Unrest In The Air
Can you feel that edgy, anxious, nail biting uncertainty? It is massive and loud but comes silently too. Things are happening around our world. Maybe more than usual.
Last week, efforts began to oust a West Texas prosecutor from office who had sat on prosecuting criminal cases involving Texas Youth Commission leaders. The Texas Attorney General stepped into the District Attorney's shoes and presented the charges to a Grand Jury which didn't hesitate to hand down indictments.
Unrelated to that proceeding, an injured youth, Joseph, rallied for himself and others. He filed a civil class action lawsuit. He was released from TYC about the time news of the scandal hit the airway, although according to Joseph, he should have been released years earlier. In his federal Complaint, Joseph alleges an array of heart breaking agency games, some criminal -- some questionably criminal, but all a travesty of justice if true. He urges he was mistreated and abused both physically and psychologically.
Joseph suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome which can produce involuntarily movements and uttering such as making loud noises, blinking, and cursing. Joseph's position is TYC formally disciplined him for behavior which results from the disorder. Notwithstanding that Joseph could not control his actions related to the disease, TYC intentionally mislabeled the behavior as acting out so that it could judge him guilty of offenses and render punishment. Technically, punishment is not used at a youth facility. With or without technicalities, Joseph was slammed for falling asleep after TYC administered medically prescribed medication to him which carried the manufacturer warning that drowsiness was a known side effect. Corrective measures were also taken because Joseph wore clothing that was too large, albeit that TYC issued it to him in the first place.
Part of the consequence of the disciplinaries was to withdraw Joseph's earned good behavior time credit and reduce it or completely wipe it out. The goal was to assure denial of early release to Joseph. It did.
Additionally, TYC allegedly failed to adequately preserve records and the failure to do so zeroed out rehabilitation courses that Joseph had completed and forced him to start all over again.
According to Joseph, TYC's game was to keep him incarcerated. Really, that's not hard to believe. The bottom line is the agency needed a substantial number of troubled youth to build statistics which would reflect the continuing need for the agency. Hanging on to troubled youth equals job security and more. Heavy handed disciplinaries produce solid records to promote that staff is alert and tending their charges. A high number of disciplinaries guarantee legislators the youth are the bad of the bad and again reinforce a great on-going need for the agency to operate. How else does an agency get a bigger piece of the budget pie? It is an age-old basic agency game. It is stunning that although TYC couldn't consistently maintain positive records about Joseph, with ease it readily secured negative ones.
If he proves his allegations Texans will know the agency they entrusted with rehabilitation of troubled youth was not interested in doing so and instead promoted cruelty and created life long difficulties with which the youth will deal as well as the society in which they live.
Comparing anyone to Nixon conjures darkness. Bad memories. Bad thoughts. Bad words. Senator Leahy started raising Cain last week when the White House reported that four years of emails which related to the firing of the Righteous Eight United States Attorneys were missing. Leahy declared, "It's like the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes." Dana Perino, the latest White House media mouth, didn't get any points when she offered the so, so, sorry routine that ended with something like it couldn't be helped because of mere stupidity, i.e., "We are trying to understand to the best of our ability the universe of the e-mails . . . ." That answer may reflect that Bush doesn't have any better grip on domestic email systems than he does on foreign matters.
University of Texas Tower. 1966. Charles Whitman. Fifteen dead, 31 injured. The catastrophic damage done by one lone gunman has repeated.
It was a black day at Virginia Tech and the doom will not soon dissipate. At least thirty-three people were cheated from getting out of bed the following morning to face and conquer challenges of the day. And all the mornings to follow. Generations will be impacted by the absence of everyone of them. Likewise, generations will remember the day with grave sadness.
© Coninc., TheDownsideUp.Com 2007
Last week, efforts began to oust a West Texas prosecutor from office who had sat on prosecuting criminal cases involving Texas Youth Commission leaders. The Texas Attorney General stepped into the District Attorney's shoes and presented the charges to a Grand Jury which didn't hesitate to hand down indictments.
Unrelated to that proceeding, an injured youth, Joseph, rallied for himself and others. He filed a civil class action lawsuit. He was released from TYC about the time news of the scandal hit the airway, although according to Joseph, he should have been released years earlier. In his federal Complaint, Joseph alleges an array of heart breaking agency games, some criminal -- some questionably criminal, but all a travesty of justice if true. He urges he was mistreated and abused both physically and psychologically.
Joseph suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome which can produce involuntarily movements and uttering such as making loud noises, blinking, and cursing. Joseph's position is TYC formally disciplined him for behavior which results from the disorder. Notwithstanding that Joseph could not control his actions related to the disease, TYC intentionally mislabeled the behavior as acting out so that it could judge him guilty of offenses and render punishment. Technically, punishment is not used at a youth facility. With or without technicalities, Joseph was slammed for falling asleep after TYC administered medically prescribed medication to him which carried the manufacturer warning that drowsiness was a known side effect. Corrective measures were also taken because Joseph wore clothing that was too large, albeit that TYC issued it to him in the first place.
Part of the consequence of the disciplinaries was to withdraw Joseph's earned good behavior time credit and reduce it or completely wipe it out. The goal was to assure denial of early release to Joseph. It did.
Additionally, TYC allegedly failed to adequately preserve records and the failure to do so zeroed out rehabilitation courses that Joseph had completed and forced him to start all over again.
According to Joseph, TYC's game was to keep him incarcerated. Really, that's not hard to believe. The bottom line is the agency needed a substantial number of troubled youth to build statistics which would reflect the continuing need for the agency. Hanging on to troubled youth equals job security and more. Heavy handed disciplinaries produce solid records to promote that staff is alert and tending their charges. A high number of disciplinaries guarantee legislators the youth are the bad of the bad and again reinforce a great on-going need for the agency to operate. How else does an agency get a bigger piece of the budget pie? It is an age-old basic agency game. It is stunning that although TYC couldn't consistently maintain positive records about Joseph, with ease it readily secured negative ones.
If he proves his allegations Texans will know the agency they entrusted with rehabilitation of troubled youth was not interested in doing so and instead promoted cruelty and created life long difficulties with which the youth will deal as well as the society in which they live.
Comparing anyone to Nixon conjures darkness. Bad memories. Bad thoughts. Bad words. Senator Leahy started raising Cain last week when the White House reported that four years of emails which related to the firing of the Righteous Eight United States Attorneys were missing. Leahy declared, "It's like the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes." Dana Perino, the latest White House media mouth, didn't get any points when she offered the so, so, sorry routine that ended with something like it couldn't be helped because of mere stupidity, i.e., "We are trying to understand to the best of our ability the universe of the e-mails . . . ." That answer may reflect that Bush doesn't have any better grip on domestic email systems than he does on foreign matters.
University of Texas Tower. 1966. Charles Whitman. Fifteen dead, 31 injured. The catastrophic damage done by one lone gunman has repeated.
It was a black day at Virginia Tech and the doom will not soon dissipate. At least thirty-three people were cheated from getting out of bed the following morning to face and conquer challenges of the day. And all the mornings to follow. Generations will be impacted by the absence of everyone of them. Likewise, generations will remember the day with grave sadness.
© Coninc., TheDownsideUp.Com 2007
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posted by KKHC | 7:01 AM
