Firstly, let me begin by saying that you are awfully presumptuous referring to me as a "young buck" who had a "bad experience" at Daytop.
(obviously you had a bad experience whether you worked there or was a resident or you would still be working there. I'm going to assume that you left on your own free will either because of money, seeing things you didn't like, etc.. hence my words, bad experience and just to clarify, my term of "young buck" doesn't refer to your age, but at the time in which you were affiliated with DV. If I'm not mistaken you said you worked with DV in 95. I had been affiliated with DV since '82, which meant to ME that i'm closer to the old school style of the way things were done than you were. If that offended you, then i apologize.)
Let me educate you to the facts: I was a counselor at Daytop, never a resident. I am classically educated with degrees in Psychology and Sociology and an MBA in progress, so step down off your soapbox and don't talk to me as if I were one of your peers.
(Well, i'm proud that you're educated. I'm not on a soap box because i have never experienced DV or any TC as an employee, but hell, they must be doing something right classically educated employees are still there)
Secondly, having worked there, and not viewing the modality through rose-colored glasses, as you seem to
( of course i'm going to see some things through rose colored glasses, i lived it, at some point couldn't see outside it, it was all i knew at the time and i can't apologize for that),
I know for a fact that Daytop is engaged in many illegal, unethical and immoral activities. This is not my opinion, this is fact. .
(and just out of curiosity, what if anything have you done about it? or did you just let injustices keep happening until you bailed?)
Thirdly, go tell some of the victims of this place that it's ok what Frank Lanza did to them and that if they "knew him back then," (never ever did i say what he did was right. That never came out in any of my writing. Maybe you are just too blinded by your hatred of Frank, DV or TC's in general that you need to read between the lines of something that i didn't say)
they "would understand." Tell them they should have understanding about Frank's behavior and that it is ok to be abused, belittled, humiliated and put on "the chair" outside, overnight in winter. Or that it's ok (or legal)to suffer through full body searches by untrained "staff" in filthy rooms ("Pick up your balls. Open your ass"). Tell them that it's okay that there's a confessed murderer bunking in the rack next to them because it brings funds to the facility.
(I personally hated body searches. I didn't agree with them and there were a few times i refused to do them. My alternative was to not be admitted to the program. Look, being subjected to a full body search is/was never okay by someone who didn't know what they were doing. It was a lesson in humility that happened once. When you got there. If you happened to leave (AWOL) and come back, yes, it was done again. For protection of all. You don't see it that way and probably never will. But you know what, the person getting screened has done worse on the streets using drugs, so WTF)
Fourthly, if you "spent the best days of (your) life in a treatment center," then you have had no life.
When i was in DV, it was rare that they accepted anyone who committed a violent crime, who was court-ordered. The problem is that it's the norm now for a criminal to be court-ordered to a TC if they have drug abuse in their history. Whose fault is that, the TC's).
Look as i said before, TC's are not for everyone and definitely not for today's drug users. Everyone who enters a TC seems to be coddled now, even down to the term "hard core drug user" to "substance abuser", what the hell is that all about. and if crackheads and methamp users aren't the worse users, tell me who is?
Tell me something, are you still in social services industry, or did you give it up because you were fighting a losing battle?
Conclusion: You are still drinking the Kool-Aid after all these years.
(your conclusion is based on nothing, so i won't even comment on that further. other than to say you have the right to your opinion as i have the right to mine. You see it from a clinical standpoint and i see it from someone whose lived through it. Yeah, we are going to see it differently)
Sad, yes. True, indeed.