Mandel
Crittendon, a Victim of Green River Boys Camp, Tells His Story of
Abuse
From:
www.parentsadvocates.org
Mr.
Crittendon contacted us after we posted our report on Teen Boot
Camps. We offered to post his story so that others may be helped,
because as you will read in the very tragic testimony below, his
life was changed forever when he was sent to the teen boot camp in
1974. The consequences of attending these "prison camps" is
lifelong. We must find an alternative. Betsy Combier.
Mandel Crittendon was sent to Green
River Boys Camp in Kentucky in 1974, he claims. He has never
recovered from his experience there. Below are his comments:
LINK
In 1974, I was 14 years old when I was sent to Green River Boys
Camp. As soon as we arrived, A-Group came running to the car
shouting "You thinking AWOL?" as they were jerking me from the
vehicle. I had no clue what they were talking about, so I
replied "no". To my reply, they responded with "Bullshit!"
All of this shouting continued as we were scurried to the
Clothes Room, where my clothing was ripped off of me and I was
issued state uniforms. Then they rushed me to the Tool Room to
give me a GI haircut. They never stopped shouting "You thinking
AWOL?", and "You think you're cool?", "You ain't cool!" etc.
This was horrifying, but there was much worse ahead. The first
night they asked me about the crimes I had committed.
Because I didn't know what they were referring to, they
'grouped' on me. Grouping is twelve to fifteen members standing
around you in a circle and screaming things like "fess up"
meaning to confess to something or confess that something is
bothering you. Nothing was bothering me, nor did I have anything
to confess. The counselor had my group take me to the shower.
They forced me to scrub the floor tiles a wood handled scrub
brush in each hand. As I was made to scrub using both hands,
group members had their feet pressed against my behind, making
sure that all my weight was pressed onto my arms. As a young
boy, having never done anything like this, I could only support
my weight for a few minutes & needless to say how much pain I
was in at this point. When I couldn't hold myself up any longer,
the group members took turns holding me up by my shirt collar,
which made breathing extremely difficult. This torture went on
for about two hours! I begged them to stop asking what they
thought I had done. I told them I was hot and could not breathe.
The Counselor then ordered the group to cool me off and they
proceeded to throw buckets of cold water on me. This continued
for still another hour before the Counselor told the group to
ask me if Gary and I broke into a church. I answered "yes"
hoping to end the torture. They had me confess to several things
that I hadn"t done. At about two AM, they finally stopped, and
gave me some dry clothes for bed. I believe this incident was
the closest I've ever been to death. I couldn't get out of bed
for two days; for them not to make me get up reveals how bad off
I was.
It didn't take me long for me to figure out why Gary had lied
about breaking into the places he confessed to. I learned that
the purpose for grouping was to inflict enough pain on us to
pressure us to confess to something we had done wrong, or
something that had been done to us, even if we had to make
something up. For example, grinning or smiling was a sign that
we were thinking mischief? If we were caught smiling, a group
member would be required to point us out, and then we were to
tell the group why we smiled. We weren't allowed to say we were
smiling because we were thinking of something positive, we had
to say we were thinking of something negative, like "I was
physically abused by my father," or "I sexually abused my
sister," or something else radical. The whole process was
insane. Since most boys that age don"t have experiences of this
sort, we had to make up things with nothing real to confess. And
then we played hell to remember the many lies because we had to
exchange life stories with every group member. One around
midnight, when we got out of big group (group with our
Counselor; little group was having group without our Counselor),
our Counselor, Mr. Courtney told us to go get Curtis in C-Group
out of bed and find out why he wanted to get my brother to sell
drugs for him. Curtis didn't even know my brother or me as he
was from East Kentucky and we were from West Kentucky. But Gary
had been caught smiling and told his group the reason he smiled
was because he was feeling bad about Curtis and him going to
solicit my brother to be a drug dealer. Unfortunately, Curtis
was unaware of this diabolical lie.
Anyhow, we have Curtis outside in his underwear after midnight
scrubbing; asking him why he hated my brother with me knowing
this was all a lie. I still had to act like I was furious at
Curtis and Gary for wanting my brother to do such a thing,
because if I hadn't acted upset, Mr. Courtney would tell the
group to find out why I didn't care about my brother. We all had
made-up stories ready to use for when we were grouped on. But if
we someone else used us in their story, and we didn't know how
to play along, we were screwed - just like I was my first night
and like Curtis was this time. Finally after two hours, Mr.
Courtney let us give Curtis enough information to allow Curtis
to confess. Hence, Curtis then had to explain why he wanted to
make my brother a drug dealer. After about three hours, Curtis
confessed that his daddy used to beat him and because of that,
he was feeling bad and that made him want to get my brother to
sell drugs. Then we were allowed to release Curtis. As he stood
up, the skin on his knees peeled off. After three hours of
torturing Curtis for this story that any sane person would know
was obviously made-up, we were allowed to turn him back over to
his group. Yet, it wasn't over for either of us. He then was
required to confess to his group why he wanted my brother to
sell drugs, and I was required to express to my group how hurt I
was that Curtis and Gary wanted to use my brother like that.
This is the hell we had to endure every day, even up until three
AM and getting up at 5:30 to start the next day. We were always
treated as a group.
If on person did wrong, we were all punished. So we were all
constantly punished since things little natural things such as
smiling was considered wrong doing. The staff at Green River
twisted their motives by claiming that we brought punishment on
each other. This obviously was not true. We quickly learned that
no matter what we did, the staff will always found a reason for
us to torture someone daily. Most days, several group members
were tortured with tactics such as thought previously mentioned.
The second time I was tortured was because I had a toothache for
approximately a week. It was abscessed and I was in severe pain
before they had me seen by a dentist. He gave me Penicillin for
the infection and Darvocet for the pain and told me to stay
inside until returning to have my tooth pulled. That night in
big group our Chaplin told the group to find out why I was
manipulating the group by not working. Even though I informed
them that the dentist had ordered me to stay in, the Chaplin
insisted that the group find out why Mandel was manipulating the
group, which started them to group on me, and force me to scrub
the floor. When I could endure no longer, I tossed the brushes.
This was a dumb move, since I already knew what would happen if
I refuse to scrub; the group stands me up, bends me over to
where my hands are a few inches from the floor, and someone
holds my knees while others put there weight on your back. This
caused severe pain in my legs in a matter of seconds as I begged
to scrub, but the group held me in this position until the staff
member was convinced that I was ready to scrub again. I have had
pain in my legs ever since. I don't know what happened to my
legs, but the pain has never gone away. It is very difficult to
sleep, even today, because the pain is worse when I lie down. My
second wife talked me into seeing a doctor in 1987 to see if he
could find out why my legs were always in pain. The doctor asked
if I had ever injured my legs. I told him no and I couldn't
bring myself to tell him what had happened at Green River.
We were in school four hours a day, and worked another four
hours of the day. I acknowledge that the teachers took no part
in our torture as they seemed to be nice people. Daily, we each
would retrieve a shovel, axe, and a pick from the Tool Room and
then we walked about one and one half miles down River Road,
where we dug up stumps. The stumps were previously dug around,
causing the holes to be filled with ice and freezing cold water,
since the temperature was below freezing. We stepped down into
the icy water to dig up and chop the stump until it could be
turned over and buried. This was my first day introduction to
work at Green River. The group working beside us had a group
member with a bloodied face tied to a tree. The forms of torture
they had come up with were designed not to leave marks on us,
although when a staff member was mad enough, marks didn't
matter. On a particular day, E-Group made the mistake of
permitting visitors to see some of what was really going on. As
they burst through the door, Raymond Berry's shirt was torn open
revealing his black and blue left side as many ribs must have
been broken. At first, I was thankful that our parents saw this,
but when they turned back around and I saw the horror in their
eyes, I was truly sorry that they had witnessed this. Later,
when Raymond went AWOL and the cops pursued him, he drove his
stolen car into a river and drowned. It was common knowledge
that he committed suicide since he drove the car into the river
when he saw the police approaching him. He probably had no
desire for further help after experiencing the help tactics of
the Green River staff. At the time, I didn't feel sorry for him.
I believed he was better off because he had been grouped on for
weeks and death seemed so much better then the torment he would
have encountered if he had been sequestered.
One person I've corresponded with has suggested that by making
us participate in torturing others, we became too ashamed to
talk about it. I don't know why it is so difficult for me to
talk about it. I have been silent except for one incident I told
my second wife in 1985 when my brother died from cancer.
Afterwards, I started thinking of Larry Rittenour, another boy
that went AWOL during my stay at Green River. The Superintendent
had another camp member and me to torture him on the way back
after he was found. The Superintendent, Mr. Thompson, instructed
us to find out why Larry went AWOL. Larry responded that his
sister was dying of cancer and that he wanted to see her. The
pain in his eyes and his tears made it obvious that he was
telling the truth, but Mr. Thompson had us to beat him all the
way back to camp. After all these years, I have never gotten
Larry's pain out of my mind. By 1992, I was having nightmares
and flashbacks of Green River. Many children don't survive these
behavior medication camps as is exposed by web sites such as
ParentAdvocates.org or Coalition against Institutionalized Child
Abuse. But for those of us that do survive, we never become
normal mature adults, for a part of us will always be those
little helpless children being tortured. Death seems our only
escape...
After all these years, I still live in the reality of yesterday,
and cannot understand why this country carelessly continues to
allow children's lives to be permanently damaged?
Mandel Crittendon
Comments from victims and investigators of teen boot camps
SERIES; UNSAFE HAVENS; KENTUCKY'S JUVENILE TREATMENT CENTERS;
...POINTS TO ABUSES IN THE ENTIRE STATE JUVENILE-TREATMENT
SYSTEM
THREE state-run residential treatment centers -- where juvenile
offenders are supposed to get help and rehabilitation -- have a
history of abuse and mistreatment dating back for years, a
Courier-Journal investigation has found.
The centers are the Rice Audubon and Central Kentucky treatment
centers in eastern Jefferson County, and the Green River Boys'
Camp in Western Kentucky. Boys between the ages of 14 and 19,
entrusted to the centers for safekeeping, have been physically
abused, cursed and humiliated by staff members who sometimes
escaped punishment.
Investigations of allegedly abusive staff members by the state
Cabinet for Human Resources, which operates the state's 12
residential centers, sometimes have been woefully incomplete and
might have allowed abusers to escape punishment.
Those are the newspaper's central findings, based on dozens of
interviews and a review of thousands of pages of documents
obtained from the cabinet under the state open-record law.
The cabinet scrutinized the documents, too, and reached
essentially the same conclusions. Secretary Masten Childers II
said he is moving swiftly to ensure that there will be no
repetition of the state's shoddy oversight.
In one case, no one bothered to interview the Central Kentucky
employee who alleged that resident Jason Decker had been beaten
there in May 1991. Nor did anyone interview Decker's three
alleged abusers, according to state records. Not surprisingly,
no abuse was substantiated. But abusive employees constitute a
minority of staff members at the 12 residential centers. And
Peggy Wallace, the cabinet's commissioner of social services,
said she thinks the number of children abused while in the
state's care is relatively small. But Wallace stressed that she
does not condone even one case of abuse.
"I feel devastated. I feel a lot of pain that we would have such
things going on in our system," Wallace said. "At the same time,
I don't think it's widespread. I wouldn't be part of a system
like that. I won't tolerate that type of behavior."
The newspaper found that even in cases in which the evidence of
abuse seemed strong, state investigators at times tended to side
with accused employees. In 1988, for example, two Rice Audubon
employees told a cabinet investigator that they had seen fellow
staff member Michael Smith use unnecessary force on resident
Kenny Addison during a camping trip.
Smith denied it. And the investigators found only that he "may
have" abused Addison, according to state records. No action was
taken then against Smith. In 1990, the cabinet fired him for
physically and verbally abusing at least three residents. Smith
denied abusing anyone, and he appealed his dismissal to the
state Personnel Board and to Franklin Circuit Court. Both
dismissed his claim, which is now pending in the state Court of
Appeals. The records also show that some boys have been
physically restrained and verbally abused by fellow residents in
the presence of staff -- a violation of state policy.
Others have been kept in isolation cells for days at a time for
petty offenses -- another violation. Some alleged victims who
complained -- their right under cabinet policy - - were
intimidated by staff. In several cases, victims said more abuse
followed. Some staff members who witnessed suspected abuse
apparently ignored it, in violation of the law. For example,
state investigators concluded in August 1990 that Rice Audubon
staff member David Tapp had abused Tracy Bruederle two months
earlier in a car taking Bruederle to another residential center,
according to state records. But there is no evidence in the
records that the Rice Audubon employee driving the car ever
reported anything amiss. There also is no evidence that the
cabinet ever sought to discipline Tapp for abusing Bruederle.
Several abusive staff members were high school dropouts whose
work experience consisted of pumping gas, driving a truck or
doing maintenance. Then they were hired for the sensitive and
difficult job of working with troubled, often violent, youths.
The hours were long and irregular and the work is stressful.
When Tapp was promoted from the Rice Audubon maintenance staff
to juvenile treatment assistant in August 1988, his salary
increased by just 25 cents an hour -- to $10,212 a year.
Tapp himself is a former Rice Audubon resident who had dropped
out of North Hardin High School and worked at a service station
before joining the cabinet. Tapp, who no longer works for the
state, refused to be interviewed. Childers hopes that residents
and their families will take heart from the cabinet's new
resolve.
"We will send a clear message that these changes will make a
difference, and that we mean business," he said.
But any changes come too late for Dean Rodewald and Chuckie
Nichols. Now 21, Rodewald was physically abused by Michael Smith
at Rice Audubon at least twice before Smith was fired, cabinet
investigators found. On July 18, 1990, according to state
records, Smith grabbed Rodewald and shoved him over a wooden
chair with such force that the chair broke. Smith, who later
denied wrongdoing, then took Rodewald into a closet and
continued to verbally assault and physically abuse him,
according to the records. When Rodewald complained and
investigators interviewed him, he pleaded: "Will you all be
back? Can you do anything for us?"
Three days later, Smith was at it again. According to the
records, he tripped Rodewald to the ground, straddled him,
berated him for complaining and told him:
"I know this game. My game is to see how bad I can hurt you
without leaving a mark on you. If I don't leave a mark, they
can't prove nothing."
Smith, who later claimed he'd been joking, did leave marks --
some seen, some unseen. Rodewald said in a recent interview that
while the 6-foot-4-inch Smith was holding him down, angry
memories of his childhood came back to him.
"It brought back the whole thing, my resentment of authority
figures. I told (Smith) I was gonna get him."
And he did. Smith was fired partly on the basis of Rodewald's
testimony, which was corroborated by other witnesses. Rodewald,
who now lives in Northern Kentucky , finished serving a prison
term in April for burglary and escape. The abuse he incurred at
Rice Audubon, he said, was far worse than anything he
experienced behind bars.
Chuckie Nichols, 25, spent virtually all of his teen-age years
in state residential centers, including Central Kentucky and
Green River. He's now in prison, serving 15 years for the murder
and robbery of a southern Jefferson County man. Nichols said the
centers did little to help him.
"They say kids are in there for treatment, but they just make
things worse," he said. "I ain't asking for nothing -- I just
want (the abuses) stopped."
Otherwise, "the kids that are in there now are going to wind up
where I am -- in the pen." State hopes changes will take it off
'automatic pilot'
This month the state Cabinet for Human Resources will have
around-the- clock monitors in the three centers where The
Courier-Journal identified deep- seated problems over the years:
Rice Audubon and Central Kentucky treatment centers, both in
eastern Jefferson County, and the Green River Boys' Camp in
Western Kentucky. The cabinet division responsible for the
residential centers will be reorganized; a new director for that
division has already been appointed. Procedures for
investigating, processing and tracking complaints will be
overhauled. Cabinet employees will be instructed to take a more
aggressive, thorough approach to allegations of wrongdoing and
patterns of misconduct.
"There is room for substantial improvement," said Masten
Childers II, who became cabinet secretary May 2, and who served
as general counsel and deputy secretary after joining the
cabinet in 1992. "There's obviously been an attitude problem,
and there's enough blame to go around.
"A large part of the collective responsibility (for the
problems) should be borne by the secretary's office of this
cabinet. Top management has just been too out of touch for too
long. It's as if CHR has been on automatic pilot for the past 10
or 12 years."
Whether Childers' proposed changes will have the far-reaching
and lasting impact he envisions is unclear. The Cabinet for
Human Resources has been the focus of at least two major reform
efforts during the past 20 years; neither achieved its goals.
Moreover, the cabinet has long had in place rules and
regulations designed specifically to curb many of the abuses
brought to light. Often, those rules and regulations have been
circumvented or ignored.
LARRY GRAY painfully recalls how a state co-worker pinned a boy
to the ground and then jabbed his knees and elbows into the
youth's face, stomach and chest.
"He was lying there begging him to stop, crying and bleeding,"
Gray said of the 17-year-old. "He was spitting blood." At first,
Gray didn't report the 1988 incident because he feared
retaliation. There was, he said, an unwritten code of silence
among staff at Rice Audubon Treatment Center in eastern
Jefferson County.
But months later he did step forward because "it ate at me and
ate at me."
Shortly after he complained, he said, someone left a death
threat scrawled on a piece of note paper in his mail slot at
Rice Audubon, one of 12 centers for juvenile offenders run by
the state Cabinet for Human Resources.
The anonymous note said, "You're a dead m----f----."--- -
Gary L. Smith received a more direct response last year after he
reported to the state a youth's allegation that the boy was
beaten by staff at Central Kentucky Treatment Center. Smith was
a counselor there.
Complaints are supposed to be confidential. But the following
day, the center's director berated Smith for filing the
complaint, suggested that he would make up an accusation of
misconduct against Smith and told him he should transfer to
another facility, according to state records, which include a
three-page memo that Smith submitted in June 1993. "I was
threatened by my program director, essentially forced to request
a transfer, and my sense of job security has been jeopardized,"
says Smith's memo to Charles Babb, who oversees the cabinet's
juvenile centers. State law requires that workers at residential
centers who learn of alleged abuse report it immediately to the
cabinet's Office of Inspector General.
Cabinet officials say it is critical that employees feel free to
report alleged abuse because they are most likely to know it.
Cabinet Secretary Masten Childers II said in a recent interview
that the cabinet needs to create a more open atmosphere, and he
said he will not tolerate reprisals against employees for
speaking out. But the experiences of Gray and Smith -- as well
as other cases outlined in state records -- are evidence that
staff members at some residential centers have worked in a
climate in which reporting of abuse is discouraged and
retaliation is feared.
More Comments
On December 8, 2003 Kentucky Governor Paul Patton
commuted the death sentence of Kevin
Stanford to life without parole.
The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear Kevin
Stanford's petition arguing that the juvenile death penalty
violates the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual"
punishment. When the Court decided not to hear Kevin's case, the
Kentucky Attorney General requested Kentucky Governor Paul
Patton to set January 7, 2003 as the execution date for Kevin.
This date passed without Governor Patton signing the death
warrant. The Governor has now publicly stated that he will not
sign a death warrant for Kevin given his age at the time of the
crime.
Please read Justice Stevens' dissent from the Court's denial to
hear Kevin's habeas petition. He, along with Justices Souter,
Ginsburg and Breyer, found that the practice of executing
juvenile offenders "is a relic of the past and is inconsistent
with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society."
Click here for a selection of
clemency letters.
Kevin Stan
IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF
TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE
Thayer Learning Center, a Teen Boot Camp
in Missouri, is Sued for the Wrongful Death of 15-year old
Roberto Reyes
http://www.abanet.org/crimjust/juvjus/stanford.html
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:NWF9E1wH3iYJ:www.tsc.state.tn.us/OPINIONS/tcca/043/HinesAD.opn+%22Green+River+Boys+Camp%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=23
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/kysa.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/kyjuvfind.htm
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:r8j1fnNFeDMJ:www.kycourts.net/AOC/JuvenileServices/CFCRBhandbook.pdf+%22Green+River+Boys+Camp%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=24
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