrestling with patients, making them stand for hours and calling them names.
Meacham also divulged confidential information about two of his clients, according to the petition, which charges him with 10 counts of unprofessional conduct.
The stipulation settling the charges said Meacham denies the allegations made against him.
Criminal charges were filed against Meacham by one of the teenage patients at Proctor Advocate. She said Meacham forced her to stand lock-kneed for 90 minutes until she vomited and had to be hospitalized.
A jury found Meacham guilty of a misdemeanor count of abuse. But Judge Michael K. Burton nullified the verdict, citing errors in the trial and jury instructions.
West Valley prosecutor Keith Stoney filed a second complaint more than one year ago, but a new trial has yet to be scheduled.
Meacham was not at the Provo office and did not return calls Friday.
Copyright (c) 1990 Deseret News Publishing Company
Record Number: 9011170351
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)
September 21, 1989
Edition: Metro
Section: News
Page: B4
NEW CHILD ABUSE TRIAL SET
Dateline: WEST VALLEY CITY
Article Text:
An Oct. 11 trial in West Valley Circuit Court was set Monday after Proctor Advocate founder Layne Meacham pleaded not guilty to one count of child abuse - again.
Meacham was tried and found guilty of one misdemeanor count of abuse in March after city prosecutors accused him of mistreating a 16-year-old female patient in his program for troubled teens. But 3rd Circuit Judge Michael K. Burton nullified the trial in May, citing errors in the trial and during jury instructions.
West Valley City Prosecutor Keith Stoney said Monday the girl and her parents still wanted to pursue charges, so a second complaint was filed Aug. 24. Meacham was arraigned on the refiled charges Monday morning.
Copyright (c) 1989 Deseret News Publishing Company
Record Number: 8909210005
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Now... either there was some huge conspiracy against you or the task force truly felt you were a danger to kids. How did the lawsuit go?
Oh, he won a settlement in that one, as he rightfully should. It was simply egregious how Utah was going about assuming everyone was guilty by accusation alone. And distributing that judgment to any interested party. It wasn't just Meacham that was affected by that policy, there were thousands of people on that "secret registry" that didn't even know it, but it was Meacham who had the cajones to go up against Utah's old boy network of social service professionals. That much I'll give him.
I'd totally agree. Everybody deserves due process. That being said, based on what seems to have actually been going on based on what i've read, i'd have to agree with what the Utah state concluded: he was a danger, even if he believed he was doing the best for the kids (which I totally believe he did). Doesn't make it right, but I can understand why they made the decision and I don't think it was some conspiracy.
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Now... either there was some huge conspiracy against you or the task force truly felt you were a danger to kids. How did the lawsuit go?
Oh, he won a settlement in that one, as he rightfully should. It was simply egregious how Utah was going about assuming everyone was guilty by accusation alone. And distributing that judgment to any interested party. It wasn't just Meacham that was affected by that policy, there were thousands of people on that "secret registry" that didn't even know it, but it was Meacham who had the cajones to go up against Utah's old boy network of social service professionals. That much I'll give him.
I'd totally agree. Everybody deserves due process. That being said, based on what seems to have actually been going on based on what i've read, i'd have to agree with what the Utah state concluded: he was a danger, even if he believed he was doing the best for the kids (which I totally believe he did). Doesn't make it right, but I can understand why they made the decision and I don't think it was some conspiracy.
Well Phil maybe you should have been the Federal and State judges because they ultimately did not agree with you. The state case was thrown out and the Federal court agreed with my pleadings and the state had to give me $35,000.
Why won't you deliver the evidence Layne Meacham having been sued multiple times. The cases you are referring to I won and was even paid money just like you were for the girl at Kids. Why won't you tell us what your take on that deal was and why did you try to deny that you are Ursus?
WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE. PHIL THINKS WE SHOULD ALL BE FOUND GUILTY BY ACCUSATION. Isn't that what all your parents did to you and to you Psy. They did not like your sexual preferences and found you guilty of being Gay, very predjudicial just like you are treating me now. An the big bad bear who denied his beardom thrice still won't tell us how much dough he netted off of the last fornit he represented.
NOW IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE PHIL ELBERG OF MEDVIG IN NEWWARK AND MICHAEL CRAWFORD IN PARIS FRANCE
Go back on line and get those pooper scoopers busy. But until you get honest, I'm not interested in this waste of back and forth. And Phil Elberg your office said you were on vacation. Don't you have a family to attend to. Shouldn't you be spending more time with them so they don't end up in a Gulag.
You've already condemned me with your little witch hunt so the next time we meet will be in court, the Jersey Bar, or hopefully on the CBC for a 6th Element.
You have delivered nothing to support your libelous statements. NADA. Call the AG's office to confirm the payout to Meacham and my status. Good luck and good ambulance chasing. Good luck making a dent in PURE's intakes with your F---Wad squad you encourage. She'll fill all the programs thanks to the nature of the people on this site.
Carry on,
Dubuffet
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Well, so now the Big Bad Bear wants anonymity, and Michael Crawford wants no treatment regardless, kind of an anarchist, or nihilism type of deal.
No. It's a respect for individual liberties going hand in hand with individual responsibility.
You have all gone back to hiding and taking cowardly pot shots. You have now mouthed Howard Polsky, Yitzhak, Jerome Miller and me and others who have genuinely tried to move the system along to be more humane.
Humane? By whose definition. I recommend you read C.S Lewis's essay "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment". Hint: He was arguing against the so-called humanitarians.
Nobody knows what you want you are like little Armidinijads or something. All you want to do is try to terrorize 'program' people as if they were lepers. You want the immediate closure off all programs.
Many do, and not just on ideological grounds. There is the practical side of things too.
Now Ursus am I getting too close and you don't like it, I will be calling your office in a few minutes to see if you are still the Phil Elberg, Crawford said you were, maybe you have just turned to chicken shit.
If I said that it was followed and preceded by "LOL". I'm sorry if the sarcasm didn't translate well. Ursus is NOT Phil Elberg, but you're welcome to call Phil.
So Psy you did not respond to the Che action idea of getting something done in congress
I'm against regulation for various reasons. It just doesn't work and gives parents a false sense of security. Unless Che Gookin has somehow suddenly changed his mind, i'm quite sure he is as well.
so I know who and what you are now, a damn cry baby that only wants to have tantrums and maybe you do need some time out, hell maybe your parents put you in Benchmark for more serious things than you were not willing to admit to.
Well. You can believe whatever you want. To me you seem very hot and cold. First your're nice, then you start to insult. It's like you're seeking some sort of reaction.
If your parents saw this site just before they admitted you, they sure as hell would not have been hindered in their decision, they would have been encouraged!
My parents read this site. They're also quite proud of what I've accomplished in my personal fight with Benchmark and so forth.
I know you are cajone challenged because you go along the the ambulance chasing Elberg with the mouthing of Yitzhak, Jerry and Howard, people that moved away from lock up. As far as all this group peer pressure you are all horrified about, what the hell do you think this Stephan King Bug sight is doing, its pure liquid synanon.
No. It's not. You can turn off the computer screen at any time you choose or navigate away from the site. In a program you cannot do that and are forced to endure.
Phil Elberg hasn't done shit. All he wants to do is malign and mouth good people
Right... and based on your reaction to Phil's commentary in the CBC documentary, i'm fairly sure you think Miller Newton is "Good People"
and the news is, in case you are so closed under your keyboards like fornits, parents with acting out kids aren't going to take you seriously as you put it. In fact the more cry baby mouthing and drive by anonymous little Rim Job remarks you post the more the parents will gravitate to Benchmark, and Cinnamon Stick. The parents know how to read and will look at the immature dirty little remarks on this rag talk to the woman at PURE.
That's possible. But hopefully parents don't judge all posters based on the words of a few. In any case this is a discussion forum and does not cator to the whims of parents or anybody else. The "no moderation" stance here draws flack equally from all directions, which makes it seem to me like we're doing something right.
Now what do you think is going to be the outcome. YOU psy with this bug crap site are literally putting kids into Cinnamon Stick, Jeckle and Hyde School and Benchmark.
No. Individual posters might be, but I'm not responsible for their words, nor is Antigen, the owner of this site. In any case, there are plenty of "parent-friendly" websites out there such as isaccorp or cafety.
And I know you look up to Phil but he is not helping.
I respect Phil and yes, I do look up to him. Do I agree with him all the time or follow him blindly? Of course not. We've had quite a few disagreements.
He's too busy looking for a Plaintiff! I know, I have been out in the world a little longer than most of you and Elberg would not turn down a lushish Plaintiff with the prospects of he and his firm netting millions.
As much as I firmly believe Phil would love to do more pro-bono work, I know he does need to make money... I see no problem with that.
By the way Phil what was your lawfirms cut on the $4,500,000. Arn't you just fishing and ambulance chasing to try to find another plaintiff so you can net another $2mil. Bet you never thought you had been used like that Psy. This Phil dude is trying to find another program with insurance that has brutilized some kid and who he can make another big publishers clearing house jack pot.
If you knew him better you wouldn't say that. He's given up a lot to pursue this.
He really is, you may not be experienced or old enough to see the obvious conflict of interest. Phil Elberg is ambulance chasing and you are his lead dog to sniff out possible cases. I'll say it to his law partners face in a few minutes.
LOL. I don't doubt you will.
Now Psy, maybe you can be salvaged. The fact is there is no smoking gun on Meacham. No dockets no Miller Newton sleep overs like with Captain Kirk and the other dude in Boston Legal.
Actually, you may very well be wrong about that based on what I've heard. The trick to anything like this is to keep your best cards closest to your chest. I would be careful to make sure anything you deny is accurate.
And Crawford why don't you give me your cell in France and I can talk to you.
Sure thing. You can call me on my cell at 571 277 5341 (preferably not, since it's roaming) or on my Skype landline (my computer) at 802 332 6472. Leave a voicemail if I'm not there (on my skype number pls... dont' really check my cell's voicemail).
But I don't believe any of you are going to get off your asses at the coffee shop, game room, or from behind your computers and introduce legislation.
You'd be wrong about that. Back when the legislation was first proposed I was a fan. I was even at the first GAO hearings in DC. If you watch the video closely you might see me in the audience. Then i read the bill and realized it was totally toothless. Then it got blasted to bits even more. Even still there was no way it could pass.
Your too wounded, handicapped and too full of hate and resentment.
No. If anything what's been going on since the GAO hearings and failure of legislation for a lot of people has just been depression. People have sort of lost hope but that will change.
Call me when you are ready to make permanent real change in due process.
That would be a good start, actually. Let me ask you this: even if kids suddenly gain the ability to deny medical treatment without their consent (they do in some states, and in other states for some things)... what is to stop a facility from claiming it's simply a school to the state? What is to stop a "school" from holding kids against their will. How do you encourage the local law enforcement to do their jobs when there is often simply not the will and a lot of sympathy for the program itself?
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Now... either there was some huge conspiracy against you or the task force truly felt you were a danger to kids. How did the lawsuit go?
Oh, he won a settlement in that one, as he rightfully should. It was simply egregious how Utah was going about assuming everyone was guilty by accusation alone. And distributing that judgment to any interested party. It wasn't just Meacham that was affected by that policy, there were thousands of people on that "secret registry" that didn't even know it, but it was Meacham who had the cajones to go up against Utah's old boy network of social service professionals. That much I'll give him.
I'd totally agree. Everybody deserves due process. That being said, based on what seems to have actually been going on based on what i've read, i'd have to agree with what the Utah state concluded: he was a danger, even if he believed he was doing the best for the kids (which I totally believe he did). Doesn't make it right, but I can understand why they made the decision and I don't think it was some conspiracy.
Well Phil maybe you should have been the Federal and State judges because they ultimately did not agree with you. The state case was thrown out and the Federal court agreed with my pleadings and the state had to give me $35,000.
I think you misread. He agreed, as did I, with your side of the case!
And PS: Ursus is NOT PHIL! for the last time!
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You've already condemned me with your little witch hunt so the next time we meet will be in court, the Jersey Bar, or hopefully on the CBC for a 6th Element.
Carry on,
Dubuffet
:shamrock: You’ll need some luck with that you charmless fool.
Way ta’ represent.
Please, post a copy of your complaint on fornits.
Your levities are good lols and risibility is healing.
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Why won't you tell us what your take on that deal was and why did you try to deny that you are Ursus?
Did Phil's office try to deny that he was Ursus? Tut Tut. Imagine that.
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You've already condemned me with your little witch hunt so the next time we meet will be in court, the Jersey Bar, or hopefully on the CBC for a 6th Element.
Carry on,
Dubuffet
:shamrock: You’ll need some luck with that you charmless fool.
Way ta’ represent.
Please, post a copy of your complaint on fornits.
Your levities are good lols and risibility is healing.
Now what is your interest in attacking me. Have you spent any time getting to know me or are you part of the little inquisition panel that automatically sides with your guru Phil Elberg because he is a big lawyer that got 2mil for his law firm and didn't give it all to the save the children foundation.
Why don't you ask your guru Phil why he doesn't want to debate me on CBC. Maybe you would like to. Why would you use a handle like LItigator. Are you even a member of the bar or do you just think you are a wonderful legal mind. Which institution were you interred at, what is your name, put up or shut up.
Oh and Psy I forgot to tell you we charged L.J Dustman for abuse he had a 350 pound employee knock over a girl while he busted into a girls group that was disclosing their sexual abuses. The girl had damage to her arm and had it in a sling for a while. Verdoia the AG who made the comment was sued by me and she gave me 5K (confirm at the A.G.'s office).
Don't forget to find the Judge Brian Ruling that eviserated Debbie Hahns ruling (she was a social services paid adm. law Judge). NOw litigator did you know the big bad bear tried to deny he was Ursus to me. And you have all these years struggled to gain his respect and called yourself the litigator and tried to use esoteric legal language to impress your leader Phil Elberg. Hell he ought to use some of the 2mil to hire you as a paralegal, of course you would be useless because you have no guts to give us all your name and where you were locked up and for what. At least you didn't call me a F--- wad or anything. You ought to get hold of F---wad or Rim Job and have them teach you how to use profanity over the interstate network.
CIAO
LItigator 2, formerly anti defamation league and now Dubuffet.
Carry on.
P.S. Michael Crawford and Phil Elberg of Elberg and Medved be sure to get......THE REST OF THE STORY ON PROGRAM CLOSURE.....JUDGE BRIAN THIRD DISTRICT COURT. ANY SIGN OF THOSE CASE NUMBERS ON THE CIVIL ACTIONS PHIL? REMEMBER CALL ME ANYTIME!
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THE REST OF THE STORY ON PROGRAM CLOSURE
Well. Why don't you tell us your side of the story? If you have court documents you want published just email em to me at psyborgue@mac.com and i'll make sure they get posted in this thread at your request.
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Some recommended reading:
And PS: Ursus is NOT PHIL! for the last time!
The devil is in the details.
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Some recommended reading:
And PS: Ursus is NOT PHIL! for the last time!
The devil is in the details.
THE REST OF THE STORY ON PROGRAM CLOSURE
Well. Why don't you tell us your side of the story? If you have court documents you want published just email em to me at psyborgue@mac.com and i'll make sure they get posted in this thread at your request.
So Michael Crawford you are not willing to search for the positive, just the negative. If you put a minute for every hour you put into trying to eviserate me into seeking the whole truth, hell you would have appologized by now. And why won't you force Phil Elberg to give us the amount he pocketed off Miller and why won't you respond to the question of legislation. And why won't you seek the truth, it wasn't me that lied, it was your leader Elberg that started this. He should bring the truth, the evidence to support his defamations. Its like saying all gays are child molestors etc. What if we had your Medical Record from Benchmark. Would it all be accurate or could some of the staff confabulated to keep the insurance comming. Will you post your chart, I will post mine from the lock up I was in.
I guess were done here, no action, nothing positive just maligning and slander and then putting the obligation to prove the slander is false on the shoulders of the defamed. Good system of justice. And yet Michael you and your fornits are all squeeling that you were denied justice. It ends with Ursus denying he is Elberg and with Michael Crawford only putting out the accussations never the vindications.. You ought to be a reporter. You really have a good predisposition for it.
I think I have made my case about the character of your fornits, the gutlessness of Phil Elberg and his money grubbing motives and his hidden 2mil and your need to just keep this rag rolling because you have nothing else to do, hell you have been on line for 4 days now. I don't believe you want change or legislation, just a lot of strokes for this never ending toilet paper roll. Tell Phil and F--- Wad and Rim JOb an Litagator to put up or shut up and I have proven my case that you have no credibility.
Carry on,
Dubuffet
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HEY PSY, are you there? My name is Anti Defamation and I am an alcoholic....now its your turn Psy, who are you and why are you here, be honest and brief.
I am here because I was placed in a facility on false pretenses based on false advertising.
"Placed"?? You CHOSE to go. You were 18 years old! A legal adult!!
Come out of your hole and share. Were you a kid in a program or not?
Yes. Benchmark Young Adult School.[/quote]
You weren't a kid in a program! You were an ADULT in a program! Big difference! You were able to walk out at any time!!
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You've already condemned me with your little witch hunt so the next time we meet will be in court, the Jersey Bar, or hopefully on the CBC for a 6th Element.
Carry on,
Dubuffet
:shamrock: You’ll need some luck with that you charmless fool.
Way ta’ represent.
Please, post a copy of your complaint on fornits.
Your levities are good lols and risibility is healing.
Now what is your interest in attacking me? .
To be fair, you’ve done quite a bit of attacking.
Have you spent any time getting to know me?
This is where your attacks create an impediment to discussion. You’ve made” getting to know you” difficult, as you have spent most of your time making baseless assertions and legal threats.
or are you part of the little inquisition panel that automatically sides with your guru Phil Elberg because he is a big lawyer that got 2mil for his law firm and didn't give it all to the save the children foundation
Here’s where your baseless assertions are most apparent. You ought to fact check your own speculations.
Why don't you ask your guru Phil why he doesn't want to debate me on CBC.
Is a substative debate possible with a person who conducts a discussion in the manner you have?
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The fact is there is no smoking gun on Meacham. No dockets no Miller Newton sleep overs like with Captain Kirk and the other dude in Boston Legal.
That show is worth watching for the Star Trek associations, puns, and inside jokes alone, lol, although some of "human relations intrigues" can get to be just a bit trite after a while...
My favorite character is that guy they call "Hands," aka Jerry what's-his-name. Him I can relate to ... hands down! :D
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I could reply rationally to that screed, but I'm just going to sit here and laugh at you instead.
What is a screed? Hip me up dude. Do you mean like screeding cement, or that I am just too wordy for a little pseudo elitist like you. Do you have low self esteem.
I don't remember using that word, don't know what it means (if anything), and if I used it it was most likely a typo.
I am getting confused on this deal who is speaking. And what the hell is all this jargon, like what is a thread, screed on so on?
I didn't use it either, Layne, but it's a great word... Fascinating how the word usage evolved from fragment to cement leveling tool. :D
Merriam-Webster (http://http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/screed):
Main Entry: screed
Pronunciation: ?skr?d
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English screde fragment, alteration of Old English scr?ade — more at shred
Date: circa 1789
1 a : a lengthy discourse b : an informal piece of writing (as a personal letter) c : a ranting piece of writing
2 : a strip (as of a plaster of the thickness planned for the coat) laid on as a guide
3 : a leveling device drawn over freshly poured concrete[/list]
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HEY PSY, are you there? My name is Anti Defamation and I am an alcoholic....now its your turn Psy, who are you and why are you here, be honest and brief.
I am here because I was placed in a facility on false pretenses based on false advertising.
"Placed"?? You CHOSE to go. You were 18 years old! A legal adult!!
Come out of your hole and share. Were you a kid in a program or not?
Yes. Benchmark Young Adult School.
You weren't a kid in a program! You were an ADULT in a program! Big difference! You were able to walk out at any time!!
Only place I chose to go; only place I consented to was a "boarding school"... I did not consent to quackery or thought reform which is exactly what I got. Before making idiotic statements look up the definition of informed consent.
And leaving at any time? Sorta, but without your identification, property, money, clothes, etc... We were told we signed away our rights and at the time I believed it, as did many others. It wasn't exactly a nice area to be on the streets in either, especially for kids who are "unable to emancipate", something Benchmark markets specifically towards. Just ask Che Gookin about the gang brawl we witnessed the first night we were there. Not a nice place to live. Friend of mine was raped on the streets of Redlands after his parents stopped paying and the program dropped him on the streets.
But this is hardly the thread to discuss it. If you want to bring this up I'd be glad to answer your questions in a seperate thread. Otherwise I'll consider further discussion in this thread off-topic and not respond.
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Here is an old article from when Proctor Advocate was in its early stages, before Layne Meacham began running seriously afoul of the local authorities, and before the aforementioned lawsuits.
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DESERET NEWS
THE UNORTHODOXY OF LAYNE MEACHAM (http://http://archive.deseretnews.com/archive/18589/THE-UNORTHODOXY-OF-LAYNE-MEACHAM.html)
By Elaine Jarvik, Staff Writer
Published: Friday, Sept. 30, 1988 12:00 a.m. MDT
WHEN LAYNE MEACHAM was in junior high school he was expelled for stuffing marbles and balloons down the school's tuba. It was the sort of thing you might call a prank - if you hadn't spent years trying to make Layne Meacham behave.
He was the kind of boy who made a career out of defying authority. And in those days they locked kids like that up.He was sent to the State Industrial School in Ogden when he was 16. After he tried to escape they kept him in a room with a bed but no mattress. He was considered one of the most ungovernable of the most ungovernable boys in the state of Utah.
But that was then and this is now, a time that finds Meacham the head of a private program helping teenagers as troubled as he himself used to be. He's part of the establishment now.
Sort of. As Meacham would be the first to admit, he's still a troublemaker.
Consider, for example, the lawsuit Meacham has filed against the Utah Department of Social Services and the Division of Youth Corrections. Meacham is seeking a declaratory judgment that would give parents and his organization, Proctor Advocate, the right to determine who a child can associate with.
In other words, Meacham wants the right that every parent dreams of - the right to pick a kid's friends.
Meacham's Proctor Advocate program currently works with 25 teenagers, ages 13 to 18. All of them, he says, can be diagnosed as having "conduct disorder," a set of behaviors that can best be summed up by that less clinical phrase "rotten."
These kids sluff school, get poor grades, are sometimes violent, defy authority, use drugs and are sexually active.
And these kids, says Meacham, "can work you to death. It's con-man stuff."
By the time their parents come to Meacham they have usually had the kids in one or more private hospitals, generally to treat the drug part of the problem. But the kids continue to use, and to defy. The parents come to Meacham because they've heard he takes matters into his own hands.
"They think of me as The Equalizer," he laughs.
The first thing Meacham does is have the parents give him in loco parentis rights over their child. Then he goes to pick up the kid. These are generally surly encounters, matched by Meacham's own stubbornness.
"I'm going to pick up a kid from the detention center on Wednesday. And he's going to think the same old rules apply. He'll say, 'When do I get out?' And I'll say, 'When do you turn 18?' "
He expects his kids to live for 45 days with a "proctor" family. He expects them to go to school, every period, and to get signatures from each teacher, every day. After they move back in with their parents, he expects them to come to Proctor Advocate every day except Sundays. On Sundays they are expected to attend either a religious service or a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. He expects them to stay in the program at least two years.
If they run away, he'll go after them. "I tell them, 'Do you understand? I'm not going to let you go. If you run to California, I'll go get you.'"
He'll go get them and he'll also sue their friends.
THE PROCTOR ADVOCATE building on 27th West looks like an unlikely place for global change. Located next door to AAA Forklift in a little one-story industrial park, the offices include a couple of sparsely furnished small front rooms and a big chilly warehouse room in the back.
On a Wednesday night recently, a half-dozen teenage girls sat around in the chilliness after a peer group meeting and talked about Proctor Advocate.
"I started using drugs when I was 8," one of the girls says, beginning a travelogue through the dark regions of her past. She used to sleep around. She ran away. She thought a lot about killing herself. She was put in the Rivendell Children and Youth Center Hospital for six months, a place she liked, she says. "But I broke their rules behind their backs." A month after getting out of the hospital, she was back to her old friends and back on drugs.
She's been in the Proctor Advocate program for nine months. "If you can make it through this program you can make it through anything," she says. "It's the toughest two years of your life. . . . You won't find anyone in this program who totally loves it."
What makes the program work, she says, is its insistence on keeping kids away from their old friends, and its focus on the "guided peer pressure" of the teen support groups. A kid is able to get through to other kids better than an adult can, she says.
She says all the girls in the program plan to go on to college.
"It probably looks like an LDS mutual meeting to you now," says Meacham later about the group's relative wholesomeness. "But I have claw marks on my arm from one girl. It's taken me 80 hours a week for a year to win them over."
Unlike most programs for troubled teems, Meacham bypasses professional therapy, relying instead on the ability of the teens to get each other in line.
Root causes of a kid's behavior don't concern Meacham anyway. "I don't care 'why.' I just say: 'Go to 5th period.' "
But he doesn't want his kids to totally lose the rebellious streak that makes them tenacious and creative. Re-channel those energies, he tells them. "If you like to argue, become an attorney."
"I try to keep them in the game till they can come up to bat."
Meacham charges $7,900 for the program (which can continue until a teen is 18, if the parents choose) compared to more than $10,000 for several months at a free-standing psychiatric hospital. He expects parents to attend Proctor Advocate parent meetings once a week and to attend a Tough Love or Al-Anon meeting once a week. He also expects them not to "rescue" their children.
"The only way a child fails is if a parent rescues or the system rescues."
Some people think he's a "power-hungry narcissist," he says. But he thinks of himself more like the grandfather in "Heidi" - gruff on the outside, kind underneath.
And of course also a troublemaker. "I like to be thrown into a stew of conflict and float to the top."
# # #
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Ginger called me tonight and asked me to post a note to Meacham (she was not near a PC):
She asked me to relay that we have a public sector facilities section on fornits and if Meecham has any information about them it would be a welcome contribution. "Give us what you got" was her exact words if I recall correctly.
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Ginger called me tonight and asked me to post a note to Meacham (she was not near a PC):
She asked me to relay that we have a public sector facilities section on fornits and if Meecham has any information about them it would be a welcome contribution. "Give us what you got" was her exact words if I recall correctly.
Would I be correct in surmising that a lot of people saw the Seed and Straight, Inc. -- and still do see Seed/Straight spin-offs -- as "community-based alternatives" to pricey private treatment? Often the price ends up being pretty much the same, at least these days (maybe a bit less), but more importantly, it's still within the community. I imagine parents feel more fully involved on a day-to-day basis.
"Community-based alternative programs" would appear to be a outgrowth of attempts to reform and deinstitutionalize the juvenile justice system...
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Here is an Abstract from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service which just happens to mention efforts at juvenile deinstitutionalization in the states of Massachusetts and Utah specifically (published the same year as the article "THE UNORTHODOXY OF LAYNE MEACHAM (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28043&p=340600#p340443)" of a couple posts back).
A photocopy of the full-length 54-page document can be ordered for a nominal fee. Alternatively, if you live near Rockville, MD, you can probably go there yourself to pick it up for free or close to it...
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NCJ Number 114879
Title: Out of Harm's Way: The Emancipation of Juvenile Justice
Author(s): R J Margolis
Corporate Author(s): Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
United States
Sponsoring Agency: Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
New York, NY 10177
National Institute of Justice/
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Publication Date: 1988
Pages: 54
Type: Issue overviews
Origin: United States
Language: English
Annotation: This document examines the basic principles of juvenile deinstitutionalization, with special focus on its practice in Massachusetts and Utah.
Abstract: Throughout its history, the juvenile justice system in the United States has been characterized by two approaches -- the first emphasizing restraint, regimentation, and retribution; the other characterized by a focus on individualization, self-actualization, and rehabilitation. Deinstitutionalization relies on fewer traditional constraints and on more open-door techniques. It envisions detention centers without locks, secure facilities without cells, halfway houses without guards, and, ultimately, communities without fear. In Massachusetts and Utah, about four-fifths of all children who end up in State custody manage to stay out of large institutions. Instead they are consigned to the care of a family, not always their own, and/or to one or more programs among a variety of deinstitutional offerings. Most of these programs are administered by private, nonprofit organizations on State contracts. Much deinstitutional care occurs in small group residences and neighborhood youth centers and through programs such as shelter care, outreach, tracking, proctor care, and youth services. In these States, even secure facilities bear marks of diversification and offer counseling, educational, and recreational services. While offering mixed results, studies of deinstitutional and community-based alternatives dispute assumptions of traditional penal approaches and indicate that deinstitutionalization can be an effective and humane alternative to reformatories and detention centers.
Main Term(s): Community based corrections (juv)
Index Term(s): Deinstitutionalization; Juvenile corrections effectiveness; Juvenile treatment methods; Massachusetts; Utah
To cite this abstract, use the following link:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/app/publications/a ... ?ID=114879 (http://www.ncjrs.gov/app/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=114879)
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Would I be correct in surmising that a lot of people saw the Seed and Straight, Inc. -- and still do see Seed/Straight spin-offs -- as "community-based alternatives" to pricey private treatment? Often the price ends up being pretty much the same, at least these days (maybe a bit less), but more importantly, it's still within the community. I imagine parents feel more fully involved on a day-to-day basis.
"Community-based alternative programs" would appear to be a outgrowth of attempts to reform and deinstitutionalize the juvenile justice system...
I think so, yeah. But it's disingenuous as hell, a real dirty trick. Even though the parents were on site most every day and involved in open meetings and raps afterward once or twice a week (once a month, minimum, for out of town parents) they were still kept in the dark to an amazing degree by various rules, practices and controls on communication. The kids were completely isolated from the outside world till 3rd phase (usually at least 3 or 4 months and often up to or exceeding a year) The parents were also discouraged by various means from keeping ties to anyone in their lives deemed not supportive of the program, including immediate family and spouses (soon to be ex spouses).
That was one of the more frustrating things about getting anyone to understand or believe us. Physically, we were located in the warehouse district of mid sized towns by day and housed in regular homes at night. But to call a Seed based program community based is laughable. Never the less, I bet a whole lot of people still buy into it.
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Would I be correct in surmising that a lot of people saw the Seed and Straight, Inc. -- and still do see Seed/Straight spin-offs -- as "community-based alternatives" to pricey private treatment? Often the price ends up being pretty much the same, at least these days (maybe a bit less), but more importantly, it's still within the community. I imagine parents feel more fully involved on a day-to-day basis.
"Community-based alternative programs" would appear to be a outgrowth of attempts to reform and deinstitutionalize the juvenile justice system...
I think so, yeah. But it's disingenuous as hell, a real dirty trick. Even though the parents were on site most every day and involved in open meetings and raps afterward once or twice a week (once a month, minimum, for out of town parents) they were still kept in the dark to an amazing degree by various rules, practices and controls on communication. The kids were completely isolated from the outside world till 3rd phase (usually at least 3 or 4 months and often up to or exceeding a year) The parents were also discouraged by various means from keeping ties to anyone in their lives deemed not supportive of the program, including immediate family and spouses (soon to be ex spouses).
That was one of the more frustrating things about getting anyone to understand or believe us. Physically, we were located in the warehouse district of mid sized towns by day and housed in regular homes at night. But to call a Seed based program community based is laughable. Never the less, I bet a whole lot of people still buy into it.
I've read of the Kids Helping Kids program being described as community-based as well. I think the reliance on the "host homes" concept had a big part to do with that.
With that in mind, I found this wording in the above abstract (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28043&p=344439#p340600) quite interesting:
"In Massachusetts and Utah, about four-fifths of all children who end up in State custody manage to stay out of large institutions. Instead they are consigned to the care of a family, not always their own, and/or to one or more programs among a variety of deinstitutional offerings."[/list]
I think that the whole idea about "proctoring" is behind all this. Proctoring is, of course, another way of saying mentoring through the use of peer pressure, that is, a peer that is preselected with the desired mindset already in place. A more informal and up close and personal version of what was being done during the day in Group rap.
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Two sentences explanation: My parents and I were having some rough times due to different opinions on religion, sexuality and politics.
You expect that people will believe this crap? Are we supposed to believe the US government just hands out hundred thousand dollar scholarships to unnecessary rehab treatment because an adult child of a state dept employee has different views than his parents on religion, sexuality and politics? Really? What young adult doesn't have different views than their parents regarding religion, sexuality, and politics??? Yet they do not end up in programs. Something about this doesn't add up.
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Getting back to the more pertinent topic at hand, here is an image of the man himself, originally posted (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28850&p=347470#p347470) by someone else in another thread. Perhaps Mr. Meacham could tell us a bit about the artist? Would this be a self-portrait, perchance?
(http://http://www.lib.utah.edu/static-content/marriottlibrary/files/images/people/MeachamL.jpg)
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You have now mouthed Howard Polsky, Yitzhak, Jerome Miller and me and others who have genuinely tried to move the system along to be more humane. Nobody knows what you want you are like little Armidinijads or something. All you want to do is try to terrorize 'program' people as if they were lepers. You want the immediate closure off all programs. You have no alternative and you cannot back up your slanders.
To clear up some potential confusion here, for anyone who is still reading along, there are two "Millers" mentioned in this thread: Miller Newton (of Straight, Inc. and Kids Helping Kids infamy), and Jerome Miller (of the Massachusetts Movement, who was the force behind closing all said state's reform schools down in the early 1970s).
I bring this up again, since Mr. Meacham has repeatedly confused reference to the former with reference to the latter.
And for good reason. Obviously the latter Miller, namely Jerome Miller, would be the more palatable of the two. And if ya want to pick a fight... what better way to obscure the issue than to throw in an identity conundrum?
As it turns out, Layne Meacham has connections to both of them.
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Here's an old book review of Jerome Miller's Last One Over The Wall, a memoir of his attempts to turn the tide of juvenile reform from one of institutional solutions to community based ones:
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The New York Times
Let His Children Go (http://http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/26/books/let-his-children-go.html?pagewanted=1)
By David C. Anderson;
Published: January 26, 1992
LAST ONE OVER THE WALL: The Massachusetts Experiment in Closing Reform Schools. By Jerome G. Miller. 279 pp. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. $35.
IT'S unlikely the people who hired Jerome Miller to take over the Massachusetts youth corrections system in 1969 realized what was in store. Before his departure under pressure after a tumultuous two-year term, Mr. Miller completed a radical social experiment: he closed down virtually all of the state's large reform schools, dispersing delinquent youngsters to a broad spectrum of community programs instead.
The results were instructive. Researchers from Harvard University and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency confirmed that the closures produced no new crime wave while administering a welcome dose of humanity and common sense to the demoralized practice of juvenile justice. The rage that motivated Mr. Miller in Massachusetts burns as hotly today, as his lively memoir, "Last One Over the Wall: The Massachusetts Experiment in Closing Reform Schools," makes clear. Partly, no doubt, that is because the message of his achievement fell on politically deaf ears outside the Bay State, where the system he created remains substantially in place. Yet the questions it raises for a nation still beset by crime are more relevant than ever.
Massachusetts hired Mr. Miller, then a psychiatric social worker on the faculty of Ohio State University, to head a new Department of Youth Services that had been created to reform juvenile justice in the wake of scandals involving abuse of youngsters in the state's gothic reform schools. Plenty of scandal remained as he arrived: teen-agers stripped naked and held for days in dark concrete cells, forced to drink from toilets, made to kneel for hours on a stone floor with pencils under their knees. In one sadistic ritual, the bastinado, Mr. Miller says, "A boy's feet were strapped to a bed frame and beaten on the bare soles with wooden paddles or the wooden backs of floor brushes."
At first Mr. Miller sought to work within the system, replacing the more old-fashioned reform school directors and ordering more humanizing policies. He once ruled, for example, that a person ordering a youngster into an isolation cell had to sit with him in the cell until his release. "The rule effectively stopped use of isolation," he notes dryly.
A staff revolt was predictable, but not, perhaps, the lengths to which some would go. Mr. Miller says that many reform school staff members allowed, even encouraged, youngsters to escape in hopes that news of the runaways would discredit his administration. On occasion, he claims, he found that the press had been conveniently notified of riots in institutions before they began.
Frustration with such events fed Mr. Miller's belief that brutalizing institutions tend to protect and perpetuate themselves. "In bureaucracies with a captive clientele the pull is always away from the personal and toward the impersonal and alienating," he writes. "The pursuit is less one of public safety than of convenience. . . . [ Most ] humane administrators . . . eventually retreat to bureaucratic roles, trying to find peace in mitigating destructiveness."
Unable to live with such a role, Mr. Miller made the audacious decision to do away with the big institutions altogether. He found legal (and sometimes, he admits, dubiously legal) loopholes that permitted him to take money from institutions, combine it with money from Federal grants and use it to fund alternative programs. Once the institutions were depopulated, the community agencies became a political constituency in their own right, substantial enough to challenge the institutional lobby. The Legislature agreed to close reform schools and leave them closed.
The resulting system includes some small, secure programs for a handful of youngsters judged truly dangerous and a broad variety of programs -- everything from military schools and residential drug treatment to art schools and Outward Bound -- for the rest. The restructuring posed no threat to public safety. Massachusetts ranks 46th in juvenile crime among the 50 states. Recent research found a recidivism rate of 51 percent for youngsters in the community programs -- compared with 66 percent for those coming out of the old reform schools. Juveniles in the system account for only 1.3 percent of all arrests in the state.
MR. MILLER'S experiment handsomely vindicated his belief that the United States grossly overstates the threat of juvenile delinquency. His most provocative chapter explores "the myth of 'violent' teen-agers." Though the public likes to blame crime waves on youngsters, he asserts, statistics tell another story. Of more than 20,000 homicides prosecuted annually, he says, only 500 result in juvenile convictions. Only 4 percent of juvenile arrests are for violent offenses. Closer examination of those violent acts in a recent year reveals that only 28 percent resulted in physical injury, and only 7 percent of the injuries required hospital treatment. Even allowing for the increasing mayhem of inner-city drug gangsters, serious violence remains a microscopic element of overall delinquency.
Yet stereotypes of violent youth serve many agendas, Mr. Miller observes. "Those who run the juvenile justice system gain by defining young offenders as more violent than facts dictate. It's a kind of no-risk heroism for all concerned -- judges, superintendents, institutional staff, therapists, police and probation officers. . . . This is the correctional equivalent of the old psychiatric diagnosis of 'latent schizophrenia.' . . . If the patient improves, it can be chalked up to the therapist's skill at treatment. If, on the other hand, the patient deteriorates, the therapist looks even more sophisticated, having predicted it all along."
Today Mr. Miller heads a nonprofit group that carries on his campaign against institutions and for more humane treatment of juvenile delinquents. That remains a lonely crusade, but the powerful lessons of Massachusetts make clear that it is hardly a waste of time.
REFORM BY LAWSUIT
Correctional reform in this country of lawyers and management experts has taken the form of setting minimum standards and ensuring that rules and regulations are well written and properly promulgated and enforced. Ignoring the possibilities of more basic reform, these actions try to mitigate abuse. Through a variety of suits . . . most states are under court order about or supervision over conditions in prisons and jails. Looking at the results, one wonders whether the effort was worth it. Court decisions have no doubt moderated harsh prison conditions and softened some of the grosser brutalities . . . [ but they have ] served to reinforce reliance on the failed institutional model as our primary correctional response to crime. -- From "Last One Over the Wall."[/list]
David C. Anderson, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times, is the author of "Crimes of Justice: Improving the Police, the Courts, the Prisons."
A version of this review appeared in print on January 26, 1992, on page 719 of the New York edition.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company