Interesting...and yes, I think that's most likely how it actually went. What you just described bears a striking similarity to the sort of thing that went on in Straight. Well said.
Straight and KHK were identical in my time, only an administrative decision was made to scale down the physical abuse. The physical violence against teens in Milford was common knowledge when I was in Hebron, KY. The staff and head psycholgist used it as a weapon against noncompliance, a threat: "Motivate or go to Straight, where they'll bloody your faces."
Otherwise, as far as I can tell, there are no differences between the KHK and Straight experience. Identical methods of coercive persuasion in every way. And there was some physical abuse in my time, just not of the large-scale lawsuit variety that the Sembler-mills practiced over the years.
Your time in Khk must have been better than mine , then.
I saw arms broken, parents lied to about how, sexual abuse happened etc.....
Sounds the same to me as a Sembler Mill.
I refuse to minimize the damage of khk.
-DP
I did not say that I saw no physical abuse. But your point is well taken. I've read so much about the abuse in Straight, however, and am certain that many people there had it much worse than in Hebron. But you are right. Any amount of physical violence is too much in these places, and none of it should be condoned or minimized. It's hard for me to even imagine how much worse my experience would have been if intense physical abuse had been added to the routine, if I had been subjected to actual physical pain for refusing to motivate. The thought haunts me immensely.
But remember that an administrative decision was made somewhere along the line. Somebody must have elected to scale down the violence, for it was significantly less visible than in Straight. In my opinion, this makes them just as guilty--kinder, gentler officials of mind control.
I also believe that in KHK the abuse came and went. In 1983, I remember hearing about how insane things used to be, how groups of newcomers would charge the doors en masse and acutally fight--a cozy thought in my head then--and how pile-ons and harsh force were used much more frequently. Perhaps I and my fellow prisoners were not doing our duty.
But I saw blood, daily pile-ons. I experienced a good dose of solitary confinement myself. I watched a staff member repeatedly slam a newcomer against a wall in the intake room. I saw a kid forced to sit in his own urine. I saw another kid slam his broken arm, in a cast, on one of the church pews, over and over again, as staff continued to egg him on, tears pouring down his face. I watched them throw us the last of the Southern Frontier cuisine unto the grimy floors--fish cakes, usually--as a competition to see who could get to it first. Who was hungry enough to eat off the floor. And much, much more.
I'm not diminishing any of this. But the things you and I saw and experienced are bad enough, and you and I both know that things were much, much worse in Straight. And that says a lot, for the degree of abuse in KHK was refined and overwhelming. It's inconceivable for the average person to understand how much worse it could get. And it did. In Milford and many other places.
