A man called Vengeance

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A man called Vengeance

Postby Dreams End » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:09 am

Here is a repost of a side conversation that I got into with a poster named "Nemysysss" about the California Youth Authority and their treatment of youth offenders. I'm sure my cutting and pasting is going to screw up some internal quotes or links...so I hope this works. Here's my first post to him. (I wasn't going to reply right now, but I can't sleep so might as well.) All that follows is the previous post:<br><br>Sorry. I don't trust nemysysss too much. CYA facilities are not good places. Abuse is common. They create as many "lestats" as they cure, I'm sure. In fact, they provide no decent mental health care to speak of. Be curious about Vacaville type programs in there.<br><br><br> <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>OTHER VIEW: Figure Out a New Way to Deal with Youthful Offenders<br><br> Sacramento Bee<br> February 20, 2006<br><br> By Allen Feaster<br><br> Two years ago, I went through every parent's worst nightmare. My 18-year-old son, Durrell Feaster, and his 17-year-old roommate, Deon Whitfield, were found hanged on Jan. 19, 2004, in a California Youth Authority prison cell.<br><br> My son dreamed of going to college and starting a landscaping business. Instead, I believe CYA treatment drove him to take his life. Durrell and Deon were incarcerated in Preston Youth Correctional Facility in Ione, one of eight CYA prisons. Durrell was in for a property crime, and he was supposed to get help. The Legislature, courts and other agencies for several years have scrutinized the CYA. Report after report points out serious problems with the CYA, now known as the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's Division of Juvenile Justice. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has failed to do the right thing: Replace these abusive prisons with rehabilitation centers that can help the wards, who are between 12 and 25 years old. (Editorial note: A-freakin'-men.)<br><br><br> <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.ellabakercenter.org/page.php?pageid=11&contentid=370"> www.ellabakercenter.org/page.php?pageid ... tentid=370</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE BEING INVESTIGATED - Scathing report on Youth Authority<br> By Karen de Sá<br> Mercury News, January 28, 2004<br><br> Juveniles sentenced to California Youth Authority facilities for serious crimes are regularly locked in cages, over-medicated and denied essential psychiatric treatment, according to a report commissioned by the state Attorney General's Office.<br><br> The report, obtained Tuesday by the Mercury News, found that the nine institutions examined were more like prisons than facilities designed to reform and rehabilitate youthful offenders, and that conditions there worsened the problems of wards who suffered from mental health disorders and substance abuse problems.<br><br> ``The vast majority of youths who have mental health needs are made worse instead of improved by the correctional environment,'' according to authors of the report, University of Washington child psychologist Eric Trupin and forensic psychiatrist Raymond Patterson of Washington, D.C.<br><br> Teenagers, both male and female, are sent to CYA for serious and violent crimes. But unlike adult prisons, CYA institutions are legally required to reform and rehabilitate.<br><br> Word of conditions at Youth Authority facilities, specifically the high-security Chaderjian facility in Stockton, has reached federal investigators. The U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division is investigating abuse in that facility, a department spokesman said Tuesday.<br><br> The scrutiny of juvenile institutions comes at a time when California's adult prisons are under intense pressure over their failure to police abuses by prison staff. The report is yet another challenge for the Schwarzenegger administration and for Walter Allen, the new director of the CYA. Lawmakers plan to examine the CYA in hearings Feb. 28.<br><br> ``It's going to get worse unless we have the courage to look at this,'' said Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Rosemead, who has been co-chairing hearings on problems in the state's correctional facilities. ``It's fair to say CYA has a crisis.''<br><br> Experts sent in<br><br> Last year, in response to legislators' inquiries and a lawsuit filed by the Prison Law Office, the Attorney General's Office sent national experts into the sprawling network of CYA facilities, which house 4,421 young people up to age 25 and cost the state $450 million a year to run. At least six reports are expected, the first of which is reaching legislators now and focuses on mental health and substance abuse treatment in CYA facilities.<br><br> ``Rehabilitation is impossible when the classroom is a cage and wards live in constant fear of physical and sexual violence from CYA staff and other wards,'' said court documents filed by the San Francisco-based non-profit Prison Law Office.<br><br> As many as 65 percent of the wards suffer from mental disorders, and 85 percent battle drug and alcohol addictions, studies show.<br><br> In the facilities, guards used highly potent pepper spray on recalcitrant youths, and treatment staff members were inconsistent in prescribing and overseeing powerful psychotropic medications.<br><br> The report states some youths received three to eight different psychotropic drugs without ``adequate justification,'' while others were given no medicine when they needed it. Nighttime medications were not available in some facilities, a practice the report states is ``especially egregious because needy youths are deprived of appropriate care.''<br><br> The authors singled out a few CYA practices for praise. The CYA regularly provided information on the risks of medication and followed guidelines on obtaining informed consent from minors. The authors found the substance abuse program at Dewitt Nelson exemplary.<br><br> But the authors added that this program was ``the exception, rather than the rule.''<br><br> Officials with the Attorney General's Office and the Youth Authority did not dispute the findings.<br><br> Findings confirmed<br><br> ``The observations of the state experts in these areas are substantially correct, and our department is reviewing each of these reports to develop a plan to correct the issues raised,'' Youth Authority spokeswoman Sarah Ludeman said.<br><br> Deputy Attorney General Steve Acquisto, one of the lawyers defending the Youth Authority in the lawsuit, said: ``To the extent problems have been identified, the YA is working diligently to address those problems, and to the extent that the solutions require additional financing, we're going to be working to get that.''<br><br> The December report was followed quickly by a tragic example of the need to act quickly. On Jan. 19, two teens, 17 and 18, were found hanging in their rooms in Ironwood Lodge at the Preston facility in Ione.<br><br> Ironwood came under special scrutiny in the December 2003 report, with investigators determining that guards using pepper spray were ``exacerbating symptoms of mental illness'' and youths were kept ``isolated and away from staff observation or interaction.'' Ironwood houses youths in a 60- to 90-day Special Management Program where they receive only an hour a day of education outside their cells.<br><br> From December 2001 to June 2003, statewide, 56 young people attempted but did not succeed in committing suicide, because of staff intervention.<br><br> The experts found CYA failing in 21 of the 22 measures posed in question form by the Attorney General's Office. The report states that there was no evidence that the punitive strategies brought about a desired change in a youth's behavior.<br><br> Other specific problems:<br><br> * Inconsistent and substandard practices on the use of psychotropic medications, including little measurement of the effects.<br><br> * Inappropriate use of punitive strategies, lack of staff skill in de-escalation techniques and overuse of chemical restraints.<br><br> * Psychiatric histories that are not comprehensive and do not include developmental or family information.<br><br> * Inadequate coordination of mental health professionals and routine lack of involvement of families in treatment plans, making it virtually impossible for the youths to re-enter society.<br><br> Even with word now getting out, Laura Belmont, a Folsom mother, said she's skeptical that things will ever change at CYA.<br><br> ``These are throwaway kids, out of sight out of mind,'' said Belmont, who described her 20-year-old son as ``destroyed'' by three years at CYA facilities. ``He went in 17 years old with his whole life ahead of him, and he came out without one shred of self-esteem or self-worth,'' Belmont said.<br><br> But Senate leader John Burton, D-San Francisco, said he would act on the reports, which he called devastating.<br><br> ``It sort of paints the picture of a department incapable of straightening itself out despite years of legislative oversight and scrutiny,'' Burton said. ``We'll probably have to do it for them one way or another.<br><br> <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.nospank.net/n-l35r.htm">www.nospank.net/n-l35r.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br> <!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Youth Prisons in California Called Abusive<br><br> A suit filed in federal court in Sacramento against the California Youth Authority on behalf of 11 prisoners, contends inhumane conditions are pervasive. It describes such practices as the use of cages as classrooms and the forcible injection of mind-altering drugs to control the behavior of inmates. . . It contends that prisoners with disabilities are sometimes isolated in dungeon-like holes splattered with feces and blood and that the inmates live in fear of physical and sexual violence.<br><br> Instead of rehabilitation and education, the system of 11 prisons and four camps, with about 6,300 prisoners, had become known for brutality and other abuses. Reports that mentally ill youths were stripped to their underwear and isolated in cages 23 hours a day, that prisoners were subjected to biomedical experiments and sexually and physically abused by guards, and other problems led the state inspector general, Steven White, to conclude that "it would be impossible to overstate the problem." As a result, the California Board of Corrections ordered a review of the Youth Authority by more than 100 experts. (New York Times, 1/26/02, Internet)<br><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://cultsandsociety.com/csr_news/children_2002_02_15.htm">cultsandsociety.com/csr_news/children_2002_02_15.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>There's plenty more. So Nemesysss, could you start with an outline of the brutal conditions you witnessed in the CYA facilities since you kinda left that out of your other postings? That might help us get a handle on this. Any interesting psychiatric studies being performed there these days?<br><br>Like...maybe...THIS ONE:<br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> STANFORD: State probes Stanford research<br> Drugs were given to juvenile inmates<br><br> by Don Kazak<br><br> Two state agencies are investigating whether anything improper occurred during a Stanford-related research project at the California Youth Authority in 1997.<br><br> The research was conducted by Dr. Hans Steiner, a Stanford psychiatrist. In the study, the drug Depakote was administered to 61 male youths, ages 14-18, to see if it would reduce their tendency toward violent behavior. The drug is generally used to treat seizure disorders, depression and migraine headaches.<br><br> The youths voluntarily participated in the study, which was approved by the CYA's medical director at the time, and no ill effects have been reported.<br><br> But some state officials are angry that incarcerated youths were used for the study, a possible violation of a state law that prohibits biomedical research on California inmates. A second law, however, does permit prisoners to take part in experimental AIDS studies if it is in their best interest.<br><br> The CYA, assisted by the Attorney General's office, is conducting an internal investigation of how the study came about, and Gov. Gray Davis has asked the state Inspector General to conduct a separate investigation.<br><br> "The governor has appointed the Inspector General to look at all cases of impropriety or potential law breaking or rule breaking in the corrections system," said Hilary McLean, a press aide to Davis. "The governor thought it warranted this outside review."<br><br> "It appears that there was no review of state law in this study," said J.P. Tremblay, CYA assistant director of communications. The investigation should take a couple of months, Tremblay added. He declined to comment on any possible criminal charges or sanctions that could result.<br><br> "We have some very deep concerns about how the study took place," McLean said.<br><br> But state officials also declined to point any fingers at Steiner at this time. "We're not taking him to task," Tremblay said. "We're still reviewing it."<br><br> Steiner has worked in the CYA for 15 years, and has a current grant to do further research, but not drug studies. "I study conduct disorders in delinquency," he said. "I've done a lot of research with (the CYA)."<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/news/1999_Aug_25.PROBE.html">link</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>Not done researching golden boy and vienna born Steiner yet. Anyone operating in these facilities who has acknowledged that this abuse does occur and isn't standing up and screaming about it is just as guilty, in my view. But I can't say for sure that other than this unethical study he's been up to more than that. But our man Lestat got the way he is somehow...and with conditions like this, it's likely he got worse, not better. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=dreamsend@rigorousintuition>Dreams End</A> at: 4/12/06 11:11 pm<br></i>
Dreams End
 

nemysysss reply number one

Postby Dreams End » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:14 am

Dreams End<br><br>I read all of the articles and quotes you have submitted and also your personal inputs about the quality of care that was provided to these youthful offenders.<br><br>I cannot help but think, based on what I read into your comments, that you might have had an actual experence with the CYA. I cannot validate what your experiences were with the CYA based upon what you have written, but if one of these unfortunate youths who died within the faculity were your children I offer my most sincere condolences. If not it goes to the actual Mothers of these children.<br><br>Now, in my defense, I would like to state that I have helped save on several occassions wards who were trying to comitt suicide by hanging from within both Juniper and Ironwood lodges. One which was actually hanging by the neck with a bed sheet from his window. I held him up for, what seemed like several minutes, so that additional staff could get the emergercy cutting blade and cut the noose from around his neck. Another time, no specifics will be mentioned, a ward, almost dead from hanging, was worked on for over 45 minutes while medical staff worked and waited for an ambulance to take him to the hospital. CPR was administered by line staff during that whole time. He survived the incident. Another time, a roomate was strangling his roomate to death. I caught the incident during room checks and talked the ward strangling his buddy to let go of him. He was fixated in a trance and was really not aware what he was doing. It started out as horseplay and ended up almost in murder. They were roomates for over a year. I have prevented numerous wards over the years from seriously injuring other wards with very dangerous and potentially fatal weapons, I have seen the most gruesome acts of violence on wards by their peers. I have physically been seriously injured by wards in my attempts to break up fights and or help the victim of those violent attacks.<br><br>I am not trying to brag or boast about my "war stories". What I am trying to say, is that from my own personal experiences, I know that most of the Staff at Preston whom I associated with all did the same as I. They also had the same goals I did at Preston, which was to afford these wards who wanted help, as much help to rehabilitate as we could possibly give them. There were those who were not as noble in their desires to help the wards , but they will have to answer to their conscience and accusers. I will not speak on them.<br><br>The key words are "who wanted help". Many wards at Preston were not there to get help. It was their goal to make a name for themselves through violence. They were just "doing their time" and anyone who got in their way ended up a victim of their aspirations to become better criminals. Preston was just a stepping stone for them. If they developed a "reputation" at Preston, they would have a much easier time in CDC with their peers. Crime and violence were activities they worked on.<br><br>What really bothers me is that people outside of this CYA environment are so very quick to make "blanket judgements" against any staff who worked in this type of capacity based upon the words of an upset ward and or so called victim of the system.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Sorry. I don't trust nemysysss too much. CYA facilities are not good places. Abuse is common. They create as many "lestats" as they cure, I'm sure. In fact, they provide no decent mental health care to speak of. Be curious about Vacaville type programs in there.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><br>I will not say that there were not situations which justified scrutiny and review, but the general mentality of all the CYA bashers, seems to be that anyone who worked in CYA is a brute and or predatory animal who seeks out the "poor and helpless youth" caught up in this violent system called the CYA. A very large majority of CYA staff wanted to help these youthful offenders, but could only do as much as the system allowed them to do.<br><br>Those staff who did violate the rules were investigated and dealt with accordingly. Sometimes I questioned the decisions and actions taken against some individuals, but for the most part we were kept in the dark about any investigation unless we were a part of it.<br><br> <!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>``Rehabilitation is impossible when the classroom is a cage and wards live in constant fear of physical and sexual violence from CYA staff and other wards,'' said court documents filed by the San Francisco-based non-profit Prison Law Office.<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br>Now to discuss Tamarack and it's prehistoric policies which are described as abusive and barbaric.<br><br> <!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Youth Prisons in California Called Abusive<br><br> A suit filed in federal court in Sacramento against the California Youth Authority on behalf of 11 prisoners, contends inhumane conditions are pervasive. It describes such practices as the use of cages as classrooms and the forcible injection of mind-altering drugs to control the behavior of inmates. . . It contends that prisoners with disabilities are sometimes isolated in dungeon-like holes splattered with feces and blood and that the inmates live in fear of physical and sexual violence.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><br>It would be very easy for an outsider with no experience in dealing with violent wards to come to this conclusion.<br><br>A little history about these so called "inhumane" cages in the school room and Tamarack Lodge in general. The other accusations mentioned I will not even respond to as they are utterly ridiculious or so overly exaggerated so as to be non believable.<br><br>Tamarack lodge during my time in that unit was used to house very violent wards over a specific amount of time. It was the goal to work out that violence potential with structured programming and counseling and gradually reintroducing them into a controlled environment where they would not act out violently. If they were sucessful, they were re-introduced back into regular program lodges. The violence potential on Tamarack was very real to both Staff and ward. Staff had to wear "flack vests" to help protect against attempts by wards to "shank" them(stab with a prison made weapon)<br><br>During the day and evening in Tamarack, as time constraints permitted, they were allowed individual or small group hygiene time (showers) depending on their violence potential. Some wards could not be brought out with other wards, some could be brought out with their gang associates. Many different variables were constantly at play as to who came out as an individual or with groups. They were also given individual counseling by their assigned counselors. Small groups were very difficult to have, as too many wards were unable to come out together with the different wards on that Counselors caselaod. "Large muscle" excercise was also given daily to these wards. They were fed all three meals in their rooms. Daily the wards were brought into the classroom which consisted of two or three cages approximately 5X5X7. Between the cages was an open area seperating them from each other so that wards could not come into contact with each other. The desks were large enough for a desk and some room to move around in.<br><br>The following is a brief explination of all that was required to get a ward to school. After following security protocol the wards were escorted by staff from their individual bed room in handcuffs. The handcuffs were applied to the wards before they could come out of their room (this was standard operating proceedure any time they were brought out of their room). When the wards arrived into the classroom, they were placed into the cage area and the door was shut and locked. The cuffs were taken off by staff, and the wards were allowed to sit down at the desk and class was started. When class was over the reverse took place.<br><br>Why were these wards placed in cages and handcuffed when allowed out of their room? Any outsider would ask this who was not familiar with Preston and more specifically Tamarack.<br><br>The problem is that these special interest groups told only one side of the story. What they did not tell was that the CYA was told that every youthful must be given the opportunity to go to school. Most were given that opportunity (another story there) but for the violent wards on Tamarack, the only way to do that, was to allow them individual classroom instruction in a secure area where they could not attack another ward trying to learn at the same time. If you have over 150 wards on that unit, do the math, it would be very hard to instruct over 150 individual wards every day inbetween all of the other mandated requirements these wards were to have . It was just not cost effective if you hired enough teachers to make the math work. CYA was already working with a very limiting budget allowed them by the politicians in charge.<br><br>If given the opportunity to do so, over 60% of Tamarack's population would try to attack another ward or staff if not escorted and handcuffed when out of their room. That was why a large percentage were in the Tamarack program. If we allowed them to leave their room and attend classrooms without those security precautions, and a ward managed to attack and harm another, you can almost be guaranteed that these outside special interest groups would be hollaring that we were not protecting these youthful offenders.<br><br>The Tamarack program was also constantly in flux. Things were going on every minute. Staff had to be on constant alert to make sure that no ward would come into contact with another so as to allow any ward an opportunity to attack another. During regular progam times Staff were also kept busy logging in and out "24 hour lockup" wards in addition to possible groups of wards who were involved in group disturbances. 24 hour lockups had to meet at least one of three criteria before they could be housed on Tamarack.<br>1. In danger<br>2 Danger to others<br>3 Escape risk<br><br>If they did not meet any of these criteria they were sent back.<br><br>At times it was very confusing and the risk of mistakes being made was very real. Staff did a very good job keeping the wards safe for the most part.<br><br>If I were an outsider looking in I would first make sure I knew all the facts before assigning judgement. You can never really get all of the facts by looking at something from afar.<br><br><br><br>Please consider what I have said, and don't judge unless there is no other assumption for you to make. If you have already made up your mind, I cannot change that, but I can sleep at night knowing that at the end of the day I have done what I feel is right, and I can look you in the eyes and say so.<br><br>As far as the other accusations you have made on the forced biomeds program and Ward Belmont's situation I will not go into much detail as I am aware of the medical program that the wards voluntarily signed up for but that is the extent of my knowledge about it. It was done, but as I was aware of at the time, it was completely above board, legitimate and legal and approved by the CYA Administration. That is all I know. It's legal, moral and ethical implications are up to the legal teams to decide on. I know it was done on both Ironwood and Juniper lodges.<br><br>I also knew Ward Belmont. He was on Juniper lodge for awhile, and was a good kid. He was not a violent ward. During his stay on Juniper lodge it was not a lockup unit, but more of an honor unit. Wards at that time considered Juniper lodge the place to be if you did not like to sleep in an open dorm environment. They had all of the regular program priviledges as the "hill lodges" but the wards could get away if they so chose from all the problems associated with a dorm environment. A semi-private room had many advantages to it if you did not like crowds and noise.<br><br>I am aware of the accusations that his mother has made about his treatment there. He was later eventually transferred to a hill lodge and I lost track of him. He had a lot of potential to do well once released on parole from CYA though, given his desires and strong support group (his family). I hope he has gotten his life back and is doing well now. As far as staff abuse, I can only speak for myself. I know I treated him fairly and with respect. He might have had difficulties getting along with some staff but I never saw what one would consider abuse. I can, with authority, state that violent wards were an influence in his life during his stay on Juniper. They were more of a physically abusive factor (attacks) during his time on Juniper and one of his biggest problems, as he was not a part of any structured gang. Partly because of his size, he was one of the few who could program in general pop without having to join a gang for protection. The other reason was because he did not want to be influenced by their negative behaviors and rules. I was very proud of him and the fact that he did not want to be drawn into the gangs. He really wanted to do what was right.<br><br> <!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> So Nemesysss, could you start with an outline of the brutal conditions you witnessed in the CYA facilities since you kinda left that out of your other postings? That might help us get a handle on this. Any interesting psychiatric studies being performed there these days? <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><br>To end this long dialog I will close with these answers to your specific questions.<br><br>I would really like to give you something interesting and "brutal" so that you could go off on your quest for the victims of CYA Staff, but unfortunately, I can only tell you what I have seen. That is that<br><br>1 All of the Wards were sent to the CYA because they comitted a crime against another human being. Whether violent or non violent, it was found to be a crime through our legal justice system. Their acts against their victims was not forced upon them to commit, most all did their crime of their own volition. They had to do much more than one crime before they were sent to the Youth Authority, many times being sent to camps or other alternate "correction faculties" before finally making it into the CYA. They also had to be serious offenders for the most part to earn a quick ticket to Preston.<br><br>2 The treatment they were given by Staff that I saw was fair and just. If Staff was alleged to have done anything outside of the guidelines established by the Laws of California and the CYA, they were dealt with if found guilty and if found not guilty were absolved. Staff did the best that they could given the time, funding by State officials, and programs available.<br><br>3 Wards within the CYA were the major source of problems to much of the wards within the CYA, either by physical abuse, attacks with weapons, sexual assault, mental abuse (pressuring) and theft. Unfortunately for the wards who did want to rehabilitate, this made for a very difficult time during their stay.<br><br>4 I am not absolving the State of California, nor the Directors office of the Youth Authority of any wrong doing. In fact, I blame them for much of the problems the CYA faced over the last 10 years. So much has been taken from the CYA in terms of funding and program cuts that the rehabilitation system with which the CYA staff could utilize left a lot to be desired. It was minimal at best. At Preston, all of the shop classes such as Refrigeration air, Masonry, Landscape gardening ect.. were cut as a result of budget cuts and restraints. This left nothing but academic classes for the wards. Unfortunately for a large majority of wards a simple GED would not afford them a good paying job or any real hopes of getting a job which would help them cope with all of the temptations that crime and the allure that quick money through crime presented to them.<br><br>5 I did not "Kinda" leave anything out of my previous dialogs . I did not delve into them because they (in my opinion) did not have any relevency in this specific discussion board. I do believe that we are "kinda" off topic here, and would much rather discuss this sort of topic on another discussion board. It is a very real and relevant topic of discussion.<br><br>6 No I don't have any other interesting psychiatric studies to pass on to you. But I am most assured that if there were, you would be able to keep anyone interested, up to date on them with your newspaper clippings. We all know that the newspapers are very unbiased and factual in all of their reporting and the best source of accurate and politically unmotivated information in their publishing of "newsworthy" stories.<br><br>In closing, I would be very interested to know what the outcome of this internal investigation was on the Stanford-related research project at the California Youth Authority in 1997, and if there were any criminal charges made as a result of this investigation which you make reference to. Of course on a different discussion page!<br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
Dreams End
 

Dreams end reply

Postby Dreams End » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:19 am

Dear N,<br><br>Is it just me or could I stipulate that things are exactly as you paint them and STILL find it horrifying? I mean, thanks for saving those kids but do you ever step back and ask why so many are trying to kill themselves? Not raising any red flags with you?<br><br><br><br>It sounds like you believe what you are saying. Lots of people don't. Like the Governor Gropennator:<br><br><br> <!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Mentally ill teenager Edward Brown was a CYA ward for whom things were considerably worse than they were for Vaughn. Brown was locked in a dungeon-like basement isolation cell for 23 hours a day in the Tamarack Lodge at Preston in 2001, according to a lawsuit filed by several Bay Area law firms and the San Quentin-based Prison Law Office on behalf of Brown’s aunt, Margaret Farrell.<br><br> The walls of the cell were splattered with dried blood and feces from prior occupants, and the toilet didn’t function for days at a time. Brown was fed “blender meals” through a straw threaded through his cell door. The indiscriminate mush--a daily food ration mixed in a blender--was served to problem prisoners held in lockup isolation cells. He also was given psychotropic medication by force and coercion--and without the consent of a parent or guardian as required by state law.<br><br> But the lawsuit was about more than just one young man. The Farrell case was structured so that it would apply to virtually every ward--male and female--in the system. In unsettling, graphic detail, the 40-page legal complaint described the abhorrent conditions in CYA, including several that parrot Vaughn’s experiences.<br><br><br> Last month, California Youth Authority Director Walter Allen met with Shariffe Vaughn; his mother, Caron (above); and his son, Lucas .<br><br><br> “Wards have had their heads slammed against walls and rails and have been beaten and burned by tear gas canisters and Maced for no reason. ... Staff often use chemical agents on wards who either do not require restraining or who are already restrained. ... Wards are simply locked in their rooms for weeks or months with no programming and no constructive release for their frustration, tension and fear. ... In addition to their failure to prevent ward-on-ward violence, CYA staff have actually encouraged, permitted and/or provided wards with the opportunity to fight each other,” says the suit. Clearly, the allegations showed inhumane treatment for California teenagers.<br><br> The lawsuit also alleged, “Rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment are common within the CYA. Some wards are housed in the same living facility as others who have previously raped or sexually assaulted them.” Referring to many studies done by the state over several years, the complaint gives vivid examples of excessive-force incidents, inadequate medical and mental-health care, and unconstitutional conditions of confinement. From the time the case was filed in January 2003, the Gray Davis administration spent taxpayer money to fight it.<br><br> But at a press conference last month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Walter Allen, the man he appointed to run CYA just more than a year ago, unexpectedly announced that they were settling the Farrell litigation. The case was not brought for money damages, but for a court declaration that the entire system was in violation of various state laws that require CYA to provide rehabilitation, training and treatment to youthful offenders. The action also sought a court injunction prohibiting CYA from continuing to spend taxpayer funds while operating in an illegal and unconstitutional manner.<br><br> The ramifications of the settlement are hard to exaggerate. The state is now bound by a 22-page agreement that lays out in minute detail the massive number of reforms that CYA must implement, all under the watchful eye of a court-appointed monitor and an Alameda County Superior Court judge. The court supervision of CYA will continue until the system comes into compliance with state law and the terms of the settlement agreement, a process expected to take years.<br><br> Allen diplomatically credited his bosses--Schwarzenegger and Youth and Adult Correctional Agency director Rod Hickman--with approving resolution of the Farrell case. “I don’t want to knock past administrations, but this administration has open arms to those people that want to help us. The Prison Law Office entered the settlement agreement because they want to help us,” he said.<br><br> After reading the court complaint, it is difficult to believe that the California juvenile justice system once was a national model. Created by the Youth Corrections Act of 1941, CYA was considered revolutionary because it substituted training and treatment for youthful offenders in place of retributive punishment, which had been the national norm. By the mid-1960s, the California training and treatment model was so successful that it was adopted across the country and became the national legal standard in a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court case, Kent v. United States.<br> <br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A33045">www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A33045</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>You are aware, Nemysysss, (and I feel real good about someone in charge of our youth who goes by THAT screen name) that many, many of these youth come to your facility as a RESULT of mental illness or abuse. Even Steiner, whose motives I do not trust, says as much.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Extremely high prevalence of psychiatric problems such as conduct disorder (93%), substance abuse and<br> dependence (85%), and anxiety disorders (31%) (Fig. 2). In comparison to same-age juveniles from the<br> general population and other juvenile incarceration and clinical settings, CYA wards often have much<br> higher prevalence rates of mental health disturbances<br><br>(this was a cached link which just expired, evidently. It comes from the same Steiner who was doing the "voluntary" psychotropic drug experiments mentioned above)<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><br>Now, put such people, victims of abuse many of them, in the setting described in the article above, or even in the setting AS YOU DESCRIBE IT, and you end up retraumatizing them. Translation: it makes them worse.<br><br>It can actually make them psychotic, as the end of this Mercury News report indicates:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It comes as no surprise to state legislators that California puts some of its youngest prisoners in cages, locks others down for 23 hours a day and over-medicates youth suspected of having psychiatric problems. For 20 years, report after report has condemned inhumane conditions inside the institutions. The state held hearings on the CYA in 2000, when many of the current problems were revealed.<br><br> But little has changed.<br><br> Unlike adult prisons, the Youth Authority is charged with providing treatment and education for inmates. But according to reports written in response to a lawsuit filed by the non-profit Prison Law Office in 2003, conditions in lock-up are actually pushing young offenders further into lives of crime, and deepening mental illnesses suffered by a majority of wards.<br><br> In response to the reports, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a blue ribbon commission.<br><br> But flanked by some of the state's most respected juvenile justice professionals Tuesday, Romero said no more talk, reports or task forces are needed. She wants the state to make sure inmates receive an education and health care that meets professional standards. The institution, she said, needs a massive culture change so that daily life is no longer disrupted by fights and guards no longer rely on Mace and isolation to force young inmates into submission. Romero said the state pays as much as $80,000 per year for each of the more than 4,400 wards at CYA, and is getting nothing in return for the investment.<br><br> The CYA's new director, Walter Allen, said his job is ``not to look in the rear-view mirror,'' and he is already drafting an action plan to correct the problems. A spokesman for Roderick Hickman, secretary of the umbrella agency, the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, said the state will continue negotiating a settlement with Don Specter of the Prison Law Office.<br><br> Specter insisted that any agreement will have to include a timetable for reforms and monitoring by outside consultants or the courts. After 25 years of reviewing conditions in adult prisons such as Pelican Bay and Corcoran, Specter said CYA is unique in the nation.<br><br> ``I've never seen an institution this out of control, with this much violence,'' he said. ``It's an organization that's failing and doesn't know how to correct itself.''<br><br> Twenty-one-year-old Christopher Siegle of Walnut Creek spent two years in CYA, after committing a series of thefts for money to buy drugs. Recently paroled from a Stockton facility to an unsupervised Oakland motel, he overdosed within 45 days and held up a local grocery store with a BB gun. He is now in jail.<br><br> His father, Larry Siegle, a supervisor for a security company, said in an interview this week that there's no excuse for the crimes, and his son should pay for them. But his time served at CYA was spent doped up on powerful anti-psychotic medications and sleeping 20 hours per day -- the institution's response when Christopher began hallucinating and hearing voices.<br><br> ``The effects of his time at CYA were detrimental to the extent that he did not receive the kinds of help and support that may have led to treatment and recovery,'' Siegle said. ``They're just left there in limbo.''<br><br> <br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/cya/7870867.htm">www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/cya/7870867.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>I can go on and on...this is well documented and agreed on by just about everyone except, evidently, you and your "colleagues". It's time to stop being part of the problem.<br><br>Meanwhile, I return this thread to its orginal topic. My point was that a young person staying in these facilities is not only going to be more prone to violence and crime (91% recidivism rate should be a clue), but also rife for any Vacaville style MC programs. I can't prove that, but the overt abuse is bad enough. <p></p><i></i>
Dreams End
 

Nemysysss reply two

Postby Dreams End » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:21 am

Before I waste any more of my time trying to give you “my side of the story” to try and keep this discussion “fair and balanced”, and not a soap box for you to try and advocate your agenda, answer just these simple questions for me.<br><br>1. What actual personal experience have you had inside of the Youth Authority (Preston) which gave you this authority to speak out against the Youth Authority Personnel such as you do?<br><br>It is one thing to attack the System which is responsible for the lack of positive results in a program, but to viciously and without merit attack individuals, whom you have never met or observed in this working environment, is very troubling to me.<br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> “Sorry. I don't trust nemysysss too much. CYA facilities are not good places. Abuse is common. They create as many "lestats" as they cure, I'm sure. In fact, they provide no decent mental health care to speak of. Be curious about Vacaville type programs in there.”<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><br>2. Have you personally seen with your very own eyes, in real time, (not an edited video) a widespread prevalent abuse of wards (physical, sexual, etc…) within Preston by the Staff who have been placed in charge of them?<br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>“Wards have had their heads slammed against walls and rails and have been beaten and burned by tear gas canisters and Maced for no reason. ... Staff often use chemical agents on wards who either do not require restraining or who are already restrained. ... Wards are simply locked in their rooms for weeks or months with no programming and no constructive release for their frustration, tension and fear. ... In addition to their failure to prevent ward-on-ward violence, CYA staff have actually encouraged, permitted and/or provided wards with the opportunity to fight each other,” says the suit. Clearly, the allegations showed inhumane treatment for California teenagers.”<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><br>“You will never discover the truth and the solutions to your problems if only faults are what you seek”<br><br>3. Have you ever seen or read about a Staff member (in video, photo, or any other way) after they had been brutally attacked by one or more of your precious, innocent, disenfranchised, and victimized young children?<br><br>4. For that matter, have you ever seen, personally, a victim of your precious charges which you so valiantly advocate for?<br><br>5. Do you feel that it was the fault of the “victims” of your charges attacks against them, for not understanding or caring about their situation or their abusive upbringing?<br><br>6. Are the criminal actions of your charges justified because of their unfortunate upbringing and or abusive treatments?<br><br>7. Do you feel that the faults of your charges lie directly on the State of California who houses them after they have committed their crimes?<br><br>8. Do you place any responsibility on the “family unit” which brought and raised, in one way or another, these disadvantaged individuals into the world?<br><br>9. Do you feel that it is, wholly, the responsibility of the State of California to provide for support and opportunity for parolees?<br><br>10. Have you ever volunteered in any California Youth Authority facility, so as to, offer help and guidance to these troubled Youth, to make a difference where others couldn’t?<br><br>11. Have you ever participated in any of the Church volunteer programs which minister to these Youth within the confines of the Institutions of the Youth Authority, looking for an answer?<br><br>12. Are you in any way, concerned for the health and safety of the Line Staff within the California Youth Authority, who are actively trying to make positive changes in these lives that have been dealt a “bad” card from the deck of life?<br><br>13. Do you feel that convicted criminals or youthful offenders should take responsibility for their actions, or should they continue to act out negatively and blame the State and their alleged CYA abusers for their criminal behaviors?<br><br>14. Do you have any proven or tested methods with which to implement into the dysfunctional CYA rehabilitation system which will help all of these troubled youth searching for answers to their antisocial and predatory behaviors?<br><br>15. Can you guarantee with no uncertainties that your proposed programs of change can and will affect all of the youthful offenders within the CYA in a more successful and measurable result without placing Staff or wards in dangerous situations?<br><br>16. What is your definition of the word nemysyssss?<br><br><br>In closing, I would like to add, that the State of California is ultimately responsible for the housing, rehabilitation, and re-integration of these Youthful Offenders. I, like you, also feel that those responsible for administering these directives have done a very poor job giving the Line Staff working within these facilities the proper tools, support, and environment, with which to work. To attack individual Staff whose only wrong is in trying to help these Youthful offenders in a failing system is inexcusable and irresponsible.<br>The Politicians also must not be removed from this responsibility, for it is ultimately their support, legislation and financial backing which make possible all that is, or is not, available to these Institutions, to implement a successful program which can be measured in terms of a productive citizen being released back into society vs. a recidivism rate which is inherently high.<br><br><br>As I stated previously:<br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>“I am not absolving the State of California, nor the Directors office of the Youth Authority of any wrong doing. In fact, I blame them for much of the problems the CYA faced over the last 10 years. So much has been taken from the CYA in terms of funding and program cuts that the rehabilitation system with which the CYA staff could utilize left a lot to be desired. It was minimal at best. At Preston, all of the shop classes such as Refrigeration air, Masonry, Landscape gardening ect.. were cut as a result of budget cuts and restraints. This left nothing but academic classes for the wards. Unfortunately for a large majority of wards a simple GED would not afford them a good paying job or any real hopes of getting a job which would help them cope with all of the temptations that crime and the allure that quick money through crime presented to them.”<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><br>That said, I would also like to add that it was not the State which raised these Youthful Offenders from birth to incarceration. It was the “family unit”; whatever socio/economic condition it happened to be subjected to.<br><br>For the most part, in my experiences with these troubled youth, the “family unit” was not in existence or was severely disabled due to a lack of a positive Father figure or both parents missing and the responsibility fell into the lap of the Grandparent(s) or foster care (which is a whole different story). In many cases criminal activities were in so many words “a family affair”. It was a business or occupation of several generations within this unit, and this lifestyle of victimizing the weak and innocent was the only learned behavior this child knew. To state one of the most obvious faults of this defunct system which is failing miserably (also in my opinion) is the fact that these youth were active or inherently aware of this criminal or disadvantaged lifestyle from the ages of, let’s say, 6 up to adulthood or the time of their incarceration. Given the incarceration (counseling and rehabilitation) time within the States system (CYA) of approximately 2 years, it is easy to see that the actual “hands on” rehabilitation efforts are greatly disproportional to the amount of time these Youth had to learn their negative behaviors. Then to parole them back into the same conditions and environments, which had a definite negative impact on their lives in the first place, seems utterly counterproductive and self defeating.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
Dreams End
 

New discussion starts here.

Postby Dreams End » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:49 am

That was truly a pain in the ass to transfer. The topic here, as I see it, is whether the CYA (and I think a broader look at the US prison system is in order and might flow from this) is doing the best it can for kids in California who are locked up there. It's charter is for reform and rehabilitation, not retribution and punishment. That's the law. Now, nemysysss, has given me a long list of redundant questions to answer so I'll do my best.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>1. What actual personal experience have you had inside of the Youth Authority (Preston) which gave you this authority to speak out against the Youth Authority Personnel such as you do?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>If I need direct personal experience in order to express an opinion about something, then I guess I'd better not vote in the next election. Here are some other things I have not witnessed directly but which I feel I can speak out about:<br><br>slavery, the destruction of Iraq, clearcutting forests, capital punishment, low wages and poor working conditions at Wal-mart and Steve McNair's contract negotiations with the Titans. <br><br>Just to name a few.<br><br>However, I've helpfully posted numerous articles referencing report after report of brutal and inhumane conditions in this place. So, I guess the readers of this thread, should there actually be any, will have to decide whether your word or this documentation (and the many, many pages of additional documentation just a google away) gives us a more accurate sense of what's up at CYA.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>2. Have you personally seen with your very own eyes, in real time, (not an edited video) a widespread prevalent abuse of wards (physical, sexual, etc…) within Preston by the Staff who have been placed in charge of them?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>See number one.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>3. Have you ever seen or read about a Staff member (in video, photo, or any other way) after they had been brutally attacked by one or more of your precious, innocent, disenfranchised, and victimized young children?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Well, I see your true attitude is coming through here, so this is a start. No, since I don't work there, I haven't seen it. This is expected, given <br>a) the background and condition of the kids who come there<br><br>and<br><br>b) the way they are treated there.<br><br>And I'm sorry, N, if they didn't explain to you when you signed up that these kids are extremely violent (some of them) but that this does not give you license to retaliate in any way. (From here on out, N, when I say "you" I mean it in the collective sense of all the guards there, not you personally.) <br><br>Now, maybe you and Dr. Steiner could get together and he could let you know WHY these kids are so violent. That would be a start, although, strangely, you SEEM to understand it further down in your own post...at least a little. However, Steiner also needs someone to tell HIM that...now pay attention please, because maybe you'll see him in the cafeteria or something...CONDITIONS THAT DIRECTLY REPRODUCE THE TRAUMATIC AND ABUSIVE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH LED THE KID THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE WILL, WITHOUT FAIL, INDUCE ANTI-SOCIAL, ABREACTIVE, DECOMPENSATIONAL, SELF-INJURIOUS, AND/OR VIOLENT RESPONSES. Pass that on to him for me, won't you?<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>4. For that matter, have you ever seen, personally, a victim of your precious charges which you so valiantly advocate for?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>You know, the further I get into this response, the more I realize how your own attitude as demonstrated by the way you talk about these people is so clear that no response is needed. However, I can't sleep as I said. No, I haven't been a victim. I've been around such young people in a variety of ways, but they never attack me. Weird, huh?<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>5. Do you feel that it was the fault of the “victims” of your charges attacks against them, for not understanding or caring about their situation or their abusive upbringing?<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Nope. But when they get out, more angry, more violent and more knowledgeable than when they went in, I will blame YOU, however. In the collective sense, as I just mentioned. You do, get that, right? They do get out. Though I have to say, since 91% come back in, I guess that shows where "rehabilitation" is on your priority list.<br> <br>I supppose that may have something to do with the fact that CYA and the US prison system in general don't really have rehabilitation in mind. It's about social control. Not just controlling in prisons but about releasing the now more violent and more skillfull criminals into society. <br><br>Foucault said (and what would a good debate be without a quote from Foucault?)<br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>Crime was too useful for them [the authorities in 18th century France] to dream of anything as crazy -- or ultimately as dangerous -- as a society without crime. No crime means no police. What makes the presence and control of the police tolerable for the population, if not fear of the criminal? This institution of the police, which is so recent and so oppressive, is only justified by that fear. If we accept the presence in our midst of these uniformed men, who have exclusive right to carry arms, who demand our papers, who come and prowl on our doorsteps, how would any of this be possible if there were no criminals? And if there weren't articles every day in the newspaper telling us how numerous and dangerous our criminals are<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>This last I took from an article by Christian Parenti, author of "Lockdown USA". Here he is explaining exactly how crime functions as social control in our society:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There are three primary ways in which crime acts as social control: it creates fear and demoralization, absorbs "bodies" and human energy that might be harnessed by rebellion, and drives poor and oppressed people into the arms of the state. Very directly, crime frightens people away from meetings and keeps community members isolated and voluntarily locked up, not in cells, but in their homes. Moreover, violence and addiction corrode basic social structures, such as friendship and family, upon which political mobilization depends. <br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.historyisaweapon.org/defcon1/crimecontrol.html">www.historyisaweapon.org/defcon1/crimecontrol.html</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>(Just found this site: History is a weapon. HIGHLY recommend it. )<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Oh boy. Where were we? Oh, yes. Is it the victims fault? No. Are you making it worse for the victims at CYA? Yes. Is that on purpose? Yes, though I realize that you probably just work there for a paycheck and have nothing to do with larger policies and agendas, it's maybe a good time for you to have a nice long think about what you'd like to do with the rest of your life after you quit CYA.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>6. Are the criminal actions of your charges justified because of their unfortunate upbringing and or abusive treatments?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Well, at least we have a nod to "unfortunate" upbringings. Thanks for that, at least. Justified? No, these crimes are horrible. Reading the Parenti article gives just a few examples. That's why I, unlike the CYA, would like to STOP this cycle of violence, not continue to worsen it through the "rehabilitation" program.<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>7. Do you feel that the faults of your charges lie directly on the State of California who houses them after they have committed their crimes?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Absolutely not. The state must share blame with the Feds. And, of course, our entire system of capitalist exploitation that allows the US, for example, at 5% of the world's population to have about 25% of the world's prisoners. Think there's anything weird about that? <br><br>I also maintain that crime is USEFUL to the state and federal governments for reasons stated above. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>8. Do you place any responsibility on the “family unit” which brought and raised, in one way or another, these disadvantaged individuals into the world?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>When a father beats his son or maybe rapes him. For years. When a mother neglects her daughter, or maybe rents her out for extra cash. Yes, these things damage children beyond words. Thank GOD they have CYA to help them recover from this trauma and abuse.<br><br>You, on the other hand, evidently want to blame the kids directly, with no context, familial or social. They are just animals to you...violent and subhuman. Your tone shows this quite clearly. If you really thought the families were to blame, then you and your colleagues would be advocating for far better treatment and therapies for these kids.<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>9. Do you feel that it is, wholly, the responsibility of the State of California to provide for support and opportunity for parolees?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>That's a vague question. For minors, the answer is an unequivocal "yes." If the parents are unfit, then it is the state's duty to provide for them. For adults, well, that gets into the whole notion of how we organize our society, particularly how we ration things like "jobs" and "money". But I'll ask you this, would YOU want your parolees back on the street without prospects for support and opportunities for employment?<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>10. Have you ever volunteered in any California Youth Authority facility, so as to, offer help and guidance to these troubled Youth, to make a difference where others couldn’t?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>I have worked in a variety of capacities with young people for many years, both as a volunteer and as a teacher and program administrator, but not at CYA. Why don't you provide the links to how people who actually live in California can sign up to volunteer to work with the CYA. They'll have to make their own moral judgments about whether working within that system is valuable or merely contributing to the problem.<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>12. Are you in any way, concerned for the health and safety of the Line Staff within the California Youth Authority, who are actively trying to make positive changes in these lives that have been dealt a “bad” card from the deck of life?<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Well, given the way you refer to these kids above, I'm not sure what positive changes are being attempted. But I am so concerned about your line staff that I urge all of you at once to go on strike until conditions in the facilities improve. INSIST that the state adopt more humane models for treatment of youth offenders. You'll be safer, and they'll be better off. Good luck on the picket line! <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>13. Do you feel that convicted criminals or youthful offenders should take responsibility for their actions, or should they continue to act out negatively and blame the State and their alleged CYA abusers for their criminal behaviors?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>No, they should just shut up and take their abuse like real men. <br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>14. Do you have any proven or tested methods with which to implement into the dysfunctional CYA rehabilitation system which will help all of these troubled youth searching for answers to their antisocial and predatory behaviors?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Yikes...I got some bad news for you. There already IS a plan for reform, but you aren't going to like it. It was a result of the recent settlement with the Prison Law Office. But it's pretty ugly. It includes things like:<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br> * Include families in treatment and rehabilitation.<br> * Keep youth in facilities close to their homes.<br> * Provide youth with a supportive and positive environment that truly helps them get their lives back on track.<br> * Staff the programs with trained rehabilitation specialists.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Ouch. that's gotta hurt. But I'm sure you and your buddies can set them straight. In fact, I'm surprised you didn't mention this yourself as the deadline for all this has already passed. I guess that means it was an empty promise from the state. Maybe you've only worked there a couple of years so all these changes have been implemented and things really ARE as rosy as you paint them.<br><br>Here's an article about the Missouri system that California is "studying"<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>An opportunity 'to be human'<br>MISSOURI'S SOFTER APPROACH CHEAPER MORE EFFECTIVE<br>By Karen de Sá<br>Mercury News<br>Young inmates in Missouri, known as students, live in homey complexes and wear their own clothing.<br>Mercury News photo -- Judith Calson<br>Young inmates in Missouri, known as students, live in homey complexes and wear their own clothing.<br><br><br><br>KANSAS CITY, Mo. - In Missouri's lock-ups for its toughest juvenile offenders, stuffed animals, smiley-face bedspreads and fresh sunflowers take the place of the handcuffs, Mace and isolation cells common in California's youth prisons.<br><br>Treatment prevails over punishment. ``Students'' and ``clients'' -- not wards or inmates -- move freely around homey cottages. They choose their own clothing, attend classes, and rarely fight or threaten suicide. The program's success is evident in their lengths of stay: After an average of eight months, Missouri youths are considered safe for release. In California, young offenders spend an average of about three years -- and as many as seven -- in custody.<br><br>While abuse and scandal plague many of the nation's juvenile facilities, Missouri's Division of Youth Services has not faced a lawsuit over the care of its residents in 35 years. Its longtime director, Mark Steward, brings ``his kids'' home for sleepovers, Thanksgiving dinners and swimming parties.<br><br>And unlike California's prisons for youth offenders -- which see roughly three of four arrested on new criminal charges within three years after release -- Missouri's system turns out more young people who reject their delinquent pasts.<br><br>About 34 percent of Missouri's young offenders are sentenced to adult or juvenile programs for new offenses within three years of leaving a Youth Services facility. Experts say that is an impressive rate, although Missouri uses a narrower definition of recidivism than California. California's 74 percent rate includes all arrests, whether or not they lead to incarceration.<br><br>And yet, juvenile incarceration costs Missouri taxpayers about half of what Californians pay per inmate.<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/cya/9985246.htm">more</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>(There's a whole series about CYA at the above link. However, it IS from the end of 2004 and that WAS a year and a half ago, so hopefully some changes really are being made, despite nemysysss'ssss attitude toward these young people.)<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>15. Can you guarantee with no uncertainties that your proposed programs of change can and will affect all of the youthful offenders within the CYA in a more successful and measurable result without placing Staff or wards in dangerous situations?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Works in Missouri. But no, probably not without some serious staff changes.<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>16. What is your definition of the word nemysyssss?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>As I said in the other post but will reprint here:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>nem·e·sis Audio pronunciation of "nemesis" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nm-ss)<br>n. pl. nem·e·ses (-sz)<br><br> 1. A source of harm or ruin: Uncritical trust is my nemesis.<br> 2. Retributive justice in its execution or outcome: To follow the proposed course of action is to invite nemesis.<br> 3. An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.<br> 4. One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.<br> 5. Nemesis Greek Mythology. The goddess of retributive justice or vengeance.<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>And that's pretty much how you sound to me.<br><br>Look, it's really not about you. You are acculturated to the way things are there. Indoctrinated might be a better word. I actually despair that you have not mentioned ANYTHING about the major reform efforts of the last year. As I said, maybe you've only been there a year or two, but then you seem, from your posts, to have been there longer. And since you have not mentioned changes due to the consent decree from 2004, then I worry that they aren't really happening. That wouldn't surprise me, but it would be sad. I haven't seen any followup studies or reports yet, but I'm still looking. <p></p><i></i>
Dreams End
 

Re: History is a weapon

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:47 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>www.historyisaweapon.org/defcon1/crimecontrol.html<br>(Just found this site: History is a weapon. HIGHLY recommend it. )<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Damn. Great stuff. Thanks for this. This is what so many who are aware of class warfare are missing in their analysis. <br><br>When the sherrif is corrupt you really are in the social equivalent of a zombie movie. Almost everyone is either trying to harm people are not helping.<br><br>What did Bush just call the IMF policies which impede aiding the poor? "Down harmonization"? Something like that. Brrrr.<br><br>When there is a euphemism for institutionalized eugenics then you know that it is entirely intentional and you have lots of explaining to do to the naive, uninvolved, or alienated. <p></p><i></i>
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State-Organized Crime as a Case Study Of Criminal Policy

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:56 pm

(Sorry for the wallpaper but this article is worth it.)<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/Kentuckystatecrime.htm">www.btinternet.com/~nlpwe...ecrime.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Discussion Questions:<br><br>1. In what ways does the savings and loan scandal represent collusion between organized crime and legitimate commerce?<br><br>2. Discuss in what ways state organized crime can be characterized as terrorism.<br><br>3. To what extent is America's drug problem a direct result of government policy? How can the state's drug war be explained in this context?</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Original URL <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.policestudies.eku.edu/POTTER/Module9.htm">www.policestudies.eku.edu...odule9.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies<br>521 Lancaster Avenue <br>Stratton 467 <br>Eastern Kentucky University<br>Richmond, Kentucky 40475-3102<br>Telephone: (859) 622-2011<br>Fax: (859)622-8259<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.policestudies.eku.edu/">www.policestudies.eku.edu/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>CRJ 875: Crime and Public Policy<br><br>Module 9: State-Organized Crime as a Case Study Of Criminal Policy<br><br>In his Presidential address to the American Society of Criminology, William Chambliss raised the issue of what he called "State-Organized Crime" (Chambliss, 1988). Chambliss defined state-organized crime as "acts committed by state or government officials in the pursuit of their job as representatives of the government" (Chambliss, 1988: 327). In Chambliss' view governments often engage in smuggling (arms and drugs), assassination conspiracies, terrorist acts, and other crimes in order to further their foreign policy objectives. While these actions may be seen as having immediate benefits (despite their illegality), they often have unanticipated and unintended outcomes, sometimes referred to in intelligence circles as "blowback." In this section we will examine the issue of state- organized crime as it relates to the United States and some of the "blowback" which law enforcement agencies have had to cope with as a result of these state-organized crime activities.<br><br>When governments commit acts that are defined by their own laws as criminal or when government officials break the law as part of their job, they engage in state-organized crime (Chambliss, 1986). While the state rarely makes public its criminality or keeps tabulations on the number of illegal acts it has committed, it is clear from both a historical and contemporary perspective that state organized crime is neither new nor rare. State-organized crime is particularly apparent in the covert operations of intelligence agencies.<br><br>Any government operation that is shielded from the public and hidden from Congressional oversight over a long period of time will inevitably become reliant on criminal activity to support and fund the operation. Covert operations provide the perfect setting for organized criminal activity simply because they are clandestine operations conducted with state sanction (Chambliss, 1986). Covert intelligence activities avoid the usual law enforcement scrutiny and surveillance. Passage through customs can be facilitated through official channels. Normal financial accounting procedures are not followed in covert operations. Investigators from law enforcement agencies can be diverted by claims of "national security." And finally, organizers of such operations recruit individuals with the skills necessary to carry them out, most of which are criminal skills. It is typical for covert operators to work with well-established criminal undergrounds and for the government sponsoring the covert operation to at the very least tolerate and often abet the criminal activities of its organized crime allies.<br><br>In recent years, intelligence agencies in the United States have sought and received assistance from drug traffickers. While it is, of course, outrageously hypocritical for a government waging a drug war against its own citizens to seek assistance from drug traffickers, it is not surprising. After all, as Chambliss (1986) points out, the characteristics of successful drug trafficking are the same qualities that are essential to successful intelligence operations. Both activities require the movement of bulky commodities, money and couriers quickly and secretly. Both activities require great discretion and allegiance from temporary workers employed for illicit and covert activities. And both activities require the use of force and violence to assure the security of the operation.<br><br>State-Sponsored Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy<br><br>Iran: The CIA engaged in a massive conspiracy to overthrow the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953 (Beirne and Messerscmidt, 1991: 258-259; Prados, 1986; Simon and Eitzen, 1986). Following his election, Mossedagh had nationalized several foreign-owned oil companies. His government had offered compensation to the oil companies. But the Eisenhower administration was not tolerant of any independence by foreign leaders and began a campaign to overthrow the Mossedagh government and replace it with the monarchy of Shah Reza Pahlavi. In return for U.S. support for the coup d'etat, the Shah promised U.S. oil companies control over 50 percent of Iran's oil production. After removing the democratic government in Iran and placing the Shah in power, the CIA helped create, train, and finance SAVAK, a vicious secret police force loyal to the Shah. SAVAK arrested over 1,500 people a month during the Shah's reign. On June 5, 1953, SAVAK murdered about 6,000 Iranian citizens in one day (Simon and Eitzen,. 1986: 158). Torture was frequently used on prisoners, and Amnesty International declared, "No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran" (Beirne and Messerscmidt, 1991: 258).<br><br>While American oil companies and arms merchants profited from the Shah's reign (Iran purchased $17 billion in military equipment from the U.S.), the ultimate costs of the coup can only by calculated by considering the impact of the 1979 Islamic revolution which replaced the Shah's regime. The government of the Ayatollah Khomeni which took over was virulently anti-American, heavily engaged in the sponsorship of terrorism, responsible for the seizure of American hostages, and part of a bizarre conspiracy involving U.S. intelligence during the Reagan administration.<br><br>Guatemala: Fresh from its dubious success in Iran, the CIA intervened in the internal affairs of Guatemala the following year. In 1954 the CIA orchestrated a military coup which removed the democratically elected leader of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, from power (Beirne and Messerchmidt, 1991: 259; Herman, 1982: 176). Arbenz was committed to democracy and had received 65 percent of the vote in Guatemala's election. His crime, however, was that he favored land reform. Guatemala was a country in which 3 percent of the landowners owned 70 percent of the agricultural land. After his election Arbenz nationalized 1.5 million acres of arable land, including land owned by the U.S.- based United Fruit Company. United Fruit insisted that the government act against Arbenz, and the CIA financed a rebel "army" in Honduras. On July 8, 1954, Arbenz fled the country. The U.S.- sponsored dictator immediately canceled the land reform program, ended literacy programs, fired teachers, ordered the burning of "subversive" books, and broke up the peasants' agricultural cooperatives. For the next 30 years, Guatemala was ruled by a vicious military dictatorship which had been imposed on the citizens and was propped up by U.S. military forces.<br><br>Cuba: In 1959, Fidel Castro overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista had been friendly to U.S. corporations and to U.S. organized crime interests who had run massive gambling, prostitution, and narcotics operations out of Havana (Beirne and Messerschmidt, 1991: 259-261; Kruger, 1980; Hinckle and Turner, 1981). Once again, the Eisenhower administration elected to use the CIA to try to resolve the problem. As a first step, the CIA began to train anti-Castro Cuban exiles in terrorist tactics in what was known as "Operation 40." Operation 40 involved terrorist attacks on Cuba, attempted assassinations of Cuban leaders, and an alliance with organized crime figures Sam Giancana, Santo Trafficante, and Johnny Roselli in a series of assassination plots against Castro himself.<br><br>In April, 1961, the CIA-trained Cuban exiles attempted an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The invasion was a military disaster, and much of the military force was captured or killed. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion forced a change in tactics against Cuba. Operation 40 was replaced by JM/WAVE, an operation involving some 300 CIA agents and 4,000-6,000 Cuban exiles. JM/WAVE engaged in a series of terrorist attacks on Cuba, targeting sugar and oil refineries and factories. It also continued the assassination campaign begun earlier under Operation 40.<br><br>In 1965, JM/WAVE was disbanded, as a direct result of the discovery that its aircraft were engaged in narcotics smuggling, leaving thousands of highly-trained, politically fanatic Cuban exiles in place in the United States. The "blowback" from JM/WAVE was considerable. Some of these CIA- trained exiles turned to terrorism, engaging in 25-30 bombings in Dade County, Florida, alone in 1975 and assassinating diplomats around the world (Herman, 1982). Other JM/WAVE participants, having been trained in smuggling techniques and violence by the CIA, turned to organized crime, creating large gambling syndicates in New Jersey and Florida and forming the infrastructure for massive cocaine trafficking by Cuban and Colombian organized crime groups.<br><br>Chile: In 1972 the CIA targeted yet another democratically- elected government for overthrow, presumably as part of America's overall foreign policy commitment to democracy around the world. This time the target was the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. (Beirne and Messerschmidt, 1991: 263; Simon and Eitzen, 1986). In 1970 Allende had been elected president, and immediately IT&T. which had significant mining investments in Chile, and the CIA worked to destabilize the economy and his government. Their plans did great damage to the Chilean economy but failed to bring the Allende government down. In 1973, the tactics changed when the CIA conspired with the Chilean military to overthrow Allende in a coup d'etat. Allende, along with 30,000 Chilean citizens, was killed in the coup. The democratic institutions Allende had created were dismantled, and General Pinochet, a man who saw himself as the successor to Adolph Hitler, began an unprecedented regime of repression. The Pinochet regime incarcerated over 100,000 Chileans and murdered another 20,000.<br><br>Operation Condor: In one of the most disturbing examples of state-organized crime involving the U.S. government, the CIA, along with secret police agencies from six Latin American countries, entered into a conspiracy to identify, monitor, and assassinate political dissidents in those countries. The terror campaign was orchestrated by Pinochet's secret police, the DINA, but was abetted by the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the United States. Hundreds of people were abducted and murdered during Operation Condor (Herman, 1982).<br><br>U.S. Intelligence Agency Collaboration with Organized Crime<br><br>Active alliances between various organized crime groups and the U.S. government can be traced, at least, to World War II, when the Office of Naval Intelligence asked new York organized crime figures Meyer Lansky, Albert Anastasia, and "Lucky" Luciano to assist them with counter-intelligence operations on the New York waterfront:<br><br>Such escapades allegedly began during World War II when the underworld figures in control of the New York docks were contracted by navy intelligence officials in order to ensure that German submarines or foreign agents did not infiltrate the area. It was thought that waterfront pimps and prostitutes could act as a sort of counter- intelligence corps. The man whose aid was sought for this purpose was Lucky Luciano; he was reportedly quite successful in preventing sabotage or any other outbreak of trouble on the New York docks during the war. Despite his arrest and conviction for compulsory prostitution in 1936, Luciano was granted parole and given exile for life in 1954 in exchange for the aid he provided from his prison cell during the war (Simon and Eitzen, 1993: 81).<br><br>The OSS in Italy and Marseilles: The military also sought assistance from organized crime during World War II in the invasion of Sicily. New York organized crime syndicates sent their members door-to-door in Italian neighborhoods collecting recent letters, maps, photographs, and postcards from Sicily to assist military intelligence (Messick, 1976). In addition, Vito Genovese, who was living in self-imposed exile in Italy, decided to play both sides against the middle. While he had spent a great deal of money and effort currying favor with Mussolini, he now saw an opportunity to ingratiate himself to the U.S. government. Genovese acted as an "unofficial advisor to the American military government," following the invasion (Pearce, 1976: 149; Simon and Eitzen, 1993: 81). Genovese assisted the military in finding and installing right-wing politicians loyal to organized crime in official positions in Italy as a buffer against popular support for socialist political parties. This collaboration continued in the post-war 1950s, as the government perceived a new threat on the horizon - Communism. Both organized crime and U.S. foreign policy interests were well-served by this alliance with Genovese. Italian politicians opposed to the socialists and Communists were assisted in maintaining power by organized crime, and organized crime was virtually given a "crime-committing license" by the government for almost four decades.<br><br>In the early 1950s, the intelligence community once again sought the assistance of organized crime figures, this time in France. France was engaged in a war to prevent its colony of Vietnam from gaining independence. However, socialist dockworkers in Marseilles refused to load ships with military supplies bound for Vietnam. U.S. foreign policy was threatened in two ways. First, policies dedicated to the containment of communism would be impaired in the French did not resist Ho Chi Minh and Viet Minh in Vietnam. Second, the government of France, a major U.S. ally was itself threatened by a possible socialist-Communist electoral alliance, and Communist Party domination of the trade unions. Attacking the French longshoremen, one of the most powerful leftist unions, served both ends. U.S. intelligence officers contacted Corsican organized crime syndicates heavily involved in prostitution and waterfront corruption to assist them in breaking the French dockworkers union. The Corsicans created "goon squads," which attacked union picket lines, harassed and even assassinated union leaders, and eventually broke the union, thereby allowing the French to resume their war in Vietnam and providing the prologue for their own involvement a decade later. The payoff to the Corsican gangsters was of enormous value. They were granted the right to use Marseilles as a center for heroin trafficking, not only giving Corsican crime groups a new and very profitable enterprise, but creating the infamous "French Connection," which would supply much of America's heroin needs for the next twenty years (Pearce, 1976: 150).<br><br>The CIA in Southeast Asia: Links between U.S. intelligence agencies and drug smugglers occurred at least as early as the 1950s. The CIA provided direct support to Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist) opium growers in Thailand and Burma. Ostensibly this aid was given in the hope that these small scattered armies would someday attack Communist China. The CIA set up two front-companies to provide air support for the Kuomintang opium trade - - Civil Air Transport and Sea Supply Corporation. These companies supplied military aid to the Nationalist Chinese and flew their opium out of the Golden Triangle to Thailand or Taiwan. CIA assistance for these opium-growing warlords was largely responsible for the explosion of heroin addiction in the United States in the 1960s when the number of known addicts grew from about 65,000 to over 500,000 (McCoy, 1972; Kwitny, 1987). The world's largest opium merchant, Chang Chi-fu, has operated for several decades as a CIA "client." Another Golden Triangle heroin czar, Li Wen-huan, has been given direct financial, military, and logistical assistance by the CIA. A third major heroin traffickers Lu Hsu-shui was protected from a DEA investigation on orders from the CIA (Mills, 1986).<br><br>During the Vietnam War, the CIA supplied, financed, and supported a renegade Laotian army made up of members of the Hmong (or Meo) tribe. General Vang Pao commanded this 36,000 man secret army in a war against the Pathet Lao in an attempt to disrupt North Vietnamese supply routes to Viet Cong guerrillas in South Vietnam. Vang Pao's army was under the command of veteran CIA officers and was totally supplied, financed, and equipped by U.S. funds. As part of his "assistance" to U.S. intelligence, Vang Pao's army carried out a brutal assassination program of village leaders. Vang Pao's Hmong tribesmen were traditionally opium poppy farmers. The war interfered with their opium trade, so the CIA supplied them with aircraft from a CIA proprietary company called Air America to transport their opium from the Laotian hills to a massive CIA base at Long Tieng, Laos. At Long Tieng, Vang Pao had established a massive heroin refinery. DEA's Far East regional director, John J. O'Neill, said, "I have no doubt that Air America was used to transport opium" (Kwitney, 1987: 51). Some of the Laotian heroin was transported to South Vietnam, where it was sold to U.S. troops, 20% of whom came home addicted to heroin.<br><br>The CIA in Southwest Asia: In the 1980s the CIA also began operations in support of the Mujahadeen, a fundamentalist Moslem group of rebels fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Like his Nicaraguan "freedom fighters" (discussed below), Reagan's Mujahadeen allies financed their war through drug trafficking, in this case heroin. Mujahadeen leaders supervised the growing of the opium poppy and with the assistance of the CIA, which had reopened trade routes to supply the Mujahadeen with weapons, smuggled the drug onto the world market. The net result of CIA assistance to the Afghani rebels was that the areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan they control had become "the world's leading source of heroin exports to the United States and Europe" by 1986, according to a State Department report.<br><br>The CIA and Money Laundering in Florida and the Caribbean Basin: CIA associates in the Caribbean, including the paymaster for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, played key roles in the operations of Castle Bank, a Florida money laundry for organized crime's drug money. Another Florida bank with strong intelligence-community connections, the Bank of Perrine, has been used by Colombians to launder money from their burgeoning cocaine business. In the early 1970s, the CIA and organized crime played a key role in establishing and operating the World Finance Corporation, a Florida-based company involved in laundering drug money and supporting terrorist activities (Lernoux, 1984).<br><br>The Nugan-Hand Bank: Much of the opium profits from CIA involvement with drug traffickers in the Golden Triangle were laundered through the Nugan Hand Bank in Australia. A network of high-ranking U.S. military officers and intelligence officers had links to the Nugan-Hand Bank, which was charged by an Australian commission of investigation with narcotics trafficking, gun-running, money laundering, and massive fraud (Kwitny, 1987, New York Times, March 8, 1987). In his investigation of the Nugan- Hand Bank, Jonathan Kwitny charges that the bank laundered billions of dollars, helped finance the heroin trade in the Golden Triangle and engaged in tax fraud and theft (Kwitny, 1987: 76). Who were the officers of this "heroin" bank? The president of Nugan-Hand was retired U.S. Admiral Earl F. Yates. Its legal counsel was former CIA director William Colby. Consultants for the bank included former deputy CIA director Walter McDonald; former National Security Council advisor Guy Parker, and Andrew Lowe, one of Australia's largest heroin traffickers.<br><br>The Bank of Credit and Commerce International: The close relationship between the U.S. government, the financial community, and organized crime is nowhere clearer than in the activities of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) (Kappeler, Blumberg, and Potter, 1993: 237-238). BCCI was the seventh-largest privately owned bank in the world. It had over four hundred branch offices operating in seventy-three countries. Among its many criminal activities was the laundering of at least $14 billion for the Colombian cocaine cartels; the facilitating of financial transactions for Panamanian president Manuel Noriega and international arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi; the funneling of cash to the contras for illegal arms deals and contra-backed drug trafficking; and the assisting of Phillipine President Ferdinand Marcos in transferring his personal fortune, accrued through corruption and graft, out of the Philippines.<br><br>Despite the enormity of BCCI's crimes and its vital role in drug trafficking, the U.S. Justice Department was more than reluctant to investigate. In fact, the Justice Department had complete information on BCCI's drug and arms operations and its illegal holdings in the United States for over three years before it even initiated an inquiry. Perhaps the reluctance of American law enforcement to interfere with such a major organized crime entity can be explained by the proliferation of what some have perceived as BCCI's "friends" in the U.S. government holding high office.<br><br>Cuban Organized Crime Groups: When the Cuban dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959, U.S. intelligence agencies began a massive covert operation to remove Castro from power. To assist in military and terrorist attacks on Cuba, the U.S. government recruited former Batista allies in the Cuban refugee community in the U.S. and members of organized crime. Organized criminals had a major stake in Cuba. Prior to the revolution, they had operated in a partnership with Batista which had made Havana a major haven for gambling, prostitution, and drug trafficking. After the revolution organized crime figures were imprisoned and/or exiled from Cuba, thereby costing organized crime millions of dollars in illicit revenue.<br><br>At first the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans, and the mob collaborated on plans for an invasion of Cuba by Cuban refugees. The clandestine army created for this purpose was known as Brigade 2506 and was placed under the direction of Manuel Artime, an anti-Castro Cuban leader in Miami. In 1962, Brigade 2506 launched a disastrous invasion at the Bay of Pigs. With their invasion force shattered and defeated, the CIA and its allies turned to other tactics to destablize the Cuban government.<br><br>The anti-Castro Cubans were reorganized in several secret operations whose main objective was to conduct acts of terror aimed at Cuba. Oil refineries and sugar refineries were bombed, sugar shipments poisoned, and the Cuban infrastructure disrupted through terrorist attacks. But the public participation of Batista allies and organized crime figures in these efforts were a source of major embarrassment to the U.S. government. In the early 1970s, the anti-Castro terror campaign was called off when one of the planes being used by the anti-Castro Cubans crashed in California with several kilos of cocaine and heroin abroad (New York Times, January 1, 1975).<br><br>Organized Crime, The CIA and the Savings and Loan Scandal<br><br>The savings and loan scandal of the 1980s has been depicted in a myriad of ways. To some, it is "the greatest ... scandal in American history" (Thomas, 1991: 30). To others it is the single greatest case of fraud in the history of crime (Seattle Times, June 11, 1991). Some analysts see it as the natural result of the ethos of greed promulgated by the Reagan administration (Simon and Eitzen, 1993: 50). And to some it was a premeditated conspiracy to move covert funds out of the country for use by the U.S. Intelligence Agency (Bainerman, 1992: 275). All of these depictions of the S & L scandal contain elements of truth. But to a large degree, the savings and loan scandal was simply business as usual. What was unusual about it was not that it happened, or who was involved, but that it was so blatant and coarse a criminal act that exposure became inevitable. But with its exposure, three basic but usually ignored "truths" about organized crime were once again demonstrated with startlingly clarity:<br><br>There is precious little difference between those people who society designates as respectable and law abiding and those people society castigates as hoodlums and thugs.<br><br>The world of corporate finance and corporate capital is as criminogenic and probably more criminogenic than any poverty-wracked slum neighborhood.<br><br>The distinctions drawn between business, politics, and organized crime are at best artificial and in reality irrelevant. Rather than being dysfunctions, corporate crime, white-collar crime, organized crime, and political corruption are mainstays of American political-economic life.<br><br>It is not our intent to discuss the unethical and even illegal business practices of the failed savings and loans and their governmental collaborators. The outlandish salaries paid by S & L executives to themselves, the subsidies to the thrifts from Congress which rewarded incompetence and fraud, the land "flips" which resulted in real estate being sold back and forth in an endless "kiting" scheme, and the political manipulation designed to delay the scandal until after the 1988 presidential elections are all immensely interesting and important. But they are subjects for others' inquiries. Our interest is in the savings and loans as living, breathing organisms that fused criminal corporations, organized crime, and the CIA into a single entity that served the interests of the political and economic elite in America. Let us begin by quickly summarizing the most blatant examples of collaboration between financial institutions, the mob, and the intelligence community.<br><br>First National Bank of Maryland: For two years, 1983-1985, the First National Bank of Maryland was used by Associated Traders, a CIA proprietary company, to make payments for covert operations. Associated traders used its accounts at First National to supply $23 million in arms for covert operations in Afghanistan, Angola, Chad, and Nicaragua (Bainerman, 1992; 276-277; Covert Action 35, 1990).<br><br>The links between the First National Bank of Maryland and the CIA were exposed in a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court by Robert Maxwell, a high-ranking bank officer. Maxwell charged in that suit that he had been asked to commit crimes on behalf of the CIA. Specifically, he charged that he was asked to conceal Associated Traders' business activities, which by law he was required to specify on all letters of credit. Maxwell alleged that he had been physically threatened and forced to leave his job after asking that his superiors supply him with a letter stating that the activities he was being asked to engage in were legal. In responding to Maxwell's lawsuit, attorneys for the bank state that "a relationship between First National and the CIA and Associated Traders was classified information which could neither be confirmed nor denied (Bainerman, 1992: 276-277; Washington Business Journal, February 5, 1990).<br><br>Palmer National Bank: The Washington, D.C.-based Palmer National Bank was founded in 1983 on the basis of a $2.8 million loan from Herman K. Beebe to Harvey D. McLean, Jr. McLean was a Shreveport Louisiana businessman who owned Paris (Texas) Savings and Loan. Herman Beebe played a key role in the savings and loan scandal. Houston Post reporter Pete Brewton linked Beebe to a dozen failed S & L's, and Stephen Pizzo, Mary Fricker, and Paul Muolo, in their investigation of the S & L fiasco, called Beebe's banks "potentially the most powerful and corrupt banking network ever seen in the U.S." Altogether, Herman Beebe controlled, directly or indirectly, at least 55 banks and 29 S & L's in eight states. What is particularly interesting about Beebe's participation in these banks and savings and loans is his unique background. Herman Beebe had served nine months in federal prison for bank fraud and had impeccable credentials as a financier for New Orleans-based organized crime figures, including Vincent and Carlos Marcello (Bainerman, 1992: 277-278; Brewton, 1993: 170- 179).<br><br>Harvey McLean's partner in the Palmer National Bank was Stefan Halper. Halper had served as George Bush's foreign policy director during the 1980 presidential primaries. During the general election campaign, Halper was in charge of a highly secretive operations center, consisting of Halper and several ex- CIA operatives who kept close tabs on Jimmy Carter's foreign policy activities, particularly Carter's attempt to free U.S. hostages in Iran. Halper was later linked both to the "Debategate" scandal, in which it is alleged that Carter's briefing papers for his debates with Ronald Reagan were stolen, and with "The October Surprise," in which it is alleged that representatives of the Reagan campaign tried to thwart U.S. efforts to free the Iranian hostages until after the presidential election. Halper also set up a legal defense fund for Oliver North.<br><br>During the Iran-Contra Affair, Palmer National was the bank of record for the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, a front group run by Oliver North and Carl "Spitz" Channell, which was used to send money and weapons to the contras.<br><br>Indian Springs Bank: Another bank with clear connections to the CIA was the Indian Springs Bank of Kansas City, Kansas (Bainerman, 1992: 279-280; Brewton, 1993: 197-200). The fourth largest stockholder in Indian Springs was Iranian expatriate Farhad Azima, who was also the owner of an air charter company called Global International Air. The Indian Springs bank had made several unsecured loans to Global International Air, totaling $600,000 in violation of the bank's $349,00 borrower limit. In 1983 Global International filed for bankruptcy, and Indian Springs followed suit in 1984. The president of Indiana Springs was killed in 1983 in a car fire that started in the vehicle's back seat and was regarded by law enforcement officials as of suspicious origins.<br><br>Global International Air was part of Oliver North's logistical network which shipped arms for the U.S. government on several occasions, including a shipment of 23 tons of TOW missiles to Iran by Race Aviation, another company owned by Azima. Pete Brewton, in his investigation of the Indian Springs bank collapse was told that FBI had not followed up on Indian Springs because the CIA informed them that Azima was "off limits" (Houston Post, February 8, 1990). Similarly the assistant U.S. Attorney handling the Indian Springs investigation was told to "back off from a key figure in the collapse because he had ties to the CIA."<br><br>Azima did indeed have ties to the CIA. His relationship with the agency goes back to the late 1970s when he supplied air and logistical support to EATSCO (Egyptian American Transport and Services Corporation), a company owned by former CIA agents Thomas Clines, Theodore Shackley, and Richard Secord. EATSCO was prominently involved in the activities of former CIA agent Edwin Wilson, who shipped arms illegally to Libya. Azima was also closely tied to the Republican party. He had contributed $81,000 to the Reagan campaign.<br><br>Global International also had other unsavory connections. In 1981, Global International made a payment to organized crime figure Anthony Russo, a convicted felon with a record that included conspiracy, bribery, and prostitution charges. Russo was the lawyer of Kansas City organized crime figures, an employee of Indian Springs, and a member of the board of Global International. Russo later explained that the money had been used to escort Liberian dictator Samuel Doe on a "goodwill trip" to the U.S.<br><br>Global International's planes based in Miami were maintained by Southern Air Transport, another CIA proprietary company. According to Franck Van Geyso, an employee of Global International, pilots for Global International ferried arms into South and Central America and returned to Florida with drugs. Indian Springs also made a loan of $400,000 to Morris Shenker, owner of the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, former attorney for Jimmy Hoffa, and close associate of Nick Civella and other Kansas City organized crime figures. At the time the loan to Shenker was made, he, Civella, and other Kansas City mobsters were under indictment for skimming $280,000 from Las Vegas' Tropicana Casino.<br><br>Vision Banc Savings: In March, 1986, Robert L. Corson purchased the Kleberg County Savings and Loan of Kingsville, Texas, for $6 million, and changed its name to Vision Banc Savings (Bainerman, 1992: 280-281; Brewton, 1993: 333-351). Harris County, Texas, judge Jon Lindsey vouched for Corson's character in order to gain permission from state regulators for the bank purchase. Lindsey was the chairman of the Bush campaign in 1988 in Harris County and later received a $10,000 campaign contribution and a free trip to Las Vegas from Corson (Houston Post, February 11, 1990).<br><br>Corson was well-known to federal law enforcement agents as a "known money launderer" and a "mule for the agency," meaning that he moved large amounts of cash from country to country. When Corson purchased Vision Banc, it had assets in excess of $70 million. Within four months it was bankrupt. Vision Banc engaged in a number of questionable deals under Corson leadership, but none more so that its $20 million loan to Miami Lawyer Lawrence Freeman to finance a real estate deal (Houston Post, February 4, 1990). Freeman was a convicted money launderer who had cleaned dirty money for Jack Devoe's Bahamas-to-Florida cocaine smuggling syndicate and for Santo Trafficante's Florida- based organized crime syndicate. Freeman was a law partner of CIA-operative and Bay of Pigs paymaster Paul Helliwell. Corson, in a separate Florida real estate venture costing $200 million, was indicted on a series of charges.<br><br>Hill Financial Savings: Vision Banc was not the only financial institution involved in Freeman's Florida land deals. Hill Financial Savings of Red Hill, Pennsylvania, put in an additional $80 million (Brewton, 1993: 346-348) . The Florida land deals were only one of a series of bad investments by Hill Financial which led to collapse. The failure of Hill Financial, alone, cost the U.S. treasury $1.9 billion.<br><br>Sunshine State Bank: The cast of characters surrounding the Sunshine State Bank of Miami also included spies, White House operatives, and organized criminals (Bainermann, 1992: 281; Brewton, 1993: 310- 312, 320-323). The owner of the Sunshine State Bank, Ray Corona, was convicted in 1987 of racketeering, conspiracy, and mail fraud. Corona purchased Sunshine in 1978 with $1.1 million in drug trafficking profits supplied by Jose Antonio "Tony" Fernandez, who was subsequently indicted on charges of smuggling 1.5 million pounds of marijuana into the U.S.<br><br>Among Corona's customers and business associates were Leonard Pelullo, Steve Samos, and Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya. Pelullo was a well-known associate of organized crime figures in Philadelphia, who had attempted to use S & L money to broker a major purchase of an Atlantic City Casino as a mob frontman. Pelullo was charged with fraud for his activities at American Savings in California. Steve Samos was a convicted drug trafficker who helped Corona to set up Sunshine State Bank as a drug money laundry. Samos also helped set up front companies that funneled money and weapons to the Contras. Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya was a veteran CIA operative who had played a key role in the Bay of Pigs of invasion. He also had a long career as a money launderer in the Caribbean and in Texas on behalf of both the CIA and major drug trafficking syndicates.<br><br>Mario Renda, Lender to the Mob: Mario Renda was a Long Island money broker who brokered deposits to various savings and loans in return for their agreement to loan money to phony companies (Brewton, 1993: 45-47; 188-190; Pizzo et al. 1989: 466-471). Renda and his associates received finders fees of 2 to 6 percent on the loans, most of which went to individuals with strong organized crime connections who subsequently defaulted on them. Renda brokered deals to 160 Savings and Loans throughout the country, 104 of which eventually failed. Renda was convicted of $16 million from an S & L and for tax fraud.<br><br>Renda also served CIA and National Security Council interests as a money broker helping arrange for the laundering of drug money through various savings and loans on behalf of the CIA. He then obtained loans from the same S & L's, which were funneled to the Contras. An organized crime-related stockbroker, a drug pilot, and Renda were all convicted in the drug money laundering case.<br><br>Full-Service Banking: All told at least twenty-two of the failed S & L's can be tied to joint money laundering ventures by the CIA and organized crime figures (Glassman, 1990: 16-21; Farnham, 1990: 90-108; Weinberg, 1990: 33; Pizzo, et al., 1989: 466-471). If the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s reveal anything, they demonstrate what has often been stated as a maxim in organized crime research: that corruption linking government, business, and syndicates is the reality of the day-to-day organization of crime. Investigations of organized crime in the United States, Europe, and Asia have all uncovered organized crime networks operating with virtual immunity from law enforcement and prosecution. Chambliss' study of organized crime in Seattle exposed a syndicate that involved participation by a former governor of the state, the county prosecutor, the police chief, the sheriff, at least 50 law enforcement officers, leading business people, including contractors, realtors, banks, and corporation executives, and, of course, a supporting cast of drug pushers, pimps, gamblers, and racketeers (Chambliss, 1978). The Chambliss study is not the exception but the rule. Other sociological inquires in Detroit, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York have all revealed similar patterns (Albini, 1971; Block, 1984; Block and Chambliss, 1981; Block and Scarpitti,1985; Jenkins and Potter, 1989; 1986; Potter and Jenkins, 1985; Potter, 1994). As Chambliss comments:<br><br>In the everyday language of the police, the press, and popular opinion, "organized crime" refers to a tightly knit group of people, usually alien and often Italian, that run a crime business structured along the lines of feudal relationships. This conception bears little relationship to the reality of organized crime today. Nonetheless, criminologists have discovered the existence of organizations whose activities focus on the smuggling of illegal commodities into and out of countries (cocaine out of Colombia and into the United States and guns and arms out of the United States and into the Middle East, for example); other organizations, sometimes employing some of the same people, are organized to provide services such as gambling, prostitution, illegal dumping of toxic wastes, arson, usury, and occasionally murder. These organizations typically cut across ethnic and cultural lines, are run like businesses, and consist of networks of people including police, politicians, and ordinary citizens investing in illegal enterprises for a high return on their money.<br><br>Discussion Questions:<br><br>1. In what ways does the savings and loan scandal represent collusion between organized crime and legitimate commerce?<br><br>2. Discuss in what ways state organized crime can be characterized as terrorism.<br><br>3. To what extent is America's drug problem a direct result of government policy? How can the state's drug war be explained in this context?<br><br>CRJ 875: Crime and Public Policy<br>Gary W. Potter, Professor, Criminal Justice and Police Studies<br>padpotte@acs.eku.edu<br>Eastern Kentucky University <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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