Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Anonymous on December 19, 2003, 06:14:00 PM
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/ ... 9332.shtml (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/18/national/main589332.shtml)
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Well good! I'm glad they're doing something and some of these kids can get some validation. But does it strike anyone else that these are state run facilities? No way in BUT through juvenile courts. That's why I really don't think more government oversight agencies, studies and bureaucrats will do the trick. I think these places break existing laws every day. We need to get the enforcers to do their damned jobs, not give them more busy work.
In God's wildness lies the hope of the world x the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.
-- John Muir
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State run programs seem very polictical, its about who you know working within the state to send you kids, it does not matter what type of progam you run. :evil:
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http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/oakcolumbia.pdf (http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/oakcolumbia.pdf)
What's noteworthy is what the Justice Dept considered to be abuse. Sounds familiar?:
No system of positive incentives to manage youth, but instead rely on discipline and force. This leads to unconstitutionally abusive disciplinary
practices such as hog-tying, pole-shackling, improper use and overuse of restraints and isolation, staff assaulting youth, and OC spray abuse.
Indeed, the programs? current focus on discipline, control, and negative reinforcement fosters an atmosphere where staff demean, belittle, and abuse youth and is not conducive to rehabilitative treatment.
The use of restraints without penological justification is cruel and unusual punishment. See Hope v. Pelzer, 122 S. Ct. 2508, 2514, 2518 (2002)
Girls in the SIU at Columbia are punished for acting out or for being suicidal by being placed in a cell called the ?dark room.?While facility administrators told us that this room is rarely used and if used, for no longer than a few hours at a time, a number of girls reported being locked in the cell for as long as three days to a week.
Girls are often not given access to basic necessities, such as water, personal hygiene items, and bathroom facilities,
youth report ?sitting in a chair,? in which youth are required to assume a sitting position while holding their backs up against the wall with knees bent for as long as 20 to 30 minutes.
In the evenings, youth are required to sit in silence for large blocks of time while they
sort their clothes, clean their boots, or for girls, braid each other?s hair. This time could be better spent productively engaged in activity and learning. The environment as it currently exists invites acting out by youth and the abusive
institutional practices that too often follow.
youth are forced to perform physical exercise and threatened with SIU if they are caught talking to each other.
Lack of activity, social interaction, and counseling assistance put youth at risk for depression.
a 13-year-old boy was sprayed because he did not
perform exercises. Reportedly, he was punished further by being forced to do 100 squat thrusts, 100 push ups, and 100 jumping jacks.
These exercises and disciplinary practices serve no penological or rehabilitative purpose. Many are cruel and demeaning.6 They also are unsafe because, as our expert noted, when this type of physical punishment is imposed, the facility
does not monitor the physical well-being of the youth.