Sam, if you think Ed and I are off task here, just WAIT till you come across the multiple times that ~Me and I are discussing light fixtures and soap when it has absolutely no relevance at all to the picture at hand. I am sure you will be properly horrified. :-)
However, as someone noted earlier, some of us are just "bonding" as we each explore this site - we aren't even selling anything. Well, Ed and ~Me aren't selling anything. *I'M* trying to sell the concept that anyone who thinks in black-&-white about institutions and what went on there simply by looking at websites and poking through one or two abandoned places isn't going to have the first clue about what happened there, why it happened, or how it happened, and won't be able to stop it from happening again.
Some people seem to come to this website simply so they can be properly shocked and outraged (and titillated, I'm guessing) at the horrible treatment that sometimes occurred at these places and then throw stones at the staff that they seem to believe spent all their days and nights just coming up with new and different ways to torture these people, when in fact the staff were normal people like you and me (well, maybe not like ~Me) who were forced to work under horrific situations with no resources, no support, and pitiful amounts of money.
But if you are looking at it that way then you have missed what it takes to keep it from happening again. As soon as you blame the parents or the staff or the legislature or the scientists who were "in charge" at the time, you are missing that it was an entire culture that allowed this to happen and an entire culture that actually created this by wanting people who were different to be anywhere but in THEIR community or in THEIR schools.
You hire someone and put them into a setting with 30 profoundly handicapped people, give them crappy pay, minimal training, no control, and even less supervision, and then expect them to take care of people who are engaging in fecal smearing, poking their own eyes out, destroying furniture, banging their head, eating anything they can get their hands on, wetting on themselves, screaming for hours on end, and running around naked (and fighting you tooth and nail as you try to dress them). And expect the staff to do it well and be happy with their charges and expect them to have lovely bathroom partitions and pretty beds and curtains everywhere for privacy and tons of stimulating leisure materials (which their charges will possibly break and/or eat, but many will not even look at). And don't turn your back on your group for a minute because one of your people might run away and then you will be in trouble for "not watching them." Or one of them might hit the other over the head with one of the lovely toys you provided for their stimulation and entertainment and cause a concussion and then you will be in trouble for "not watching them." Or one of them might take that lovely set of curtains you put up for privacy and eat an entire curtain panel (while you are breaking up the fight between two others) and the curtain panel gets stuck in their gut and when they have to be rushed to the hospital, YOU are the one who gets in trouble for "not watching them." Hell, the majority of those staff deserved a parade just for showing up for work day after day.
Were there bad staff? Of course! There are bad people everywhere, to the best of my knowledge. Do I condone what people did, even under the terrible conditions they were forced to work under? Of course not! But I sure as hell won't sit here and throw stones at the whole group of them, having worked for many years with these very difficult clients and knowing that, even though there were some cruel and sadistic staff, the majority of them were decent people who cared very much about the people they took care of and spent their own money and free time doing extra things to make these peoples' lives as pleasant as possible under these stark and sterile conditions.
What would I do if I had a tape showing all the stuff you describe as having gone on at Pennhurst? I would think of what it would feel like if that was MY little sister or brother that had been ridiculed and tortured and put on film for eternity to be gawked at buy a bunch of kids who seem to think it was funny enough to hang onto for year after year. And then I would take that tape and call the police and/or a local news station and I would yell and yell until someone was arrested and prosecuted and convicted. Anyone who knows that abuse went on, knows there is documentation of it, and yet does nothing about it is part of the problem. And that's a fact. To stare evil in the face and walk away is to be part of the evil.
However and at the same time, for people to focus solely on the abuse that occurred is to ignore all the positive things that the good staff (who were the majority) did, it makes the families who were told to give up their children feel even worse about having done it, and it makes the people who lived in these places caricatures who exist only so we can have someone to pity and to feel righteous indignation over regarding their bad treatment. They are MORE than that to me and I want them to be seen in their proper context - as human beings who were placed away from others simply for being born different at a time when it was a crime to be different, and who are now getting more rights and training and community experience and all the other things that you and I take for granted.
If you focus only on the ugly parts, soon all you will be able to see is ugliness everywhere you look.
DAMN, ~Me! This was one of my longest rants yet, and this one even qualifies as a true rant! :-)
Em, sorry 'bout that, Motts. Must be them female hormones I done heard about. :-)
As an FYI, the majority of the people who engage in fecal smearing do not do it for attention; they do it because it is something that is not uncommon at a specific developmental level, and if that developmental level is never outgrown, this is more likely to occur. If the person is aware enough to do this for attention, then it is a fairly simple behavior to alter and replace with something more positive (given that as a trainer you are able to ignore what is going on and not inadvertently reinforce it by giving a loud disgusted reaction). If, however, they do it because it is where they are at developmentally you have a much more difficult time changing it, and, in some cases you have to have them wear modified clothing so they can't engage in the behavior while you are working on developing a good training program.
[Spoken as someone who has been covered too many times - and once is too many - from head to toe with "the good stuff" ]
Well, I'd love to see them. I am in contact with some of the people who were responsible for some of the Pennhurst post-closure monitoring, and I am sure they would be quite interested in seeing them as well.
I agree entirely. My first response when seeing this picture was wondering whether I was looking at it correctly because cupolas are usually up pretty high on taller buildings. I think it's a wonderful touch, as plain vents and pipes wouldn't have been anywhere near as attractive. Whoever the specific architect for this place was, s/he really paid attention to some wonderful details.
I figure he beams back and forth between these different facilities, which explains why he isn't ever caught by security guards and how he can carry all that hefty equipment around to take such great pix for us sitting here at home at our computers.
You sure get a different perspective via the infrared shots. I end up looking at an entirely different set of details than when they are in color or even black-&-white.
However, as someone noted earlier, some of us are just "bonding" as we each explore this site - we aren't even selling anything. Well, Ed and ~Me aren't selling anything. *I'M* trying to sell the concept that anyone who thinks in black-&-white about institutions and what went on there simply by looking at websites and poking through one or two abandoned places isn't going to have the first clue about what happened there, why it happened, or how it happened, and won't be able to stop it from happening again.
Some people seem to come to this website simply so they can be properly shocked and outraged (and titillated, I'm guessing) at the horrible treatment that sometimes occurred at these places and then throw stones at the staff that they seem to believe spent all their days and nights just coming up with new and different ways to torture these people, when in fact the staff were normal people like you and me (well, maybe not like ~Me) who were forced to work under horrific situations with no resources, no support, and pitiful amounts of money.
But if you are looking at it that way then you have missed what it takes to keep it from happening again. As soon as you blame the parents or the staff or the legislature or the scientists who were "in charge" at the time, you are missing that it was an entire culture that allowed this to happen and an entire culture that actually created this by wanting people who were different to be anywhere but in THEIR community or in THEIR schools.
You hire someone and put them into a setting with 30 profoundly handicapped people, give them crappy pay, minimal training, no control, and even less supervision, and then expect them to take care of people who are engaging in fecal smearing, poking their own eyes out, destroying furniture, banging their head, eating anything they can get their hands on, wetting on themselves, screaming for hours on end, and running around naked (and fighting you tooth and nail as you try to dress them). And expect the staff to do it well and be happy with their charges and expect them to have lovely bathroom partitions and pretty beds and curtains everywhere for privacy and tons of stimulating leisure materials (which their charges will possibly break and/or eat, but many will not even look at). And don't turn your back on your group for a minute because one of your people might run away and then you will be in trouble for "not watching them." Or one of them might hit the other over the head with one of the lovely toys you provided for their stimulation and entertainment and cause a concussion and then you will be in trouble for "not watching them." Or one of them might take that lovely set of curtains you put up for privacy and eat an entire curtain panel (while you are breaking up the fight between two others) and the curtain panel gets stuck in their gut and when they have to be rushed to the hospital, YOU are the one who gets in trouble for "not watching them." Hell, the majority of those staff deserved a parade just for showing up for work day after day.
Were there bad staff? Of course! There are bad people everywhere, to the best of my knowledge. Do I condone what people did, even under the terrible conditions they were forced to work under? Of course not! But I sure as hell won't sit here and throw stones at the whole group of them, having worked for many years with these very difficult clients and knowing that, even though there were some cruel and sadistic staff, the majority of them were decent people who cared very much about the people they took care of and spent their own money and free time doing extra things to make these peoples' lives as pleasant as possible under these stark and sterile conditions.
What would I do if I had a tape showing all the stuff you describe as having gone on at Pennhurst? I would think of what it would feel like if that was MY little sister or brother that had been ridiculed and tortured and put on film for eternity to be gawked at buy a bunch of kids who seem to think it was funny enough to hang onto for year after year. And then I would take that tape and call the police and/or a local news station and I would yell and yell until someone was arrested and prosecuted and convicted. Anyone who knows that abuse went on, knows there is documentation of it, and yet does nothing about it is part of the problem. And that's a fact. To stare evil in the face and walk away is to be part of the evil.
However and at the same time, for people to focus solely on the abuse that occurred is to ignore all the positive things that the good staff (who were the majority) did, it makes the families who were told to give up their children feel even worse about having done it, and it makes the people who lived in these places caricatures who exist only so we can have someone to pity and to feel righteous indignation over regarding their bad treatment. They are MORE than that to me and I want them to be seen in their proper context - as human beings who were placed away from others simply for being born different at a time when it was a crime to be different, and who are now getting more rights and training and community experience and all the other things that you and I take for granted.
If you focus only on the ugly parts, soon all you will be able to see is ugliness everywhere you look.
DAMN, ~Me! This was one of my longest rants yet, and this one even qualifies as a true rant! :-)
Em, sorry 'bout that, Motts. Must be them female hormones I done heard about. :-)