Why Do Programs Abuse Children?

[DKincaidCFS]

I have seen a lot of discussion here about children being abused by "programs" and program staff.  It has been well established that most, if not all, "troubled teen programs" use abusive tactics as a method of control.  

I would like to hear from people who went to programs about why they think the programs made the decision to use abuse rather than legitimate treatment.  Clearly, to my mind, this is a business decision.  So it begs the question "Why is child abuse good for troubled teen businesses?"

Please limit responses to those who have attended programs and can comment on first-hand experiences.  Thanks.

[Watchful Yeoman]

It's cheaper and easier than doing things the right way.  That's the simple answer.  Profits will be higher if the program takes Mommy and Daddy's cash and pockets it while hiring unqualified hacks at near minimum wage to "therapize" their kid in the program.

[Anne Bonney]

Ditto to Yeoman's.  Plus, they could 'set you back' for anything, thus keeping you there longer and charging your parents more money.  In the St. Pete Straight under Newton's control I also think it had to do with his need to be a 'guru'.  He still to this day HAS to be worshiped and seen as THE guy with THE answer.

I think they also bought into "the end justifies the means" mentality.  They considered us to be in such danger (deadinsaneorinjail) that whatever they did was OK because it was "saving our lives".

They would also provoke people to the point of responding, which would then validate their "diagnosis" of us as violent druggies.  I think some of this came from the old Synanon "Game", which was a very 'in your face' method.  Same thing with the confessions.  If what we said about "our past" wasn't "bad" enough for them, we'd be confronted for lying and the confronting was horrible so we eventually learned to make stuff up to satisfy what they wanted, which again would validate their "diagnosis" of us being druggies.

[Shadyacres]

Also, the main problem is often not with the kid at all, but with the parents.  No parent is going to pay good money to be told that all their children's problems stem from their "parenting style", but this is often the case.  Many parents do not like the way the world has changed since they were in high school, and many of them feel compelled to blame their children.  They seem to deliberately overlook the fact that those same changes in the world have made their kid's adolescence much harder than theirs had been.  My own mother, for instance, went to a segregated school where none of the middle class white kids ever had any exposure to, or reason to experiment with, "drugs".  Her parents did not get divorced, so she had an intact family.  She did not have to learn how to fit in with a student body in a school 1000 miles away from her home.  She did not have to repeat this every year because she did not have reactionary parents who shipped her to the other parent every time she had a small problem in school.  
     
Most of the kids I knew in the program were in the same boat, their real problem was that their parents were stuck in the 1950's.

[Anne Bonney]

Also, the main problem is often not with the kid at all, but with the parents.  No parent is going to pay good money to be told that all their children's problems stem from their "parenting style", but this is often the case.  Many parents do not like the way the world has changed since they were in high school, and many of them feel compelled to blame their children.  They seem to deliberately overlook the fact that those same changes in the world have made their kid's adolescence much harder than theirs had been.  My own mother, for instance, went to a segregated school where none of the middle class white kids ever had any exposure to, or reason to experiment with, "drugs".  Her parents did not get divorced, so she had an intact family.  She did not have to learn how to fit in with a student body in a school 1000 miles away from her home.  She did not have to repeat this every year because she did not have reactionary parents who shipped her to the other parent every time she had a small problem in school.  
     
Most of the kids I knew in the program were in the same boat, their real problem was that their parents were stuck in the 1950's.

Yup....I've often referred to it as pathologizing adolescence itself.

[Samara]

Why do programs abuse children?  
1. Some start with the premise that teenagers are criminals, liars, and fuckbags that need to be rehabilitated.  They start with the prejudice and lack of understanding. This rationalizes all their subsequent actions.

2. In my program, the VAST majority of staff did not wander into employment with healthy egos. I know this because the TOTAL lack of boundaries meant they over shared everything from their masturbatory practices to crimes to participation in LifeSpring and other EST or Synanon type programs.  Many of them could not function well in their own skin, let alone mainstream society.  Some sought guru-like status, the rest needed to follow A Principle, hoping to feel whole. Many of them were working out their own fucked up experiences through us and could not differentiate our lives from theirs'.  For example, the girl with a bladder issues was classified as having an eating disorder because a staff member did. So the girl is being treated as if she has an eating disorder for two years(and its not even a medical facility qualified to make such diagnoses).  This happened more times than I can count. Staff projecting their own shit. And TOTALLY unqualified and unaccredited to make diagnoses.

3. I think the staff and programs get caught up in their own cult and don't realize what BS they are spewing. They blindly adhere to the Program. They are the Program - their entire lives center around it. They don't leave at 5 and step out of Cult Zone. They might be smoking weed and having hot tub orgies but they keep it cult-centric. The point is they get swept up in this alternate world that gives them a sense of self importance they can't find elsewhere. Then they practice their fun shit on us.

4. Programs aren't truly designed to help individuals or help kids. They are designed to reinforce the Program, whatever the cost.  This often mean perpetuating false hoods and protecting parental egos. I never had single inquiry about my individual need for help. Everything was dictated - nothing discovered or asked.  I wanted to feel better and would have appreciated real mentorship.  However, how could I buy into a program that didn't buy into me?  And for the record, I wasn't a druggie, slut, or criminal... or even some crazy bitch. Which at least would be more fun.  I was lost, depressed, and not achieving potential. There was no way to "rehabilitate" these issues in an environment that perpetuates fraudulent therapy, attack encounter groups, bizarre psychodramas, coercion via group humiliation, false histories.... while replacing cult lingo and ideology for the reality you are now isolated from.

[Anne Bonney]

Why do programs abuse children?  
1. Some start with the premise that teenagers are criminals, liars, and fuckbags that need to be rehabilitated.  They start with the prejudice and lack of understanding. This rationalizes all their subsequent actions.

2. In my program, the VAST majority of staff did not wander into employment with healthy egos. I know this because the TOTAL lack of boundaries meant they over shared everything from their masturbatory practices to crimes to participation in LifeSpring and other EST or Synanon type programs.  Many of them could not function well in their own skin, let alone mainstream society.  Some sought guru-like status, the rest needed to follow A Principle, hoping to feel whole. Many of them were working out their own fucked up experiences through us and could not differentiate our lives from theirs'.  For example, the girl with a bladder issues was classified as having an eating disorder because a staff member did. So the girl is being treated as if she has an eating disorder for two years(and its not even a medical facility qualified to make such diagnoses).  This happened more times than I can count. Staff projecting their own shit. And TOTALLY unqualified and unaccredited to make diagnoses.

3. I think the staff and programs get caught up in their own cult and don't realize what BS they are spewing. They blindly adhere to the Program. They are the Program - their entire lives center around it. They don't leave at 5 and step out of Cult Zone. They might be smoking weed and having hot tub orgies but they keep it cult-centric. The point is they get swept up in this alternate world that gives them a sense of self importance they can't find elsewhere. Then they practice their fun shit on us.

4. Programs aren't truly designed to help individuals or help kids. They are designed to reinforce the Program, whatever the cost.  This often mean perpetuating false hoods and protecting parental egos. I never had single inquiry about my individual need for help. Everything was dictated - nothing discovered or asked.  I wanted to feel better and would have appreciated real mentorship.  However, how could I buy into a program that didn't buy into me?  And for the record, I wasn't a druggie, slut, or criminal... or even some crazy bitch. Which at least would be more fun.  I was lost, depressed, and not achieving potential. There was no way to "rehabilitate" these issues in an environment that perpetuates fraudulent therapy, attack encounter groups, bizarre psychodramas, coercion via group humiliation, false histories.... while replacing cult lingo and ideology for the reality you are now isolated from.

Wow.....that was so well put!  :notworthy:  :notworthy:

It's amazing how similar they all "work".

[seamus]

Sadly,for fun and profit, its like style over substance,only mure insidious. Look at ms pete,in no way shape or form qualified to be a dogcatcher,let alone council any body on anything,well, unless youd like to count bein a seed parent,sucking at the divine teat of knowledge ol art barker spewed forth,and look at george ross,a doctorate in education,and still basically a rube.His good ol rbt bs was as close to any thing theraputic straight had to offer, however he assaulted,and tried to browbeat any old program kid he could,and expected to gain god knows what,fame? fortune? He also pulled a "mock rape" on a girl in the green room,in the guise of therapy,that I would suggest was more for his own "gratification" than anything else.
GO AHEAD GEORGE,TELL ME OTHERWISE,I FUCKIN DARE YA. Then he starts a program or two to spread that filth around, pussies out and reinvents himself as a "man of the cloth". Speaking of fiction,next we get the ever repugnant miller newton cassian fuctard..........we all know of his happyassed antics......and the good ol pulitzer prize winning "Gone way down" book HIS dumb ass wrote,Illustrated by the asskisssing shawn arnot.......see this is another prime example of this culture being done...starting to eat itself,starting with its own young.....programs are onle ultimately about two fuckin things,
 BENDING AN INDIVIDUALS WILL:
                           Kinda like the media,advertising,marketing,school,and the ignoble workplace.
 And MAMMON.At the expense of whomever without regard,without mercy.Filthy fuckin bastards.

[Gonzotherapy]

In my experience it is a money issue, compounded by the psyche of true sociopaths. I was in Paradise Cove. One of the upsides to that program was the fact that the staff was Samoan. Most of the Samoan staff were actually good people. They probably didn't know much better as they grew up in third world conditions. The abuse inflicted on us was more an issue of greed by the higher ups. They ran that program like a mexican orphanage. We were fed as little as possible, and given very few necessities. In fact if you wanted your clothes clean you had to wash them yourself in one of the two tub sinks available for the 100+ kids (on my beach, there were three beaches total) that were there at any given time, with one of those old time washboards.

The whole idea behind upper levels being staff was to cut down on employee costs. I mean if you look at the way that place was set up it really is a work of genius. The Samoan staff told me one time that they got paid around 43 cents an hour, and there was a ratio of about one staff member to every ten kids. The food probably cost about 3 dollars a day per person. Now that was over ten years ago, I think my parents were paying somewhere around 2,300 a month for my tuition. Not to mention the one time enrollment fee and random medical costs etc...

So basically the gross profit was about 75 dollars a day, I would guess after factoring in all costs Samoan staff pay, rent, bills, director pay etc... they paid out no more than 25 dollars a day, that leaves them with a 50 dollar a day net profit. And I think that is extremely conservative.

Talk about a fucking cash cow. $50.00 a day per student for over 300 kids. NET profit $15,000.00 a day. Now throw in a psycopathic lack of human compassion and any sense of morality, you have just won the lottery.
Everybody has a price right, how much money would it take for you to torture children?

Karma is a bitch though. And I hope I have a front row seat when Karma smacks the fuck out of these assholes.

[Watchful Yeoman]

Also, the main problem is often not with the kid at all, but with the parents

I have seen this as well.  The majority of kids, in my experience, were placed into programs largely because of the parents' inability or unwillingness (mostly the latter) to parent their own children properly.