There was some hubbub in the newspapers during the summer of 1981 in which charges of "brainwashing" were aired.
Here's that hubbub which, again, to my admittedly somewhat removed perspective, probably bore little or no influence on Jim Hartz'z exit. It's just that I happen to have it ready in the queue.
The coverage comprised of a small collection of articles by
St. Petersburg Times reporter
Milo Geyelin, spanning two consecutive days, and started off with the top story in the
Times 'City and State' section.
Caption for an accompanying illustration reads:
During their first weeks at Straight, boys are held by their belt loops as they are escorted around the premises. Girls are taken by their hands.[/list]
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St. Petersburg TimesMonday, July 6, 1981Growing Straight Inc. remains controversialThe teen-age drug-abuse therapy program, say some parents and former clients, is something close to divine salvation; others say it borders on brainwashing•
Straight Inc., a controversial drug-abuse treatment program for teen-agers, is approaching its fifth anniversary of operation in Pinellas County. This story, the first of two parts, examines Straight's method of therapy. •By MILO GEYELIN
St. Petersburg Times Staff WriterAlmost every weekday morning it's the same.
As commuters on the way to work cruise by a squat, sand-colored concrete buillding at 3001 Gandy Blvd., a chorus of teen-age voices rises from somewhere inside. the voices all sing the same song — a song that, like it or not, will set the tone for the rest of the day:
I'm here at Straight, feeling great;
From nine to nine, I'm feeling fine.[/list]
Nobody inside will be going anywhere for a while.
Straight Inc., a drug rehabilitation center for teen-agers, will soon be in its sixth year of operation in Pinellas County. With a new branch successfully openend in Sarasota last fall, another expected in to open in Atlanta this summer and still more being considered in Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., the program is attracting a national following.
But its philosophy — that if peer pressure can get kids into trouble with drugs, peer pressure can get them "straight" — remains controversial.
STRAIGHT CALLS its therapy "re-acculturation" — the process of "relearning the values, rules and behavior of the main culture."
In the opinion of some parents and former clients, the therapy program is something close to divine salvation. Other parents and former clients say it borders on brainwashing.
Straight's therapy is based on the theory that teenagers who use drugs — most commonly marijuana and alcohol — can't be helped unless they are totally removed from the influences that encourage them to use drugs, says Straight Administrative Director Miller Newton.
Conventional counseling by psychologists or psychiatrists doesn't work with kids on drugs, Newton says, because "you cannot isolate the kid from the peer pressure that has (use of drugs) implicit in it." the way teenage drug users dress, the way they talk, the music they like, their values — all these carry a message that Straight contends is unconventional, powerful and destructive.
As Newton puts it, "The 'do drugs' message is so strong that you just can't isolate the kid (from it)."
At Straight, the approach is to do just that.
Getting 'straight'Teenagers enter Straight cut off from their friends and families. They have no rights. Boys are held by their belt loops as they are escorted around the premises during their first weeks at the program; girls are taken by their hands. Routine activities are closely controlled: Clients can drink water and go to the bathroom only twice a day, shower at specified times and for specified periods, brush their teeth and comb their hair for only a certain number of strokes and talk only when called upon.
Rights to talk to parents, read books and watch television are taken away, then "earned" back as teen-agers pass through five progressive phases of treatment.
The first phase involves developing "self," says Newton. It means being "honest" about one's past as a "druggie." While teen-agers are in this phase of the program, they live with other clients' families until they have earned the right to "come home."
IN THE SECOND phase, the teen-agers can live at home and commute daily. In the third phase, they can attend school by day and Straight at night and on weekends. The fourth phase stresses developing friendships and the fifth phase — the "sharing stage" — is when the client may become a peer counselor and , ultimately, leave the program.
Clients who are almost "straight" assist about a dozen young junior and senior paid staff members — all of them former clients — who make up the bulk of Straight's staff. There are five fulltime professionals on the staff and one clinical psychologist who shares his time between the St. Petersburg and the Sarasota branches.
"If you look at the whole process, what we do here is sort of force a regression," say Dr. William Giesz, the clinical psychologist. "That is, we go back to about the toddler age and teach toilet training in a somewhat esoteric way. The belt loop phenomenon is much like what a parent would do with a toddler. The relationship is obvious."
The day begins with the Straight sing-along and perhaps a recitation of self-improvement pledges known as "The Seven Steps." Then the teen-agers begin the first of three daily group therapy sessions called "raps." In a large, hot auditorium, seated in hard plastic chairs, boys and girls ages 12 to 18 face two staff members and embark on discussions that begin with broad themes, then narrow down to personal observations.
"ONE OF THE most delightful group sessions I attended was on the theme bulls---, different kinds of bulls---," Giesz says. "And the kids got into different kinds of bulls--- associated with drug use and then the kinds of things they see around them that are bulls--- and things that are going on in the group that are bulls---.
"There's a tendency in the group through any given session to relate to the past, then relate to where they are now — what the differences are, where they want to go in the future and what they're going to do about it," he says.
Motivation and honesty are encouraged. Suspected dishonesty and unwillingness to participate are attacked. Two former clients interviewed by
The St. Petersburg Times said the rap sessions for most clients amounted to little more than phony confessionals where teen-agers "confessed" things they never did because such "honest" self-examination is seen as the only ticket out of the program.
"To please a counselor or to shut someone up from putting you down, you always had to tell a big, dramatic story," says former client Jeanine Wright, 18, who ran away from the program last spring after five months there. "Some of the things they talked about applied to me, but a lot of it didn't. Every time I tried to tell them about my past, they would sit me down and tell me I was being dishonest."
"PEOPLE WOULD lie through their ears to get 'better,' " recalls former client Michael Calabrese, 18, who ran away from the program last October after three months. "If you said things that were unpopular, it was disregarded, like that not very many of your friends were druggies or that you had a good job and were doing well. You were supposed to confess all kinds of bad stuff, and if you didn't, they figured you were lying."
But other former clients say the rap sessions cut close to the bone, forced them to examine themselves and, in the long run, developed their self-confidence to the point where they could refuse drugs.
Nancy Minton, 21, who left the program after a year and one month, says she is sure that "there were some younger kids in the program who did that (lied to get ahead)," but says that it was due to the drug environment they had just been yanked from. "Outside, you get just as much pressure from peers to do things wrong. I don't see what's wrong with using peer pressure to encourage someone to do something right."
Those who want to advance through the program must stand before the group at specially scheduled raps twice a week and announce that they feel ready to progress.
The request is discussed by the group, which then votes on it. A decision is made later the same day by the senior and executive staff, which rarely goes against the group vote. The decision is announced before the evening's "open meeting."
A family affairAt the open meetings, which parents are required to attend on a regular basis, teen-agers new to the program stand up before the packed audience and confess their drug use and what it did to them: the stealing, the sex, the hostility toward their parents and society. They talk about their feelings — mostly guilt — and how they will better themselves at Straight.
Family contact is limited to the tightly controlled open meetings until the teen-ager reaches the second phase and is allowed to return home. The teen-agers, boys separate from girls, sit on one side of the auditorium. Before the parents are led in, staff members tell them to sit up straight, tuck in their shirts, look neat and smile. As the parents are being led through the back of the auditorium, the children are singing another Straight sing-along:
I am straight, I can do anything ... anything.
I am strong; I am invincible ... invincible.
I am straight, I can do anything...[/list]
The parents applaud when the song ends. Between them and their children 20 feet away, two teen-age staff members sit on stools. The seating is planned so o parent can look directly across at his child. Eye contact between family members is forbidden.
After the teen-agers' confessions, a collection is taken from the parents.
THEN THE PARENTS speak to their children by microphone. Many simply say, "I love you... Talk to you later." Others admonish their children to work harder at getting "straight." Some talk about the pain and resentment they feel because of the way they were deceived and others say flatly that their children are unwelcome at home until they are "straight."
All through the open meeting, the names of those teenagers who have reached "second phase" and can go home for the duration of Straight's program are announced. Each time, the named youth jumps up, scrambles across his or her peers, races to the other side of the auditorium and leaps open-armed into a tearful embrace. The family hugs to thunderous applause — an emotional display made all the more powerful by the chilling confessions which began the meeting.
At the meeting's close, parents, clients and staff members join hands and sing a prayer. Then parents turn to those seated next to them and embrace.
The message is carefully orchestrated and powerful: Straight brings families — all families — together again. The parents seem relieved and grateful.
STRAIGHT DEMANDS an exhausting commitment from parents. All must attend a mandatory number of open meetings, even if it means commuting from out of state. After the open meetings, the parents must attend their own rap sessions where they learn about their child's involvement in the program, the ways of the "drug culture" and what to expect at home. The meetings last past midnight.
The entire program takes at least six months to complete, Newton says. The average stay is 10 to 11 months, though some clients have stayed in the program as long as two years. The cost, Straight says, ranges from $750 to $1,700 for the whole program, depending upon a family's ability to pay, plus $35 per month for food.
The fees make up 70 percent of Straight's $449,000 annual budget. The rest comes from donations (such as those made at the open meetings), says Straight Executive Director James Hartz. Straight will not turn away clients in need of help, no matter what their financial status, Hartz says.
But no one goes to Straight for free. " really don't know (how many poor clients there are at Straight)," Hartz says. "My philosophy is very simple: If you don't pay for something, that's about how much you value it."
Almost all the clients at Straight are white.
Who gets straight?Since September 1976, when Straight opened, about 1,600 teen-agers have been enrolled. Roughly 600 have completed the program and only 300 of those — less than a fifth — have stayed completely away from drugs, Newton says.
Most of the teen-agers in the program are referred there by parents who already have children in the program or know others who do, says Newton. Some have been referred there by school officials, police and, in the past, the Juvenile Court.
But during the past two years, the Pinellas-Pasco Juvenile Court has virtually stopped referring youthful drug offenders to the Straight program. And judges say they never send them there merely at the request of parents.
"ALMOST NEVER do we court-order them into the program," says Judge Jack Page. Page says he hasn't ordered a juvenile into Straight since reports surfaced about three years ago that Straight was keeping clients against their will. Though Page thinks the program has been very successful with some clients, he chooses Operation PAR (Parental Awareness and Responsibility) because that program does not take children away from their families.
"It (the PAR program) is a shorter program and a little more normal," Page says. A stay at Straight can involve more than a jail sentence for the original drug-related offense that brings the teen-ager into court, he says. "The PAR program is more in keeping with the length of time and degree of involvement you'll find for community control." Page says.
"Straight is highly intensive, and involves the entire family, more time and more money (than PAR) ... The kids go under a lot of pressure, and I'm not the one to put them under that pressure."
There was a time when Judge Robert Michael ordered teen-agers into Straight as a matter of normal disposition, he says. But now he is reluctant to order juveniles into the program, even for drug offenses.
I'M SURE THAT when parents get desperate, they welcome any program that will help their kids. But for those who don't need it (the kind of intense program Straight offers), I don't think you should be putting them there just to put them in the program," he said.
Judge Michael also sends most of his juvenile drug offenders to PAR. He has not ordered a child into Straight in almost a year.
Controversy remainsTroubles at Straight first surfaced in December 1977, after six directors resigned to protest management and treatment techniques at the program. One director accused the nonprofit corporation of "misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance." The complaints, which centered around handling of money and mistreatment of clients, were similar to those lodged against Straight's predecessor, The Seed.
The Seed was disbanded in October 1975 amid reports that its peer-pressure tactics subjected teen-agers to intense mental and physical abuse. In 1974, a federal report had likened treatment methods used by The Seed "to highly refined brainwashing techniques employed by the North Koreans during the 1950s."
Most of Straight's creators, its board of directors and staff members came directly from The Seed. But Straight, its supporters said at the time, was going to be different. The emphasis at Straight's rap sessions would be on creating a positive environment of "trust, care, honesty and sincerity."
But in February 1978, reports arose alleging coercive tactics at the program. Former counselors alleged that a youth was threatened with a cocked handgun and others were forcibly detained or threatened with fake documents "signed by the police department." Treatment plans were allegedly falsified and, in one instance, former counselors claimed a youth was slapped repeatedly by an executive staff member.
A THREE-MONTH criminal investigation conducted by the Pinellas-Pasco Attorney's office concluded that some of the allegations were true but there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.
Now, three years later, Straight's troubles are still not over. In its inspection of the program in March, the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) found that Straight was not following state rules on client treatment and record-keeping.
The HRS report indicated that several clients picked at random for interviews said high-level staff members threatened them with court orders which, they were told, would either force them into the Straight program or a mental institution if they did not sign themselves in voluntarily. HRS also said no clients interviewed knew of any process through which they could leave the program.
Clients told HRS officials that doors and windows at the homes where they live during the initial phase were locked from the outside so they could not leave. Personal files such as medical histories, treatment plans and psycho-social evaluations were found to be incomplete or inadequately maintained, and Straight was unable to document a training program for its staff.
CONTACTED AFTER the HRS report was released, Straight Executive Director Hartz said he felt "there are some inaccuracies" in the report but declined to discuss any specifics. "We fully wish to comply with state regulations and that is our intent," he said. (A more recent HRS inspection of Straight was conducted in June and Straight's license was renewed for one year. But HRS officials declined to discuss the specific evaluations until a written report is completed.)
Despite its difficulties, Straight has attracted powerful national and local support. Robert DuPont, the founding director of the National Institute for Drug Abuse, last December addressed a banquet of Straight supporters in Tampa and called Straight one of the best drug-abuse treatment centers in the country — a model for others.
The program enjoys strong local support from such powerful names as shopping center developer Mel Sembler, former radio and television station owner Sam G. Rahall and longtime Pinellas developer Joseph Zappala. All three sit on the program's board of directors.
Nonetheless, former clients continue to complain bitterly about the way Straight inducted them into its program. And Straight's definition of drug abuse appears to be highly subjective, yet more dogmatic, than that used by others in the field.
When is drug use drug abuse?At Straight, any use of drugs is considered to be a problem. "If you talked to us about not taking kids who use recreational drugs because it's not dangerous, I would probably go through the roof as an individual and a professional because I would not want that attributed to me or the program," says Newton.
"I can only give you my opinion," says Hartz. "The program doesn't have a written policy (on who is a drug abuser). To me, it's like pregnancy: Either you 'tis or you 'taint.
"...A 14-year-old who did alcohol and pot and never got arrested, never skipped school — that person in our opinion needs to work through his or her relationship to that drug just as much as the person who is 16 and who was out B and E'ing (breaking and entering), ripping off and so on and so forth."
TRYING TO DEFINE drug abuse, says Hartz, who has a bachelor's degree and master's degree in psychology, is "like trying to define schizophrenia. You can't say it's the difference between two and three. It's a subjective type of judgment based upon the chemical dependency model we use here ... You learn to identify the problem, but ... it's not like going out and reading a thermometer ... the answer is a combination of experience, your knowledge base and the fact that we have some literature to review on. And our opinions."
The "chemical dependency model" used at Straight had been adapted by Straight's administrative director, Newton, from a study on adult alcoholism. It lumps all drug use and its effects into one category — a progressive and ultimately fatal "disease of the feelings."
Before joining Straight, Newton, an ordained minister who graduated from Princeton University, was clerk of the Circuit Court in Pasco County, an unsuccessful 1976 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives and former director of the Florida Alcohol Coalition.
"OUR POSITION is this," says Newton: "Whether we take a kid into the program or not is determined in our judgment by whether the child and the family can handle stopping the (drug) use themselves or whether they need the help of an intensive, therapeutic program to isolate the kid from the peer influence — the availability of drugs..."
That determination is made on the basis of reports from parents, school officials, police records, the reputation a teen-ager may have with friends and relatives already in the program and the results of a thorough interview known as "intake," to which teen-agers are usually taken by their parents.
It is this intake procedure that some former clients criticize most severely. They say that for hours, they were grilled, told they were deviant, worthless human beings and threatened with court orders that would put them in the program and keep them there.
Eventually, they said, they believed it. So they signed themselves in.
NEWTON DENIES any threats of court orders and scoffs at the possibility that some of Straight's clients may have been bullied into the program. "Nobody who has good self-esteem will let it plummet because somebody talks to you about your behavior for four, six, 10, 30 hours ... We've dealt with 1,600 kids here now, so we've put together a very coherent pattern that is fail-safe."
Other mental health professionals and experts involved in treating drug abusers agree that deciding to send a child to a program like Straight depends on what you consider a drug problem to be. Most distinguish between casual, weekend or "recreational" use of drugs and drug dependency.
David Milchan, a 21-year veteran of the St. Petersburg Police Department who as head of the Youth Services Devision frequently referred families to Straight, distinguishes between heavy use of drugs like marijuana and beer and recreational use.
A heavy marijuana user would be "a child using marijuana on a regular basis, a child who says, 'I have to get high in order to function at school or with (my) family,' " says Milchan. He sat on Straight's advisory board until February 1980, when he resigned from the St. Petersburg Police Department to go work as a juvenile specialist at HRS. He is now police chief of St. Petersburg Beach.
OPERATION PAR also makes a distinction between casual use of drugs like beer and marijuana and abuse of those drugs, says Associate Executive Director Arnold Andrews. For a teen-ager to be admitted to PAR, problems with police, one's family or school must be directly related to drug use, Andrews says.
At PAR, which operates as an outpatient counseling clinic where clients and families come for scheduled appointments and leave, treatment is handled by staff members who have at least two years of college training in counseling.
"They (Straight) deal with while middle- and upper-middle-class kids," says Andrews. "PAR kids are more lower-class, indigent kids."
"People start taking drugs for all different sorts of reasons," says Dr. Anthony Reading, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of South Florida. "There is some correlation to underlying, preceding emotional problems."
Growing up and being a teen-ager involves all sorts of complex issues — stress, tensions, anxieties, says Dr. Reading. "It's a reasonable assumption that people in general don't get involved or overinvolved with drugs unless they have some kind of emotional problem.
"PROGRAMS LIKE Straight appeal to parents because they don't want to accept responsibility for their children's (drug) problem. Parents can get over-attracted to the program because of the fear a parent has of someone saying, 'You've been a bad parent.' "
In other words, Straight seems to appeal because its philosophy says that family problems stem from the drug use — not the other way around.
"You need to understand that drug use is a disease initiated by personal choice in response to peer pressure," says Newton in an unpublished treatise on drug abuse. "They (the parents) did not cause their child to use drugs."
The truth is, Dr. Reading adds, "that in dealing with teen-agers, other teen-agers can be very, very effective in changing their behavior ... Peer pressure can be very supportive in getting them out and changing them."
Parents whose children have had successful experiences at Straight agree.
"STRAIGHT IS the only drug program providing the services it does for the price," says Charlie Pittman, whose son Winston went into the program when he wa 15 and is now training to become a staff member. "The price is cheap. You don't get that kind of cooperation unless you get people who really want to help themselves and their kids ... Straight isn't for everybody. Straight only works if the family wants it to work."
Says another parent, "It's not a perfect program, but it's the best game in town. You can say what you want about it, but it does work."
Next: Straight's critics and supporters recall their experiences with the program.# # #
