Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Vision Quest

VisionQuest Deaths

<< < (5/8) > >>

youthadvocate:
just so everyone knows, I am the second ex-visonquest drill instructor, and poster of the previous post.  I just signed up, so i wanted everyone to know that my posts will be under this screen name from now on.  Love the discussion, and I hope we can come to some well thought consensus on what changes should be made.  The system is badly broken, and I'm down for helping to get it changed.

AtomicAnt:
Florida Boot Camps recidivism = 87 percent
Missouri State JDCs recidivism = 32 percnet
 
The receidivism rate varies greatly by State and specific program. Missouri's program involves using smaller, decentralized facilities that are either in or near the youths' home neighborhoods. They treat kids like kids. They don't mix hard core offenders with first time offenders and keep the younger kids away from older kids.

Florida, on the other hand, has the second largest population of juvenile offenders incarcerated (California has the highest). Many kids are in adult jails. The State just passed measures closing their boot camps after 14 year old Martin Anderson was killed in one by DIs. The death was video taped and released to the press. You can find details on this very easily be Googling the kid's name. The Miami Tribune has run many articles about it.

Amnesty International and HRW (Human Rights Watch) have both condemned the California Juvenile systems for pervasive child abuse and human rights violations. In one prison, kids were kept in tiny solitary cells for 23.5 hours per day and the other 30 minutes were spent in cages on the roof.

I agree that more community based, post camp support is needed, but go to
 http://www.rickross.com/reference/teenb ... oot11.html

and look up the Baltimore Sun expose about Maryland boot camps. The extensive after care was largely unattended by the hard core, ghetto kids in the program. Most ended up in adult jail. Read how the kids were treated and know that Maryland closed all their boot camps as a result of the Sun's articles.

BTW, I grew up in Crawford County, PA. I am very familiar with Venango, County.

youthadvocate:
I read the article and the program sounds horrible.  I don't know who thought that it would be a good idea to abuse kids to "help" them, which is exactly what that is, but I think they should go through that program and see how well it helps them.  They don't do that sort of thing in actual military boot camps, I think it's a horrible idea to do in juvenile boot camps.  
I'm with you on the California thing, too.  The California Youth Authority is one of the most jacked up entities known to man.

Anonymous:
I tend to agree with AA. i am not doubting the fact that the marine drill instructor wants to help kids, and i feel bad for the guy because he seems to be deeply personally effected by the incident, but the philosophy behind these places seems so wrong. If you have a kid who is angry and does not want to be there, of course they are not going to follow orders. This is why trying to make them helps nobody.
If the place is understaffed and the kids are there because they are at risk, it is a system which is asking for trouble. Instead of hiring ex marines (even ones with their hearts in the right place) why would these places not hire people wth specific specialist training? Or why not professional counsellors and youth workers there with the drill instructors? What can drilling a kid teach them about thinking through the consequences of their actions anyway?
most guys who go into the miltary are there because they want to be and are attracted to a career with structure and order. This is not the case with delinquent kids. Tough love is not the only answer!

Anonymous:
Exactly. There is a huge difference between a volunteer recruit who is thinking past the boot camp towards a career in the military, and a disturbed teenager forced there. There is also a huge difference in boot camps for kids and real military boot camps.

These kid camps force confrontation with kids. Kids are kids. They don't have the self control of adults, yet. There is bound to be trouble.

Boot camps for kids appear to work only because they use fear and intimidation. Forced compliance does mean real internal change.

I understand the rational that believes boot camp is a team building and confidence building experience. The problem is that the teenagers do not. They don't see the experience in the same way. They see it as arbitraty punishment and DIs being mean for the sake of being mean.

Teens are 'fairness experts' in their own minds. Group punishment is not team building for them. By nature teens are self-centered. They are supposed to be at this age as they are focused on figuring out who they are and where they fit. This is normal. So, holding the group responsible is viewed as holding 'me responsible for someone else's actions.' To a teen, this just unfair.

It is a totally different psychology and must approached that way. Ex marines and other military folk don't get this. Because they successfully completed basic training and had good careers, they want to share their feelings of success and pass this on. What they forget is that not everyone views the world the same way, nor can they be forced to.

Personally, I have never been through a boot camp or program but I know with 100% certainty that the experience would have been harmful to me; because I know me. I also suspect that I am not the only one like me. So the one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't cut it.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page