Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Straight, Inc. and Derivatives

Escapes-Smuggled messages

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Antigen:
Escapes-Smuggled messages I'm not too sure if you'll have any luck disrupting a hike. I know there are kids out there who are just praying daily for such a thing. But after a couple of weeks, I imagine most of the kids are in a physically and psychologically weakened condition. They may not be able to or even willing to rebel. And when it's all over, they have witnesses virtually guaranteed to cover for them regardless of what actually happens.


Sounds like that sheriff and health dept. lady might be real helpful in this. Or maybe not. Did you get any kind of idea what he does with these kids when they escape?


When I got out of Straight back in `82, I was also 3 months away from 18. But in Georgia, 17 is (was? check) the legal age, except for drinking. So one of the Program sympathetic judges in Florida had me extradited from the state of Georgia for the 'crime' of being a runaway in Florida. Georgia held me in their juvenile detention for around 3 weeks or a month. (it was a cake walk by comparison!) then the FL state child welfare department put me up at a halfway house, under restriction to guard against kidnapping by Straightlings.


Eventually, another month or so, I went to court against my parents; they asking to have me put back in Straight, I (on the State's advice) asking to postpone a decision and let me go back to Georgia to spend Christmas with family. On the way out of the courtroom, the HRS atty took me aside and told me not to come back for the court date.


I don't know how HRS even found out about the whole thing. I was just sitting in this detention center, playing Gin Rummy with the girls when they came in and told me I was going back to Florida and that an HRS worker would meet me at the airport.


So you might try to get WV services in on this. It's a high gambit, of course. CPS can be as bad as these programs sometimes. They might try to 'help' him themselves. But, being that they're trying to shut the place down and he could probably help, it might be worth a shot to file a formal abuse complaint and see if they'll get him out.


Have you been out to where the school is? If you can get within sight of the campus without getting hauled off for trespassing, you could tell the health dept that you saw him all bruised up and he looked skinney.


If you're going to protest at the school, get ahold of local media and invite them to cover it. They probably will move the kids to another 'sister' program. But they'll have some sort of legal excuse handy (this has happened before). So you won't be able to stop them just by being there. Do check with that sheriff and make sure he knows what you plan to do and that you know the legal limit (i.e. you can stand here and hold a sign, use a bull-horn but you can't stand on their property or impede traffic, etc.) This becomes a first amendment issue. You have an absolute right to be on public property and get your message out. Looking at the map, the area looks like the whole area is state park land. So you might want to try and make friends with the park service people as well.


Do let us know what happens! Do you know how to put together a press release? Give me a call at 954-481-3559 if you like.

BostonBrave:
Escapes-Smuggled messages   Dear FaceKhan, I would strongly advise against the use of force. You have mentioned freeing your friend in a "relatively" non-violent way,perhaps by holding the staff at bay. How would you do that?with a gun or a knife or a club? Please realize that if you brandish a weapon at someone you are guilty of assault,which could land you behind bars.And if you were arrested you could end up creating public sympathy for the staff.


  The way to defeat these people is through proceedings in court and before the various state agencies charged with the protection of minors. I know that this is not always easy, and that in some states programs such as Straight have sympathizers in high places. But we must have faith that as we continue to shed the light on brutality, the citizenry will demand an end to it.We must approach the forums with clean hands.


  I realize that what I say is cold comfort to one who sees a friend in agony.But I would strongly urge you to stay on the right side of the law.

tommyfromhyde:
Re: Escapes-Smuggled messages     Remember that if he's still a minor when you get him out you could be in violation of a Federal law called the Mann Act if you transport him across state lines. Also, Greyhound employees are now trained to turn in apparent runaways so that might not be an answer either.

FaceKhan:
Escaping Yeah, the more I go over any kind of rescue attempt in my head the more I see the futility of it. If we try to break him out without any kind of weapon, we will fail, if we bring a weapon, we are criminals, still I am convinced of the rightness of the act.  I'll keep working within these ridiculous laws until I have exhausted all the options they provide, but if he were to get out of the place on his own, I would help him get away.


The local sheriff said that they generally don't even file a report, they just take them back to the academy. He said that the state police is sometimes called instead of his office so I may have better luck finding some information there.


As for the state lines issue, I think the way around that is to drive to the state line and let him walk across it on his own. Then I am not transporting him across state lines, just across states.  

FaceKhan:
Ways out I have not been to the school yet, but I am probably going to go there on Friday after the hearing. I probably won't be able to get to where Alex is but I should be able to see the building where some of the kids in their 3rd month are being held. I am hoping that the hiking portion of the trip is on public land because then I can make contact with him or at least get close enough to see him. They supposedly hike 10-12+ miles a day so I doubt that they would be remaining on the relatively meager 100+ acre property. I can then report what I see or if I get a chance to speak to him, I can report to CPS what he told me. The problem with the law is that minors can be held against their will, something that is illegal for adults, and they can be isolated from the outside. Even prisoners in a supermax have more rights and more contact with the outside than teens in one of these programs. We need strict regulation of these facilities or they need to be eliminated entirely.


If not getting along with our parents was a disease, we would all be dead.

If not getting along with our parents was a mental illness, we would all be insane.

If not getting along with our parents was a crime, we would all be serving life sentences as habitual offenders.

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