Page 1 of 38 in '57, a Judge Said 'Incorrigible' and Sent Me to 'Reform

In '57, a judge said 'incorrigible' and sent me to 'reform school.' Such places still need big ... Page 1 of 38

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FRONT PAGE (/BLOGS/MAIN) In '57, a judge said 'incorrigible' and sent me to 'reform school.' Such places still need big fixes #1 Stock to Own (/stories/2017/11/5/1710177/-In- in 2018 57-a-judge-said-incorrigible-

and-sent-me-to-reform- Tech expert Paul Mampilly just unveiled his No. 1 Investment school-Such-places-still- for 2018 need-big-fixes)

By Meteor Blades (/user/Meteor%20Blades)

Sunday Nov 05, 2017· 2:16 PM EST

77 Comments (74 New) 268 (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/5/1710177/-In- 74 (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet? 57-a-judge-said-incorrigible-and-sent-me-to-reform- url=https%3A%2F%RECOMMENDED LIST (/USER/RECOMMENDED/HISTORY) school-Such-places-still-need-big-fixes#comments) 2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%

2F2017%2F11%2F5%2F1710177%2F-Bombshell Forbes investigation: (/stories/2017/11/7/1713441/-Bombshell- In-57-a-judge-said-incorrigible-and-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Forbes- sent-me-to-reform-school-Such-Ross lied about being a investigation- billionaire Commerce- places-still-need-big-fixes&text=In+%(/stories/2017/11/7/1713441/-Bombshell- 2757%2C+a+judge+said+%Forbes-investigation-Commerce- Secretary-Wilbur-Ross-lied- 27incorrigible% about-being-a-billionaire) 27+and+sent+me+to+%  27reform+school.% 226 162 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713441/-Bombshell-Forbes 27+Such+places+still+need+big+fixes)Jen Hayden (/user/Jen%20Hayden)

again."

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had-to-save-those-children-I- would-do-it-again) 214 76 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713421/--I-lied-stole-and durrati (/user/durrati)

There's One Reason We Know Prosecutors Have Enough Evidence Against Flynn and It's Bad For Trump (/stories/2017/11/7/1713445/-There-s-One- Reason-We-Know-Prosecutors-Have-Enough- Evidence-Against-Flynn-and-It-s-Bad-For-Trump) 131 69 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713445/-There-s-One-Reason separatepowers (/user/separatepowers)

Multi-bombshells: Carter Page (/stories/2017/11/7/1713411/-Multi- tries hilariously not to sing like bombshells- a canary but does anyway Carter-Page-tries- (/stories/2017/11/7/1713411/-Multi-hilariously-not-to- bombshells-Carter-Page-tries- hilariously-not-to-sing-like-a- canary-but-does-anyway)   256 221 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713411/-Multi-bombshells Karen Wehrstein (/user/Karen%20Wehrstein)

attribution: Asylum Projects You Thought Harvey Weinstein (/stories/2017/11/7/1713443/-You- The Colorado State Industrial School for Boys at the base of Lookout Mountain in the mid-1920s. Was A Scumbag? You Had No Thought-Harvey- Idea. Weinstein-Was-A- (/stories/2017/11/7/1713443/-You- Scumbag-You- RSS Sixty years ago in October, I began what was to be a 23-month Thought-Harvey-Weinstein-Was- A-Scumbag-You-Had-No-Idea) (/user/Meteor stay at the military-style State Industrial School for Boys in   Blades/rss.xml) Golden, Colorado. I was six weeks short of my 11th birthday. 135 103 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713443/-You-Thought In the next two years, I often found myself in Dartagnan (/user/Dartagnan) rough circumstances at this “reform school,” including rape, REBLOGGED BY Trump is warping the energy (/stories/2017/11/7/1713515/-Trump- solitary confinement, public paddling, verbal and other abuse market to help just one is-warping-the- Daily Kos from guards we were forced to call “counselors,” and constant supporter—at a cost to climate, energy-market- (/blogs/main) health, and jobs to-help-just-one- fighting that I routinely got the worst of until I learned late in (/stories/2017/11/7/1713515/-Trump- my stay how to win. is-warping-the-energy-market- Support the Dream to-help-just-one-supporter-at-a- Defenders My experience as a court- cost-to-climate-health-and-jobs) (/blogs/Support%   20The%20Dream% designated “juvenile 24 12 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713515/-Trump-is-warping 20Defenders) delinquent” was far from Mark Sumner (/user/Mark%20Sumner) atypical for the younger boys Colorado COmmunity in Colorado’s “reform ***VOTING ROLL CALL**** Who (/stories/2017/11/7/1713446/-- (/blogs/Colorado% Voted? VOTING-ROLL- 20COmmunity) school” at the time. Sixty (/stories/2017/11/7/1713446/-- CALL-Who-Voted) years before then, when the VOTING-ROLL-CALL-Who-Voted) Daily Kos Liberation Industrial School was brand 66 207 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713446/--VOTING-ROLL League (/blogs/Daily% new, the place was far worse GoodNewsRoundup (/user/GoodNewsRoundup) 20Kos%20Liberation% and stayed that way until a 20League) scandal in 1941 revealed BillMoyers.com releases (/stories/2017/11/7/1713318/-BillMoyers- sweeping 600-story timeline of com-releases- beatings amounting to Trump-Russia ties going back to sweeping-600- torture by the authorities 1979 story-timeline-of- TAGS (/stories/2017/11/7/1713318/-BillMoyers- who were supposed to be attribution: Colorado Child Safety Coalition com-releases-sweeping-600- #CriminalJustice doing the reforming. story-timeline-of-Trump-Russia- ties-going-back-to-1979) (/news/CriminalJustice) Boys had been tied up,   chained to walls, flogged, and otherwise abused by the (/stories/2017/11/7/1713318/-BillMoyers-com - #JuvenileJustice 13 4 (/news/JuvenileJustice) authorities charged with taking care of them. Several boys had Leslie Salzillo (/user/Leslie%20Salzillo) been kept chained to balls they had to drag around all the #reformschool time, like some medieval nightmare, only being allowed to take Barber who has been giving free (/stories/2017/11/6/1713224/-Barber- (/news/reformschool) haircuts to homeless is gifted who-has-been- them off when showering. barbershop by stranger giving-free- (/stories/2017/11/6/1713224/-Barber- haircuts-to- #atriskchildren Sixty years since I began doing my time in 1957—six decades who-has-been-giving-free- (/news/atriskchildren) during which several legislative reforms, insightful behavioral haircuts-to-homeless-is-gifted- barbershop-by-stranger) studies, and much theorizing have been done regarding “at   risk” juveniles—the descendant of the Industrial School is one 418 75 (/stories/2017/11/6/1713224/-Barber-who-has of the state’s 12 youth detention facilities where punishments Walter Einenkel (/user/Walter%20Einenkel) Share this can still be psychologically and physically harsh, violence article endemic, and the well-intentioned textbook philosophy behind “rehabilitation” violated regularly with impunity and indifference. Animals. m-Starting-a-Game-Show-Called-

In an excellent essay a month ago, rflctammt Are-You-Smarter-Than-Carter- incorrigible -and-sent-me-to-reform-school-Such-places-still-need-big-fixes&text=In+%2757%2C+a+judge+said+%27incorrigibleThe-Contestants-are-Stuffed-%27+and+sent+me+to+%27reform+school.%27+Such+places+still+need+big+fixes) wrote here about a chilling February 2017 report Animals) (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/28/1698198/-Youth- 92 39 (/stories/2017/11/6/1713388/-I-m-Starting-a- Detention-in-Colorado-A-Crisis-with-a-Crusader-State-Rep-Pete- ShowerCap (/user/ShowerCap) Lee) on the Colorado situation: “Bound and Broken: How DYC’s Culture of Violence is Hurting Colorado’s Kids and What to Do Trump administration has plan (/stories/2017/11/7/1713518/-Trump- to dump people out of Medicaid administration- About It (http://static.aclu-co.org/wp- (/stories/2017/11/7/1713518/-Trump- has-plan-to- content/uploads/2017/03/Bound-and-Broken-report-Feb17- administration-has-plan-to- dump-people- dump-people-out-of-Medicaid) complete.pdf) .” The data in that report includes the Industrial   School, now called (after two name changes) the Lookout 17 5 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713518/-Trump-administration Mountain Youth Services Center. Joan McCarter (/user/Joan%20McCarter)

The authors found that Republicans piously pledge to (/stories/2017/11/7/1713492/-Republicans- violence has been soaring in do absolutely nothing about piously-pledge- latest mass shooting to-do-absolutely- the state’s Division of Youth (/stories/2017/11/7/1713492/-Republicans-nothing-about- Corrections. Fights, assaults, piously-pledge-to-do-absolutely- and complaints about nothing-about-latest-mass- shooting) violence have all been on the   rise, as have attacks by 22 14 (/stories/2017/11/7/1713492/-Republicans-piously youth against staff and staff Laura Clawson (/user/Laura%20Clawson) against youth. DYC staff attribution: Bound and Broken From the Bound and Broken report: Multiple thumbnails -a:Right Rail Thumbnails:) “routinely use physical force young people reported that staff would YOU MAY LIKE and pain” to control their purposely rub their faces on carpet to cause (https://cat.va.us.criteo.com/delivery/ckn.php? charges, the youngest being rug burn injuries. One youth stated, “The cppv=1&cpp=m07t1Xx5S0pnNVRETkJCYkkxWVRGZFRXY1crM 3D&maxdest=https%3A%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net% 11 years old. A common staff members intentionally rug burn youth.” 2Fddm%2Fclk%2F406065397%3B206338470%3Bi%3Bu% punishment is to throw a Another reported that staff pushed her head 3Dcleaning%3Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.officedepot.com% into the ground and “slid my head on the 2Fa%2Fproducts%2F251368%2FAngel-Soft-Professional- youth to a carpeted floor Series-2-Ply%2F%3Fcm_mmc%3DOLAMK-_-%25ebuy%21- carpet and I started screaming. I had a big and then push their face _-%25s-_-%25epid%21%7C%25erid%21%26cm_mmc% circle on my cheek from that.” 3DOLAMK-_-MK-_-2017BSDRetargetingQ4-_-%25s-_- across the carpet hard 206338470-_-%25ecid%21) enough to create rug Angel Soft Professional Series burns. Knee strikes to legs and abdomen are common, as is the 2-Ply Premium Embossed manipulation of nerve pressure points. Bathroom Tissue, 450 Sheets Pe… $30.59 - officedepot.com In the one-year period between January 2015 and January (https://cat.va.us.criteo.com/delivery/ckn.php? 2016, staff physically restrained youth at least 3,611 times, cppv=1&cpp=m07t1Xx5S0pnNVRETkJCYkkxWVRGZFRXY1crM employing in the majority of those instances handcuffs, 3D&maxdest=https%3A%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net% 2Fddm%2Fclk%2F406065397%3B206338470%3Bi%3Bu% shackles, or the WRAP, a painful, full-body straitjacket that has 3Dcleaning%3Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.officedepot.com% been banned in Arkansas after the state’s Juvenile Ombudsman 2Fa%2Fproducts%2F251368%2FAngel-Soft-Professional- Series-2-Ply%2F%3Fcm_mmc%3DOLAMK-_-%25ebuy%21- labeled its use “torture.” During the same one-year period, _-%25s-_-%25epid%21%7C%25erid%21%26cm_mmc% youth were placed in solitary confinement more than 2,200 3DOLAMK-_-MK-_-2017BSDRetargetingQ4-_-%25s-_- 206338470-_-%25ecid%21) times. (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/8/2/1555822/-OUCH- Newsweek-exposes-Trump-as-the-business-fraud-he-is) OUCH! Newsweek exposes Trump as the business fraud he is.

Something that isn’t included in the report is the fact—the (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/8/2/1555822/-OUCH- sadly unsurprising fact—that the percentage of black and Newsweek-exposes-Trump-as-the-business-fraud-he-is) Latino youth held in DYC facilities is disproportionately greater (http://rpptrk.com/0e1a305f-0e39-4fd7-ac08- 284ed8592dfc?a=1316&n=T&c=1f6a6cf9-8b8c-40a8-8cbd- than their percentage in the Colorado population, while the d97ea81c439c&i=1f6a6cf9-8b8c-40a8-8cbd- percentage of white youth is considerably less than their d97ea81c439c&&sn=dailykos&si=dailykos) proportion of the population. Cardiologist Warns: Throw Out Your Probiotics Now I wish I had the words to express my full range of rage and Gundry MD sadness over this news.

There’s an alternative: the Missouri approach (http://rpptrk.com/0e1a305f-0e39-4fd7-ac08- 284ed8592dfc?a=1316&n=T&c=1f6a6cf9-8b8c-40a8-8cbd- (http://missouriapproach.org/approach/). Compared with other d97ea81c439c&i=1f6a6cf9-8b8c-40a8-8cbd- states, Missouri’s incarcerated youth are four-and-a-half times d97ea81c439c&&sn=dailykos&si=dailykos) (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/9/1660433/-Paul- less likely to be assaulted, 17 times less likely to be placed in Ryan-s-office-complained-to-Seth-Meyers-about-his-jokes- mechanical restraints, 200 times less likely to be placed in and-Meyers-offers-this-amazing-response) solitary confinement, and corrections staff are 13 times less Paul Ryan's office complained to likely to be assaulted. A number of Colorado state legislators, led by Democrat Pete Lee, are trying to bring the Missouri model to Colorado. Here’s Lee’s Sept. 15, 2017, op-ed on the subject in the Denver Post , titled “Colorado’s juvenile detention

system has failed to improve (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/9/1660433/-Paul- Ryan-s-office-complained-to-Seth-Meyers-about-his-jokes- (http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/15/colorados-juvenile- and-Meyers-offers-this-amazing-response) detention-facilities/).” (https://popup.taboola.com/en/?template=colorbox&utm_source=dailykos&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=alternating-thumbnails-a:Right Rail Thumbnails:) (https://popup.taboola.com/en/?template=colorbox&utm_source=dailykos&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=alternating-thumbnails-a:Right Rail Thumbnails:)

MOST SHARED

Bombshell Forbes investigation: (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713441/-Bombshell- Commerce Secretary Wilbur Forbes- Ross lied about being a investigation- billionaire Commerce- (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713441/-Bombshell- Forbes-investigation-Commerce- On the left is a typical bare room for incarcerated youth in Colorado. On the right is the Secretary-Wilbur-Ross-lied- same for youths in Missouri, where they are allowed to wear their own clothes and bring about-being-a-billionaire) items from home to put on their walls.   1291 20

Thinking about all this reminds me of what the judge said at my Reporter puts Trump on the (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713447/-Reporter- spot about 'extreme vetting' for puts-Trump-on- sentencing in 1957: “Incorrigible.” Age 10 and I was already lost, gun purchases the-spot-about- according to his assessment. (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713447/-extreme-vetting- Reporter- puts-Trump-on-the-spot-about- Decades later, in the late 1980s, on a ride-along with a pair of extreme-vetting-for-gun- purchases) white LAPD cops as part of my newspaper editorial-writing job,   we stopped at a corner where an African-American boy of 1176 50 about 9 or 10 stood. The passenger-side cop got out of the car, went over to the boy and asked where his older brother was. Virginia Democrats, ACLU warn (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713475/-Virginia- of scam calls telling voters their Democrats-ACLU- The intimidation factor of that 6’ 2” well-muscled, well- polling places have changed warn-of-scam- armed cop and that skinny kid was a striking contrast to the (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713475/-calls-telling- Virginia- Democrats-ACLU-warn-of-scam- Norman Rockwell version of America calls-telling-voters-their-polling- (http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp- places-have-changed) content/uploads/satevepost/Runaway-featured.jpg). The kid   563 200 wasn’t talking. And he didn’t talk when the cop tightened his

hand on his shoulder. Soon, the cop gave up, and got back in Paul Ryan: If you think prayer (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713461/-Paul- the cruiser. As we rolled away, he said: “Well, that kid’s a lost isn't the only answer to mass Ryan-If-you-think- shootings, you 'don't prayer-isn-t-the- cause. They’re just incorrigible.” understand only-answer-to- Another 10-year-old without a future. Or rather, in this cop’s faith' (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713461/ Ryan-If-you-think-prayer-isn-t- estimation, just one of a bunch of worthless, dark- the-only-answer-to-mass- skinned “theys.” I had a lively interchange with him resulting in shootings-you-don-t- understand-faith) my being unwelcome on future LAPD ride-alongs.   There are still far too many Americans in authority who have 786 30

that cop’s attitude about supposedly incorrigible juveniles, Obamacare enrollments surge (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713457/-Obamacare- which—lots of people apparently need to be reminded of—is a in the first week—let's keep enrollments- fancy term for … children. that resistance going! surge-in-the-first- (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/11/7/1713457/-week-let-s-keep- Obamacare- Full disclosure: I needed reforming. enrollments-surge-in-the-first- week-let-s-keep-that-resistance- going) I was headed down a perilous road. When my grandmother   who had raised me died, my mother moved us first to 768 140 Nebraska, then Colorado. I was not yet 9 years old. And over the next several months in Denver, I attached myself to five older boys—all of them Latino—and joined them in long string of thieving, lying, cheating, bullying, and truancy. A truant officer was my first contact with the law. There were several more. I was caught shoplifting and got off with a warning from the store clerk. That same week we “rang” the registers to steal money from the same store and two others in that era before computers took over and cash drawers still opened with a push of a key and ring of a bell.

Then we got really stupid. The oldest among us, 15-year-old Ángel, decided we would rob a gas station. We were excited. Ángel had the only weapon, a hunting knife. Undisguised, we kind of stormed the place when no cars were around, with Ángel in the lead. By the time the police arrived, the

octogenerian who ran the place had us lined up facing the wall, our backs to the shotgun he had pulled from beneath the counter.

There was no way out of this. I already had a sheet, and now it included attempted armed robbery. At the time, kids as young as 8 with lesser offenses were being shipped to Golden. My mother and stepfather showed up for the court hearing, but only because the lawyer handling the case for all six of us boys said it might ease the sentence if parents were present in the room. Two of my fellow gangsters were foster kids and their temporary parents did not show up. But we all got the same “indefinite” sentence anyway. That could have meant incarceration for six months or until we were 21.

As noted, I needed reforming. What I got was anything but.

Not that it’s surprising, but the “Bound and Broken” report proves kids are being incarcerated now—in the 21st century—who aren’t getting what they need either. Given the collection of jackals running the U.S. Department of Justice these days, no serious federal help in this regard can be expected beyond a few grants for experimental programs. Under the current regime, the DOJ is working to take us back to the good ol’ days of criminal justice, attribution: Richard Ross, www.juvenile-in-justic… Isolation room at the Lookout Mountain for youth and adults alike. Youth Services Center, successor to the I was housed during my stay Colorado State Industrial School for Boys. in one of the Industrial School’s “cottages.” It was actually a nondescript three-story slab of a building turned into a barracks. There were no private rooms. We ate together, we showered together, and we shat together, as there were no doors on the toilet stalls. We had only one thing we could call our own: our toothbrush. Anyone who checked into the place with the only other personal possession we were allowed—a framed photo of family members—lost it the first time he went to sleep.

Twenty-three months is a long time to be locked up when you’re 10. A lot of things can happen. Things that shape you or warp you. Four experiences affected me most. The summary of them below is chronological, not ranked by how much or how long each affected me.

•••

The original idea behind the Industrial School wasn’t wholly awful. In 1881, W.R. Sampson, the school’s superintendent wrote: (http://www.edjj.org/conf/cd/EDJJ% 20Conference%20(D)/Lookout%20Mountain.pdf)

Experience has taught that bad boys (so called) can, in a great majority of cases, be thoroughly reformed and saved to their State, made valuable citizens, a credit to themselves, an honor to the community in which they dwell, and living witnesses of the wisdom and humanity of the philanthropic efforts of the State in their behalf. The bad boy, as a rule, is not the lazy, indifferent laggard among the boys; but, more frequently, a sharp, quick, enterprising youth, full of vigorous energy, whose nature needs a strong steady home government, and wise, kindly discipline. These favoring surroundings being absent, the boy becomes his own master. His natural bent leads first to mischief, then to sin and crime; and if his downward course is not arrested by wise interference of the State, he becomes a pest in society, and a continued subject of court and prison discipline.

Now, one can (and I do) take issue with several assumptions in that assessment. But that was nearly 140 years ago, and I don’t think I’m gullible because I see someone with a good heart behind much of what’s in that paragraph. It’s one of hope, not incorrigibility. Unfortunately, that philosophy wasn’t the practice, and as already noted, 60 years after the school’s founding, the staff still chained boys to the walls. And other stuff.

The most brutal physical practices were stopped after the 1941 scandal.

But one that survived the crackdown at the Industrial School was the apprenticeship program. They didn’t call it that. But they did pretend to visiting officials that they had one. In fact, the Industrial School was so named because it was supposed to prepare the boys inside for the military or factory work. Early on maybe they did a better job of that. By the time I was locked up there, however, such trade-school training was pathetic.

We were taught regular subjects by teachers hired from public school ranks. A few were good. Most were burn-out cases or the kind of people who should never have been teachers in the first place. This was especially bad since most of us were, as the saying goes, performing below our expected grade level. In addition to the Three Rs, propaganda in the guise of history and civics, and wee bits of science, we had three hours a day of "training."

For the oldest boys, this meant basic instruction in the carpentry shop or the machine shop, where some of the tools seemed to have been hanging since the place was built. For us younger ones much of what we did was not related to a trade, but rather working in the laundry or kitchen or doing clean-up. However, twice a week every week from my second day at Golden through the entire time I was incarcerated, we were "instructed" in a stultifying activity meant to prepare us for something similar on a factory assembly line. As if one hour were not enough to teach us everything we needed to know about the process, we spent years at it.

On the allotted days, we sat at a long wooden table, an arm's length from the boys to our left and our right. No talking allowed. Once we settled in, a few other boys brought around a cart loaded with large cardboard boxes. Each of these was two- thirds full of assorted nails, screws, washers, and nuts. These were dumped in front of us. And our job for the next two hours was to sort them. Not so bad as a flogging, but surely delivered with the same intent, to break our spirit, deaden our brains and teach us to follow instructions. At the end of each session, all the nails, screws, etc., were swept out of our neat stacks on the table back into their jumble in the boxes, ready for the next sorting. If we had been digging holes and filling them, at least we would have gotten a workout instead of making both our brains and our butts numb.

Within weeks of our arrival, all the new check-ins were commanded to undergo a version of what social scientists would later call the scared straight approach. We were taken in a bus with barred windows to Buena Vista State Reformatory, a prison at 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. At the time, this medium-security lock-up held boys and men ages 16 to 30. Many of the inmates were tough characters, and we got a strong dose in our day-long stay about what it would be like to be imprisoned with them, eat the same food they did, follow the same numbing routine, face the same thuggish guards.

Four months after I arrived in Golden. I was raped. It was Feb. 21. I was 11 years old. I’m not going to go into details except to say he was bigger and older than I. I did not report it. But I, or rather we , ultimately retaliated with a beating. “We,” because I was not his only target. We were never caught. Or maybe the “counselors” knew and just let us get away with it. Thanks to feminist analyses of rape, I long ago came to terms with what happened to me then and how I responded, outwardly and inwardly.

At the time, however, I determined never again to be unable to defend myself. Consequently, although it took many months, I made the object pictured on the right in the metal shop. It's a “zip gun.” Built to fire a .25 caliber attribution: Meteor Blades The zip gun I made in metal shop at the bullet. The "barrel" is piece “reform school” where I spent 23 months of brass pipe. Inside is a 1957-59. powerful spring on the end of which is a metal pin, the firing pin. Though hugely inaccurate, this is a deadly weapon meant for close-range use. But it's dangerous to the person who fires it as well. A shredded barrel or spring and bolt blown out the rear are the most obvious and lethal possibilities. It's been fired at cardboard targets about 20 times, but not for more than 50 years. I keep it to remind me of how incredibly stupid I was. And how lucky never to have used that homemade firearm for its intended purpose.

That’s my story. Or part of it. I survived. But that’s because I was lucky to have three good mentors after I was released.

Today other boys, and of course girls, are having their own stories shaped in youth institutions across the country. Or, in a practice I consider to be a crime of its own, in sections of institutions meant for adults.

Colorado isn’t alone in mistreating youth offenders, and it isn’t the worst. But that’s a low bar. Here (http://static.aclu- co.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bound-and-Broken- report-Feb17-complete.pdf) is an example of what has happened quite recently in Colorado:

Some young people currently held in DYC facilities were previously subjected to illegal DYC “Special Management Plans” that allowed children to be held in isolation for up to 23 hours a day, for weeks or even months at a time. These plans were in place at DYC facilities as recently as 2015. Youth subjected to these plans are likely to refuse further attempts to place them alone in a locked room. When staff then lay hands on the youth to force him or her into an isolation cell, a physical altercation can result, putting young people and staff in danger.

For example, David was previously placed on a DYC plan that required isolation for 23 hours per day, allowing David out of his locked cell only for “one hour out” and to shower. In his isolation cell, David had only his bed mat, a blanket, one book, one roll of toilet paper, one crayon, and a single sheet of paper. He was not permitted to attend school, and only received an occasional packet of schoolwork. If he completed the packet, and it was actually collected, he would not get it back, so he did not know if he had done the work correctly. At times, David “progressed” on his special management plan and was allowed to leave his cell in wrist to waist restraints—hands in handcuffs, connected to a belt around his middle. When he had not earned these “extra hours out” through good behavior, David was returned to “23 and 1” status. David was in isolation for 23 hours a day for weeks and sometimes months at a time, on and off, for over two years. David reports that he would become frustrated in isolation, but when he yelled at staff that he wanted to be let out, staff would simply cover the window of his cell.

After an investigation revealed that DYC was illegally placing youth like David in isolation, DYC finally removed David from the plan. David remembers that he then learned for the first time that [the facility] he was being held in was on a campus with a school and dining hall.

While going that far is now illegal in Colorado youth facilities, the “Bound and Broken” report includes plenty of other appalling examples of mistreatment. Here’s the story of the WRAP:

The WRAP physical restraint device is used in at least nine of the twelve secure DYC facilities. The device is a full body restraint akin to a straitjacket. To place a young person in the WRAP, DYC staff put the youth in handcuffs, bind the youth’s legs together, and then wrap the youth in the full body restraint. A strap placed between the chest and legs forces the youth into a seated position. DYC facilities sometimes apply a “spit mask,” a cloth that covers the child’s head and face, and a helmet while the child is in the WRAP restraint. DYC reports that during the thirteen month period from January 2016 through January 2017, DYC staff have placed a young person in the WRAP at least 253 times.

Colorado is one of the few juvenile justice systems in the country that uses the WRAP restraint. Colorado’s nine DYC facilities that utilize the WRAP account for almost a quarter of all the juvenile justice facilities in the country which have contracted to use this restraint. Other jurisdictions have recognized the harm that the WRAP causes to children: in 2014, the Arkansas Juvenile Ombudsman investigated the use of the WRAP in the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center, and called the device “torture.” During his investigation, the Ombudsman subjected himself to the device and helmet, finding it was difficult to breath[e] and that it increased anxiety. Less than two weeks after receiving the Ombudsman’s letter, the Arkansas Division of Youth Services banned the use of the WRAP, commenting that the WRAP has “no known therapeutic uses,” exposes youth to ridicule and humiliation, and presents a serious risk of harm to youth.

While several other states operate youth facilities that are as bad or worse than Colorado’s, other states have developed programs based on the crucial fact that its charges are children with traumatic backgrounds who definitely don’t need more trauma added to their experiences. One of those is the Missouri Approach, considered to be the “gold standard for humane and effective treatment of incarcerated youth”:

[It] is a trauma-informed therapeutic group treatment approach toward incarcerated youth devised and implemented by the Missouri Division of Youth Services over the course of the past three decades. Like Colorado, Missouri houses youth up to the age of 21 with the rest of its juvenile population, and works with youth who have been found guilty of serious crimes, are gang involved, have demonstrated violent behavior, and have significant histories of trauma. [...]

In Missouri, the goal is change, not punishment. Instead of “behavioral compliance,”Missouri staff focus on “internalized change.” Young people join a closely supervised group of 10 to 12 peers, with two dedicated staff called “youth specialists.” Youth spend virtually all day with their group—sleeping, eating, studying, and exercising together. When youth engage in disruptive, disrespectful, or destructive behavior, they are called upon to explain their thoughts and feelings to the group and reflect on how their actions impact others.

In Missouri, they don’t use the WRAP, they don’t use force, they greatly limit use of restraints, and they never leave a child alone in a locked room,

The results: Far less violence, lots more rehabilitation.

As noted above, Democratic state Rep. Pete Lee has been working with the local ACLU and other state legislators to bring the Missouri approach to Colorado.

The authors of the “Bound and Broken” report recommend a number of policy options:

1. Bring a Missouri Approach pilot program to DYC, under the guidance of Missouri YouthServices Institute, to begin within six months. Colorado’s children cannot wait.

2. Prohibit physical management methods that harm and re-traumatize children.

• Prohibit the WRAP. • Prohibit pain compliance techniques. • Prohibit the use of leg irons and wrist-to- waist restraints. • Prohibit staff from physical contact with disobedient youth who pose no immediate threat of harm to self or others.

3. End the practice of isolating children who act out.

4. Provide intensive training and retraining to all staff in the provision of trauma-informed care and build a positive culture based on relationships, not punishment or control.

5. Provide staff the tools they need to de- escalate and, when necessary, physically manage escalated youth in a manner that does not harm youth or staff, such as the methods taught in Safe Crisis Management.

6. Increase transparency of DYC. The public has a right to know the circumstances under which DYC uses force on the youth in its care. Even with the passage of the DYC transparency law, DYC refuses to provide such information. Should DYC persist in its refusal to disclose information about use of force, the legislature should amend the law to require DYC to provide such information in response to a public information request,without divulging confidential information about individual young people.

The Denver Post (http://www.denverpost.com/2017/04/28/colorado-youth- corrections-wrap-restraint/) reported that “Colorado’s youth corrections system will end use of the wrap, a restraint similar to a straitjacket, by July 2018.”

In Colorado or anywhere else, all the written policy statements and other reforms will amount to nothing without a commitment from staff and staff leadership to stop treating incarcerated youth as incorrigibles and stop pretending that they are just miniature adults.

•••

For more information on Rep. Lee, please visit his website (https://peteleecolorado.com). Lee is running for the state Senate in 2018.

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77 COMMENTS Comment Settings

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(/user/rflctammt) rflctammt (/user/rflctammt)

Nov 05 · 02:29:34 PM (/comments/1710177/68251222#comment_68251222) Thank you for sharing your story, MB. And for the much needed attention to this shameful failure on the part of our society.

Recommended 91 times

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(/user/ickamaus) ickamaus (/user/ickamaus) rflctammt

Nov 05 · 07:15:00 PM (/comments/1710177/68254365#comment_68254365) I also want to thank MB for sharing this horrific story.

I’m really frightened that the appointments of Jeff Sessions (racist extraordinaire) and Betsy DeVos (let’s take away education, make people stupider, and create drones for industry) are the current RWNJ trolls who want to continue these despicable practices.

Recommended 11 times

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(/user/navajo) navajo (/user/navajo)

Nov 05 · 02:32:32 PM (/comments/1710177/68251258#comment_68251258)

That’s my story. Or part of it. I survived. But that’s because I was lucky to have three good mentors after I was released.

Glad they didn’t break you. Sharing, it’s a good story.

Recommended 78 times

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(/user/Meteor Blades) Meteor Blades (/user/Meteor Blad… navajo

Nov 05 · 04:35:41 PM (/comments/1710177/68252734#comment_68252734) Thanks for your support in urging me to write it.

Recommended 45 times

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(/user/navajo)

navajo (/user/navajo)  Meteor Blades

Nov 05 · 04:59:43 PM

(/comments/1710177/68253009#comment_68253009) I know it was hard for you to write this, very hard.

You told me your story years ago when my grandson was approaching 10. He was a bit difficult behaviorally. I tried to imagine him being in reform school. It broke my heart to think about it.

I can’t understand why anyone would let that happen to you. I’m glad you’re calling attention to this and I hope more CHILDREN can be spared this horrible treatment.

Recommended 37 times

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(/user/Vetwife) Vetwife (/user/Vetwife)  navajo

Nov 06 · 01:48:24 PM

(/comments/1710177/68261879#comment_68261879) Thanks Navajo for encouraging MB to write it. Very difficult situation.

Precisely why Vet and me adopted all four of our grandchildren when they were in state custody...well the 4th wasn’t but once the state gets the kids from parents who are negligent, then all things start to happen.

We may not have been the best all the time but we never really retired and took those kids in to avoid what I knew was a horrid situation, and they would end up in a place like that. They are all grown except our young one and she is our sunshine. They all come home and none have been in big trouble… They have been in and out of mischief but no convictions of anything and they are pretty lucky IMO. They were victims as you were MB. Kids are kids and should not be treated in such ways. I like the man you became with a heart. Many don’t.

 3 Recommend

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(/user/Al Fondy) Al Fondy (/user/Al Fondy) navajo

Nov 05 · 06:15:29 PM (/comments/1710177/68253739#comment_68253739) Tell us more about the caring adults. I was 12 in 1957, and I know that caring adults made all the difference in my life. I just wish I had recognized the caring adults at the time.

Recommended 10 times

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(/user/Silent Spring) Silent Spring (/user/Silent Sp…  Al Fondy

Nov 05 · 06:32:00 PM

(/comments/1710177/68253906#comment_68253906) Yes, I agree that we need to hear about what caring adults do. They DO make a difference and I can attest to that both personally and professionally. I can vividly remember the adults in my life from childhood through high school who saved my life — just a few family members but mainly teachers — who gave me hope to keep going. Who invited me to believe I was smart, good, and had a future despite what my peers said about me and despite what adults did to me. I’m 53-years-old and I can still see their faces and hear the words that gave me hope. That sparked resiliency.

Recommended 5 times

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(/user/Al Fondy) Al Fondy (/user/Al Fon… Silent Spring

Nov 05 · 06:49:08 PM

(/comments/1710177/68254096#comment_68254096) I was a teacher for 38 years. I became a teacher to save the world. At the end of my career I am embarrassed to know how few I really saved. My friends always say that I saved plenty that I don’t know about. I hope it is true. But if a teacher doesn’t do it, I still wonder who else will.

Recommended 8 times

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(/user/Silent Spring) Silent Spring (/u…  Al Fondy

Nov 05 · 09:00:44 PM

(/comments/1710177/68255492#comment_68255492) I’ve worked in public schools for 30 years. As a teacher and a psychologist. The one thing that keeps me going back day after day is that I hope that I say or do just one thing in my day that will help just one person. And I’ll never know the fruits of my labor. Ever. Most people don’t write or try to contact their teachers and let them know how they helped. Early on in my career when I was in my late 20’s or early 30’s, I had several students contact me with lots of stories about how fun my class was and how much they loved learning. But that’s about it. But I remember tons and tons of little tiny victories. And just getting to know and love a lot of young people.

I guess we have to be content those quiet efforts, and if for nothing else because it’s the right thing to do, and will start a ripple effect for humanity. You have to believe that. After 38 years, I’m absolutely positive that you did well Al Fondy. Real well.

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(/user/ShoshannaD) ShoshannaD (/user/ShoshannaD)

Nov 05 · 02:34:21 PM (/comments/1710177/68251274#comment_68251274) Yesterday, the “ wrap” needed to go yesterday. Anywhere in the country as well as the recommended reforms, but of course you know that.

painful to read, so just so sorry you went through that. Amazing what a success you became…

take care, sh

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(/user/StellaRay) StellaRay (/user/StellaRay)  ShoshannaD

Nov 05 · 05:43:40 PM (/comments/1710177/68253464#comment_68253464) Yes. It is totally nonsensical that they’ll stop using the wrap by 2018. Just stop it. Today, or as you said, yesterday would be good. What kind of bassackwards thinking decides to phase out torture, as if it’s an appliance or a car? In the Missouri case the judge said no more and that was that.

Searing story to read MB, and I’m sure even harder to write. But thanx for the courage to do so. We need much more light on this issue. Good Lord, what you describe is like a factory for turning children into hardened and violent adults. If there were a manual on how to do that, this pretty much describes it.

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(/user/Frideswide) Frideswide (/user/Frideswide)

Nov 05 · 02:35:34 PM (/comments/1710177/68251289#comment_68251289) The wickedness and cruelty that one human being can inflict on another has always been an anathema to me. Thank you for bringing this to our attention!

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(/user/subir) subir (/user/subir)  Frideswide

Nov 05 · 08:17:39 PM (/comments/1710177/68255026#comment_68255026) It is especially wicked when inflicted on children.

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(/user/Intermedia Projects ) Intermedia Projects (/user/Intermedia P…

Nov 05 · 02:35:48 PM (/comments/1710177/68251292#comment_68251292) Thank you so much for sharing your story-

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(/user/SuetheRedWA) SuetheRedWA (/user/SuetheRedWA)

Nov 05 · 02:37:42 PM (/comments/1710177/68251323#comment_68251323) Hear’s to hoping that the new approach is implemented successfully.

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(/user/revm3up) revm3up (/user/revm3up)

Nov 05 · 02:37:42 PM (/comments/1710177/68251324#comment_68251324) This is a difficult topic about which I am barely able to read. For about 6 straight years, I secretly and at times, obviously, followed my bipolar manic teenage son around trying to keep him alive or from being sent to such places by smoothing out the insanity in his wake. Finally, we were able to obtain effective treatment (as services became available and medical understanding of the brain improved) and he has improved dramatically. Thank you for having the courage to present this information so that we can push our society towards reforms. Our country’s approach rises slightly above third world countries (where people are chained to trees by their families) and lags other developed countries who use science-based rehabilitation (medically and psychologically). Fundamentally, what this country needs is compassion rather than punishment .

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(/user/doingbusinessas) doingbusinessas (/user/doingbusinessas)

Nov 05 · 02:39:47 PM (/comments/1710177/68251345#comment_68251345) I am so glad you’re here. I’m glad you found the right mentors to help you out over the years. I see a person with lots of insights and experiences to help mold the youth of today.

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(/user/Flowergirl77) Flowergirl77 (/user/Flowergirl77)

Nov 05 · 02:40:39 PM (/comments/1710177/68251347#comment_68251347) This can’t have been easy to write. Thank you so much for sharing it.

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(/user/emptythreatsfarm) emptythreatsfarm (/user/emptythreatsf…

Nov 05 · 02:40:56 PM (/comments/1710177/68251351#comment_68251351) 11.

I have a 12 year old, and I can’t even bear to imagine him experiencing what you did.

Similar things occurred at Lincoln Hills in my state of Wisconsin.

Shouldn’t have happened in 1957. Shouldn’t be happening now.

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(/user/Peter Sipp) Peter Sipp (/user/Peter Sipp)

Nov 05 · 02:41:33 PM (/comments/1710177/68251358#comment_68251358) Hi MB, Whew, what aweful experiences! I thought I had it rough with a narcisist mother finding fault with me 24/7/365. My up bringing was tame compared to yours! Best to you! Pete

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(/user/rflctammt) rflctammt (/user/rflctammt)

Nov 05 · 02:42:06 PM (/comments/1710177/68251362#comment_68251362) My first husband (may he rest in peace) spent time in and out of Lookout Mtn. in the early 70s for the “crime” of being a runaway. He was 14. His raging stepfather would “ground” (imprison?) he and his older brother to the basement for weeks at a time, not even allowing them out for meals and their drunken mother couldn’t stop him. One day they just didn’t come home from school. His older brother lived on the run for the rest of his life. He got picked up and sent to the “reform school” a few times. Finally, his mother wrote him a note to give to the cops that said, “My son is a free boy. He has my permission to be away from home. Please do not arrest him.”

Saddest thing in the world. They still did of course. Eventually a wonderful foster family took him in, but he never could shake the idea that he was bad to the bone. He spent 15 years doing hard time for a violent crime he committed in a drunken rage when he was 35. He had a heart of gold but he was forever scarred by those early experiences and could not bear to face them.

Much love and compassion and admiration to you, MB, for overcoming your trauma.

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(/user/Navy Vet Terp) Navy Vet Terp (/user/Navy Vet Terp)

Nov 05 · 02:43:43 PM (/comments/1710177/68251374#comment_68251374) From 1983 to 1986 I was deputy district attorney for northeastern Colorado and I prosecuted many juveniles, mostly for burglary and car theft. It was quite obvious to me who would be “graduating” into adult defendants when they passed their 18th birthday, and I was even keeping track of their birthdays, these kids were three or four or five time offenders as juveniles. The maximum penalty was 2 years in “kiddie prison.”

I was never informed about the conditions you describe.

One young man took a liking to me and I became sort of a surrogate father to him and he gave up burglary and the last I heard he was a model citizen. I dismissed the one burglary charge he had after his 18th birthday — burglary of the city pound which had picked up his dog for running loose and were going to euthanize his dog that night if he didn’t come up with the money that day to pay the pound for the dog’s room and board. Sadly, his burglary (more likely a misdemeanor trespass anyway) came too late — they had killed his dog. No way I was going to take that case to a jury. But the young man was really grateful I had dismissed the charge.

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(/user/underwriter505) underwriter505 (/user/underwrite… Navy Vet Terp

Nov 07 · 02:57:02 PM (/comments/1710177/68273693#comment_68273693)

I was never informed about the conditions you describe.

“Secret de polichinelle.” It’s supposed to mean “open secret” — but, if you do not already know it, no one will tell you, because “everybody knows.”

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(/user/Decorina) Decorina (/user/Decorina)

Nov 05 · 02:45:11 PM (/comments/1710177/68251394#comment_68251394) Horrible treatment of our future. It seems you’ve survived on pretty good terms with your past. But the depths of sickness in some segments of our culture need to be exposed and removed. You have done your part and have my respect for doing so. Thank you MB.

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(/user/Silent Spring) Silent Spring (/user/Silent Spring)

Nov 05 · 02:47:19 PM (/comments/1710177/68251419#comment_68251419) Excellent and horrific piece. Thank you for compiling this, yet mostly for sharing your own journey. Just wow. Having worked with youth for 30 years, I’ve seen a lot. And I’ve been involved with young persons who struggle to make sense of their worlds — mainly stemming from dysfunctional family systems combined with a lack of resources and supports within communities to help turn the tide.

James Garbarino, Ph.D. (https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/81638.James_Garbarino) has an excellent body of work on why the boys of our nation turn violent and why our prison systems are full of men who never had a chance beginning in early childhood. One of his most compelling books Lost

Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141584.Lost_Boys) really turned my thinking around about our violent culture, our tendency to use phrases such as ‘man up’ and ‘don’t be a sissy’ instead of really looking at the core issues of raising people. Andrew Solomon, Ph.D. also has an excellent chapter in his book Far From the Tree (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13547504-far-from-the- tree) about youth crime. A must read.

On a personal note, and when my son was 15-years-old, his abusive father finally left our home. He got into some real trouble in high school, yet I worked tirelessly as figuring out all the resources I could to help him. To help us. The school system did not help us. The police profiled him. There were three people who saved him. And me. A juvenile judge, a kind probation officer who knew how the system was rigged against him, and fresh faced public defender. He decided to plead guilty instead of fighting the charges — that would guarantee the juvenile prosecutor would bump up the charges and recommend (and be granted) at least a year’s time in one of the harshest youth prisons in our state. I knew what would happen to him there.

The judge did his homework and knew all of the above. The probation officer spoke on his behalf and all he had done to better himself without any help in the community. The public defender stood next to me when I spoke on my son’s behalf to the courts prior to sentencing, and told of his father and what the school had done, and that my gifted athlete lost all college sports scholarships due to all of this. He put him on a year’s probation, yet the felony charge stuck. Flash forward almost 8 years. He worked his ass from from that day forward graduating from an alternative high school, working and keeping tough jobs to show his work ethic to employers, getting his records sealed, and making a good life for himself today. He only has to come up with a few thousand dollars now to get his gun rights restored.

It only takes one person to believe fiercely in an adolescent for change to occur. Not always, but often. I’ve seen in professionally and personally.

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(/user/Meteor Blades) Meteor Blades (/user/Meteor Blad…  Silent Spring

Nov 05 · 11:05:56 PM (/comments/1710177/68256692#comment_68256692) I am familiar with Garbarino’s work. Thanks for linking it here for others to see.

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(/user/PadreMellyrn) PadreMellyrn (/user/PadreMellyrn)

Nov 05 · 02:47:55 PM (/comments/1710177/68251424#comment_68251424) I hate to say it, but I think I am beginning to understand why certain things happen in Colorado. One of my supervisors knew the Uncle of one of the two boys that perpetrated the Columbine massacre. They were ‘Good, God-Fearing Christians’ according to the supervisor, but then again he was one who support the facilities your writing about, as did his ‘Church group’.

I myself spent some years dealing with people who had abused their own children, and in turn they had been abused. Many firmly believed in the “Thumb Rule” about beating your child with a rod.

I also knew a family, who lived across the street from us back in the late 50’s, in Okinawa on the military base. The father was one of those “God- fearing Christians” who would come back everyday at lunchtime to spank his children with a belt, and make them confess “their sins”, and then had to sit quietly for an hour after, getting only one bowl of succotash all mashed up, with only a cup of water to drink.

Over the years I have learned to avoid families in which the children were repeatedly abused by the parents, particularly the father. Though I did end up marrying two such. The first marriage only lasted about 6 months due to the issues of the family, The second marriage is now going on 30 years, but not with out it’s Majors ups and downs.

In the end, it always amazes me when I run into people who claim “Well I was beaten as kids and look at me” and your thinking, Ya, but really I don’t want to; I just can’t understand why people think that abuse is going to help anyone.

That was one of my vows, when I adopted my kids, I would not strike them ever. They would get talked to, timed out, or otherwise loss a privilege i.e. Television for a day or two, Phone rights and so on but I was not going to lay a hand on them, and they worst ‘raise in my voice’ was a couple of decibels to make sure I was heard over the noise, but for the most part it was the “Quiet Voice” that got their attention.

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(/user/cminus) cminus (/user/cminus) PadreMellyrn

Nov 05 · 04:37:49 PM (/comments/1710177/68252760#comment_68252760) I am a kind-of Lutheran, but I think we could do worse than listen to the Jews in this respect. There was a rabbi at a bar- mitzvah who gave a sermon about how criminals “deserve a fair deal, too” — punishment as in actions have consequences, yes, but no more than that, and always with rehabilitation in mind. It’s in the Old Testament somewhere — can’t remember where, but the so-called “Good Christians” seem to completely ignore their own religion.

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(/user/PadreMellyrn) PadreMellyrn (/user/PadreM…  cminus

Nov 05 · 10:15:22 PM (/comments/1710177/68256210#comment_68256210) My Favorite Quote from Thomas Paine:

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.- Thomas Paine Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomaspain1058 74.html

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Johnny Coyote (/user/Johnny Coyo …  PadreMellyrn  [new]  Nov 05 · 06:58:59 PM (/comments/1710177/68254194#comment_68254194)

(/user/Johnny Coyote) My father was a good man. He never hit us. A couple of times he threatened to get out his belt. We laughed at him.

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(/user/PadreMellyrn) PadreMellyrn (/user/PadreM…  Johnny Coyote

Nov 05 · 10:03:59 PM

(/comments/1710177/68256109#comment_68256109) Oh my dad occasional took a belt to my behind on the rare occasion, but it was more to get my attention, and after a I turned 10 he said that it was not going to happen anymore, I was too grown up. I got the “lecture”.

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(/user/maggiejean) maggiejean (/user/maggiejean)

Nov 05 · 02:54:12 PM (/comments/1710177/68251506#comment_68251506) Well, I am quite pleased Meteor Blades that you were not able to be “corrected, improved, or reformed.” That being said, the treatment of our children continues to be a fight not yet won.

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(/user/underwriter505) underwriter505 (/user/underwrite… maggiejean

Nov 07 · 02:51:23 PM (/comments/1710177/68273631#comment_68273631) Cynically, I have to wonder how many of those — people — who pronounced you incorrigible, would, upon learning that you are a leading progressive, be convinced they were right. To hell with them. Add me to the list of people who are grateful that you survived, and grateful to you every time you post here.

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(/user/Chris Reeves) Chris Reeves (/user/Chris Reeves)

Nov 05 · 02:55:55 PM (/comments/1710177/68251531#comment_68251531) Thank you for this, again, I am always fascinated by the lives we lead and how it shapes us. This is an excellent, horrific piece of writing. I’m going to think about this for a while.

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(/user/Diana in NoVa) Diana in NoVa (/user/Diana in NoVa)

Nov 05 · 02:58:38 PM (/comments/1710177/68251564#comment_68251564)

Oh, my God

Sorry you had to live through that, MB. How horrendous! Can’t anything be done about it?

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(/user/rflctammt) rflctammt (/user/rflctammt)  Diana in NoVa

Nov 05 · 03:19:41 PM (/comments/1710177/68251819#comment_68251819) Yes! Youth corrections / juvenile justice is a concern everywhere. It is an issue kept hidden (literally and figuratively) from the public unless you are a parent or child or caseworker/teacher/staff involved. People do not want to know what happens to our throw-away kids.

But it touches all of us.

My father-in-law was born in 1929 in the South to a mean old drunk, he intentionally took beatings for his younger siblings — he was very tough — but he ended up stealing a car at 15 and going to the Florida School for Boys (http://www.npr.org/2012/10/15/162941770/floridas-dozier- school-for-boys-a-true-horror-story) for two years. This great man died over ten years ago — before the horrors that took place there began to be uncovered. Actual torture, sexual and physical abuse of henious nature and outright murder...I think bodies are still being found.

I used to teach poetry during summer school at the local dentention center. It was heart-breaking to hear the thoughts and stories of those kids through the whispers of their poems. The loneliness, the fear, even the denial and the anger. But worst of all was the death of dreams. Hopelessness at such a young age.

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(/user/Dfh1) Dfh1 (/user/Dfh1)

Nov 05 · 02:58:41 PM (/comments/1710177/68251566#comment_68251566) I’ve worked in adult corrections for twenty years and over that time seen a lot of positive change in how rehabilitation is undertaken and how inmates are treated. So, it continues to schock me when I read about conditions as outLined i the Colorado report. They have devised a system that is devoid of compassion, that fails to see the potential in their clients, that refuses to identify and treat mental illness and trauma that more often than not contributes to illegal behaviour.

I am glad you were able to find mentors to guide you in a better direction. For most, though, who leave detention centres even more traumatized than they were when they arrived, the prognosis is pretty bleak. I know because I end up dealing with them when they “graduate” into adult facilities.

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(/user/Swamp Fox) Swamp Fox (/user/Swamp Fox) Nov 05 · 03:03:13 PM (/comments/1710177/68251631#comment_68251631) I could have easily headed down the same road: alcoholic father who drank himself to death by the time I was 10. Fortunately, when he was home, he left us kids alone… mom wasn’t always so lucky.

And, as you well know, as bad as things may still be today they were a lot worse in the late 50’s and early 60’s. My mother would always threaten me with “reform school” because that’s where “they” sent juvenile delinquents.

Although you did not escape unscathed, your individual strength is an example of the old saw “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Sadly, since we all are individuals and react differently to any given circumstance, there are so many more for whom this type of experience serves only as an anchor to drag them under until despair (or the state) takes their lives.

You typify “courage in the face of adversity” and your story offers a concrete lesson to our fellow travelers who do not understand the admonishment: “There, but for the grace of God, go I”.

Thank you.

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(/user/Meteor Blades) Meteor Blades (/user/Meteor Blad…  Swamp Fox

Nov 05 · 04:38:14 PM (/comments/1710177/68252766#comment_68252766) I was so lucky. Two of the six of us who tried to hold us that gas station were dead before they were 30. One was still imprisoned when I was 50. The other two I long ago lost touch with.

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(/user/eeff) eeff (/user/eeff)  Meteor Blades

Nov 05 · 04:41:51 PM

(/comments/1710177/68252811#comment_68252811) you are proof that giving a second chance is the way to go !

thanks for sharing this part of your life. I knew you had been locked up but you had never detailed what happen before.

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(/user/McGovern78) McGovern78 (/user/McGovern78)

Nov 05 · 03:03:56 PM (/comments/1710177/68251639#comment_68251639) So many thoughts, but I think I'll just cook a couple hamburgers for my wife and I,

and count my many blessings (and luck). Cheers Ǝ

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(/user/HeyMikey) HeyMikey (/user/HeyMikey)

Nov 05 · 03:04:10 PM (/comments/1710177/68251642#comment_68251642) Thank you, MB, for beating the odds! We are all better for it.

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(/user/Sophie Amrain) Sophie Amrain (/user/Sophie Amrain)

Nov 05 · 03:06:31 PM (/comments/1710177/68251665#comment_68251665) Godawful! Glad to know you survived this hell. And hoping Mr Lee will succeed in bringing a rational approach to the problem of delinquent children.

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(/user/libera nos) libera nos (/user/libera nos)

Nov 05 · 03:08:12 PM (/comments/1710177/68251681#comment_68251681) It is all so dreadful. I am glad you survived, and made something of yourself in spite of it—or maybe, to spite it.

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(/user/greenbird) greenbird (/user/greenbird)

Nov 05 · 03:11:57 PM (/comments/1710177/68251725#comment_68251725) hard to read, and to remember many i knew, washed up before being able to get in the boat …

thank you, mr. blades, for trying so hard.

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(/user/NCJan) NCJan (/user/NCJan)

Nov 05 · 03:13:01 PM (/comments/1710177/68251740#comment_68251740) Thank you so much for your story, MB.

Progressive reformers like Lillian Wald, Florence Kelley, Louis Hines, Jacob Riis and others—like you-- used detailed stories and vivid pictures, combined with overwhelming research and data, to show the everyday atrocities visited upon the most vulnerable in society --our children.

They achieved a lot but there is much more that needs to be done.

Your work and your story are so important. I hope this posting can be shared more widely.

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(/user/jwinIL14) jwinIL14 (/user/jwinIL14)

Nov 05 · 03:29:58 PM (/comments/1710177/68251928#comment_68251928) You’ve written such an important piece here MB. As you say, “Don't tell me what you believe, show me what you do …” and if this doesn’t inspire everyone here (or shared with) who’s read it to act now, then I can’t imagine what will. As a father of 4 & grandpa of 6...so far, it really hits me hard.

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(/user/edrie) edrie (/user/edrie)

Nov 05 · 03:36:18 PM (/comments/1710177/68252032#comment_68252032) this is heartbreaking.

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(/user/Ian Reifowitz) Ian Reifowitz (/user/Ian Reifowitz)

Nov 05 · 03:39:49 PM (/comments/1710177/68252081#comment_68252081) Thank you so much for sharing what you went through. It is my sincere hope that Colorado and other states change their approach, and go down the more enlightened path of Missouri that you’ve described here.

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(/user/Fianna) Fianna (/user/Fianna)

Nov 05 · 03:42:25 PM (/comments/1710177/68252116#comment_68252116) I do not care how bad a kid is any institution should have an open door policy where parents and other relatives are welcome. If the kids are under 18 parents should be welcome at anytime. If a kid is in a time out or a corrective situation, the parents should be able to look thru a viewing window. Nothing should be hidden. If the parents are absent from the kids life, a guardian should be appointed by the courts to observe and keep track of the kid the same as parents would. Each staff should have to take a psychological exam and signs of deviate behavior should be grounds for not being hired. My brother and I were in several foster homes and in one, the boys were sent to the living room after supper every night for the nightly whipping with the father’s belt. His reason: They were boys and must have done something during the day to deserve a beating. I was 5 at the time and would sit outside the living room window listening to the boys cry. When my 6½ year old brother came out I would try to comfort him. My brother didn’t have a parent. Where in unholy hell were the boys’ parents????? I can only hope that the men who beat children are sent to a place in the afterlife where they can contemplate and experience great shame and horror over their brutality and repent to spend their next life serving the greater good in some way. If I still believed in hell I would want them to go to the bottom circle and burn in the flames for all eternity.

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(/user/rflctammt) rflctammt (/user/rflctammt)  Fianna

Nov 05 · 06:38:00 PM (/comments/1710177/68253972#comment_68253972) It can be complicated when it comes to parents though. In many of the situations I knew about, the parents were actually complicit with the reason, if not the actual cause, of why the child was locked up in the first place. So many kids end up there because of situations they find themselves in after they run away from home. Many kids who runaway from home runaway for a reason — especially those who remain in at-risk situations rather than return home. I know personally of two teenage girls across two different generations who were being sexually abused at home and were acting out with drugs and hanging out with a bad crowd before they “got in trouble” and got locked up. Their parents were “dying” to get them home and fought tooth and nail to make it happen. (It was embarrassing). Both of them wanted to stay in JAIL rather than return home, but eventually the courts released them to the parents. They both ran away immediately.

I happened to know these girls very well. But I worked with hundreds of kids in detention, and I know similar stories were not unusual.

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(/user/acpa) acpa (/user/acpa)

Nov 05 · 03:46:34 PM (/comments/1710177/68252172#comment_68252172) thank you for sharing your story. There was a recent piece on local colorado news about another facility, a home in Pueblo, that was shut down by DHS and DYC. Horrific treatment of the kids. There are some (a few) facilities in Colorado that are trauma-informed and take a therapeutic approach to the kids in their care. Third Way Lowry comes to mind (I was foster parent to a kid who was sent there. Had probably the best therapist I’ve run across my entire life as his therapist). Too few and far between though.

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(/user/Theriac) Theriac (/user/Theriac)

Nov 05 · 03:54:49 PM (/comments/1710177/68252272#comment_68252272) Riveting, thank you. Everyone, especially those in the juvenile justice system, should read this.

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(/user/J Graham) J Graham (/user/J Graham)

Nov 05 · 03:59:56 PM (/comments/1710177/68252330#comment_68252330)

Wow, what you went through, MB! Thank heavens for those three mentors you had when you got out of there.

Love is always the answer, and I hope that the Missouri approach and its trauma-informed program gets implemented in Colorado and elsewhere. But this really upset me:

The Denver Post (http://www.denverpost.com/2017/04/28/colorado- youth-corrections-wrap-restraint/) reported that “Colorado’s youth corrections system will end use of the wrap, a restraint similar to a straitjacket, by July 2018.”

July 2018?! What are they waiting for? Just stop it immediately and give the guards some reasonable alternatives — now!!

A few years ago I read a book by John Hubner called “Last Chance In Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth” (2005). It’s about a program that was developed for youth who had committed serious crimes and it had success. This 2015 article features people who went there whose lives were turned around: www.texastribune.org/ (https://www.texastribune.org/2015/09/27/former-juvenile-offenders- paying-it-forward/) … Googling the school just now shows that they may have turned it into an all-male facility since the book was written, and that there were some recent charges of abuse of adults by the students there, but I haven’t done a thorough search. In any case, the approach, as described by Hubner was therapeutic, similar to the Missouri approach in that the reasons for behavior were explored and discussed rather than punished, and the goal was rehabilitation.

I can’t help wondering what happened to your cohorts at that “reform” school, but I’m so glad you escaped and healed. My personal story includes childhood abuse and an abusive relationship as an adult, both of which I escaped with my basic sanity intact, thank goodness. It took years to overcome the lingering effects, but I’ve become pretty good at being kind to myself and protecting myself from “triggers.” I doubt I could have survived what you did, given what I’d already been subjected to.

The good news about surviving these experiences is that injustice rarely escapes one’s notice. I believe that my feminism is a direct result of what happened to me, for example. Once it became clear to me that I didn’t have to take it anymore and it really was as bad as I thought it was, I could never be gaslighted again. I didn’t — and don’t — care who is doing wrong; I am willing to call anyone out, but I’m also willing to forgive bad actors who come clean, and people who make mistakes but have good hearts. At the same time, I’m forever vigilant about bad actors who are unwilling or unable come clean (like the current White House occupant and too many of his minions, apparently).

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(/user/Silent Spring) Silent Spring (/user/Silent Spring)

Nov 05 · 04:11:46 PM (/comments/1710177/68252479#comment_68252479) The resiliency of the human spirit. Excellent comment and one in which I can relate wholeheartedly, J Graham. I just exited my 2nd abusive relationship as an adult woman — first one was with husband of a few decades, 2nd one was a ‘companion’ the past several years — and which I didn’t see at all even after the lessons I learned from asshat husband.

Both had the classic abusive crap but each had a distinct way of administering it I learned. Like you, I can now see things a mile away and the gaslighting is the first thing that emerges. I’m also forgiving of those who want to come clean, but after allowing them the opportunity and seeing the same patterns emerge, nope. I really like your vigilant description. That’s what I’m adopting now. Makes me sad I have to live like this — being vigilant and all and questioning motives and goodness in others — but you do what you do to survive. And thrive.

My personal story includes childhood abuse and an abusive relationship as an adult, both of which I escaped with my basic sanity intact, thank goodness. It took years to overcome the lingering effects, but I’ve become pretty good at being kind to myself and protecting myself from “triggers.”

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(/user/J Graham) J Graham (/user/J Graham) Silent Spring

Nov 05 · 05:01:59 PM (/comments/1710177/68253036#comment_68253036) Thanks, Silent Spring. We are “sisters.”

Occasionally, it still gets past me, but I learn. A couple of years ago, I was part of a group of musicians whose director was verbally abusive, at times, during rehearsals. It took me far longer than it will ever take me again to leave the group. A lot of the people just took the abuse or they watched others take it, and there was internal camaraderie apart from the director, so I think all of that contributed to my being willing to sit with it for far too long. People noticed it and even commented on it but said it used to be worse (before I joined). They were willing to put up with it, but finally I couldn’t. Part of the problem was that this group is somewhat unique in my area, but, as I said, I had other groups to play music with.

In the past I would have gotten mad at myself for not leaving sooner, but this time I just chalked it up to another strengthening experience — never again would allow this! Never, never! I will always give myself permission to leave a bad situation even if everyone else around me feels differently.

I generally don’t immediately question people’s motives unless my antennae let me know something’s wrong. Most of the time I can feel something’s off right away and I never doubt that feeling anymore, even when there’s no other “evidence” to back

it up. My sense of it is evidence enough, and subsequent experiences with people who have set off my antennae have backed this up. I’m cautious while getting to know people, and I allow levels of intimacy that seem appropriate according to why they’re in my life. So I believe I’ve struck a pretty good balance between healthy vigilance and openness to new experiences and people. But, as I said, I’m always learning!

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(/user/Silent Spring) Silent Spring (/user/Silent Sp…  J Graham

Nov 05 · 05:10:31 PM

(/comments/1710177/68253122#comment_68253122) This is the thing about abuse — the kind the MB describes and the kind that you and I know of — it teaches you NOT to trust your guy and to just try and survive your way out of anything that life throws at you. But in order to thrive, we need gut warnings. Those warnings help us to choose the right tools. So abuse messes up the warnings and doesn’t allow for collection of tools at all. It’s a miracle that MB, you, me and others all along the spectrum of abuse and at all ages have the will to press on. Yet like I said, humans are resilient and oftentimes it only takes one little glimmer of hope, one little tiny spark of light, to ignite a fierce will to escape and live. And then you can start looking for tools and especially if there is just one person who reaches out to help.

My own therapist told me just the other day, and when I was questioning my decision-making about this much shorter abusive relationship than my primary one that lasted for decades, that it is a testament to thriving through adversity when people can see sooner, or more clearly, or muster the courage to even think differently than in the past. She was a helping hand without knowing it who gave me permission to set this last relationship down for good. I’m at peace today.

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(/user/J Graham) J Graham (/user/J Gra… Silent Spring

Nov 05 · 05:23:48 PM

(/comments/1710177/68253252#comment_68253252) Yes, indeed! You describe the problem beautifully. And so glad you have a therapist who helped. I’ve had similar help from various sources including therapists.

It was when I got back in touch with my gut that I knew my healing had begun and would continue. That was the key, and, like you, I saw how I’d been conditioned to accept abuse (of various kinds) as my lot in life.

A friend who had similar experiences told me that with regard to relationships, her “picker was broken.” She decided to let her gut guide her, not her initial emotions or feelings of attraction. Very wise advice!

We are resilient — thank you for reminding me of that.

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(/user/coolstelizabeth) coolstelizabeth (/user/coolstelizabeth)

Nov 05 · 04:28:03 PM (/comments/1710177/68252649#comment_68252649) I’m sorry this happened to you Meteor. Thanks for telling your story & for the research you have done. I know that reading it will help many people.

This is just a short anecdote about what happened to me as a teenager. This was in the late 1960s in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I was 14 or 15. One evening I had permission to walk to the local carnival & was told to be home by 9:00. I stayed out until 11:30 & when I got home there were two cops in the living room with my parents, waiting for me. They filled out some papers, said I was going to be declared incorrigible, & left. I found out years later that the cops tore up the paperwork as soon as they left the house. But my overly strict parents knew the word “incorrigible” would scare the hell out of a teenager.

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(/user/nzanne) nzanne (/user/nzanne)

Nov 05 · 04:36:14 PM (/comments/1710177/68252742#comment_68252742) As you are one of the people I admire most here at DK — or anywhere — this breaks my heart, MB. Thank god you were as tough a youngster as you are an oldster. Big hugs to you —

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(/user/mama jo) mama jo (/user/mama jo)

Nov 05 · 04:38:20 PM (/comments/1710177/68252768#comment_68252768) (((MB)))

You proved them wrong.

Take care—

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(/user/jessical) jessical (/user/jessical)

Nov 05 · 05:07:26 PM (/comments/1710177/68253094#comment_68253094)

Children do not have the inhibitory brain bits adults do, they just don’t, and everything we are learning seems to point toward more thoughtful and compassionate treatment of young offenders, not less. And it feels to me we are creating more and more places where nothing which happens there meets the light.

As a reader, for whatever the observation might be worth, this feels like a mighty vein of the best ore, and perhaps worth some long writing time, should you ever be so inclined.

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(/user/smileycreek) smileycreek (/user/smileycreek)

Nov 05 · 05:44:03 PM (/comments/1710177/68253467#comment_68253467) This is a stunning read on many levels. One of your best.

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(/user/jck) jck (/user/jck)

Nov 05 · 05:46:32 PM (/comments/1710177/68253492#comment_68253492) Wow. What we do to children is monstrous. You certainly proved that judge wrong.

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(/user/kaleidescope) kaleidescope (/user/kaleidescope)

Nov 05 · 06:17:44 PM (/comments/1710177/68253757#comment_68253757) Wow. This one had me in tears. A great piece of writing. Thank you.

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(/user/nomandates) nomandates (/user/nomandates)

Nov 05 · 06:52:34 PM (/comments/1710177/68254130#comment_68254130) Meteor Blades, I’m so sorry that you or any other child has ever been subjected to such abuse disguised as reform.

Thank you for speaking out to help other children avoid similar abuse and for amplifying the efforts of another diarist.

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(/user/Jaxzan Proditor) Jaxzan Proditor (/user/Jaxzan Proditor)

Nov 05 · 07:44:27 PM (/comments/1710177/68254708#comment_68254708) What a horrible experience! Is there anything that people such as us can

do to try to implement change?

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(/user/Meteor Blades) Meteor Blades (/user/Meteor Blad…  Jaxzan Proditor

Nov 05 · 11:03:46 PM (/comments/1710177/68256680#comment_68256680) First step: Learn what is going on with juvenile justice in your state and your locale.

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(/user/Libby Shaw) Libby Shaw (/user/Libby Shaw)

Nov 05 · 08:06:37 PM (/comments/1710177/68254925#comment_68254925) Sending you love from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for sharing your story. It encourages others to do the same. Peace

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(/user/joanbrooker) joanbrooker (/user/joanbrooker)

Nov 05 · 08:23:41 PM (/comments/1710177/68255103#comment_68255103) Thank you for this. It will stay with me a while. It is horrific to treat any one this way, but it is especially brutal for children. I’m so happy you were able to survive.

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(/user/subir) subir (/user/subir)

Nov 05 · 08:25:11 PM (/comments/1710177/68255116#comment_68255116) I will never be able to understand how people can do such dreadful things to children. Thank you for writing this MB. Much love.

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(/user/Trotskyrepublican) Trotskyrepublican (/user/Trotskyrepublic…

Nov 05 · 08:29:34 PM (/comments/1710177/68255156#comment_68255156) That’s hard to read... thank you for your writing here.

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(/user/BeninSC) BeninSC (/user/BeninSC)

Nov 05 · 08:40:30 PM (/comments/1710177/68255272#comment_68255272)

Nothing can stop the will of a man to become a good man. Best to you, MB. Thanks for your great courage, integrity and intelligence. Many of us would feel quite lost without it.

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(/user/certainot) certainot (/user/certainot)

Nov 05 · 08:42:29 PM (/comments/1710177/68255295#comment_68255295) thanks for writing about this mb.

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(/user/paradise50) paradise50 (/user/paradise50)

Nov 05 · 09:36:38 PM (/comments/1710177/68255853#comment_68255853) Wow! Just wow!

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(/user/Ronald England) Ronald England (/user/Ronald England)

Nov 05 · 09:59:15 PM (/comments/1710177/68256066#comment_68256066) Hey Meter Blades, for two years I lived but 6 blocks from that place and worked in Golden for about 4 years.

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(/user/MmeVoltaire) MmeVoltaire (/user/MmeVoltaire)

Nov 05 · 11:19:40 PM (/comments/1710177/68256830#comment_68256830) Thank you for for your story. Glad you found those mentors and came through — your insights and moral courage are a big part of this site. The waste and danger of places like your “reform school” are enraging.

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(/user/ciganka) ciganka (/user/ciganka)

Nov 06 · 02:16:56 AM (/comments/1710177/68257703#comment_68257703) We called it being “sent up” — my best friend was sent up several times as a runaway who liked boys — older boys too much. Tom Robbins described her crime best in his work, Even Cowgirls get the Blues, as what happened to young girls who liked sex — she was 15 the first time they sent her away.

One reason the police and the system got away with this ridiculous punishment so easily was that she came from a poor white family in an all white community, so her family was at the bottom of the social ladder. Her parents were naive. On the other hand, she was

extraordinary brilliant. When she returned she was on parole, the entire thing was stupid, the principal at the school hated her. she was kicked out of school. I was already bullied, so there went the only ally I had.

As far as being kicked out, she went on in later years to return to school and obtained dual degrees in mathematics and computer science. Years of her life those SoBs took from her.

Sorry, wow, it just me to read this.

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(/user/Archie1954) Archie1954 (/user/Archie1954)

Nov 07 · 02:33:20 PM (/comments/1710177/68273404#comment_68273404) Isn’t it strange how perception is sometimes the opposite of reality. I would have thought that Missouri would be at the bottom of the list for degenerate and regressive practices with troubled youth, instead it is at the top and Colorado which I would have thought of as a potentially progressive jurisdiction is in fact the opposite.

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(/user/bluesophie) bluesophie (/user/bluesophie)

Nov 07 · 02:40:29 PM (/comments/1710177/68273500#comment_68273500) MB, thank you so much for writing this. I cried a bit as I read it, both because of what you and others had suffered, but also because of who you have become. This is one of the best diaries I have ever read. I know how hard it must have been to write this, and it is telling that it is only after 40 or 50 years that the wounds have healed. But I am so thankful that you are here to tell your story, and in so doing, help young people who may be suffering in the same way. May your spirit be held in the light.

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(/user/Magnum05) Magnum05 (/user/Magnum05)

Nov 07 · 03:07:34 PM (/comments/1710177/68273839#comment_68273839) This is what the Conservatives, Christians, and the GOP has always pushed as the way to solve everything cheap for hundreds of years maybe thousands.

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