Torture in Texas "rehab"

I've written extensively on this blog about youth confinement facilities such as behavior modification centers, drug "treatment" programs, and psychiatric "hospitals." Now their tactics are being found in "rehab" centers for adults in Texas convicted of drug offenses.

Over the years, the characteristics of the American gulag system have been created or refined by the likes of Synanon, the Lester Roloff shitpits, and Mel Sembler's scams. The torture chambers of today have practices that can be traced seamlessly to the hated pioneers of this field.

And now it's happening in privatized "rehab" programs for adults in Texas. The Lone Star State has sent some 900 adult women to these centers for nonviolent drug offenses. And many of the women say the program - known as SAFPF - is far worse than what you'd see even in jail or prison.

The program is state-funded but staffed by both public corrections officers and employees of a private Chicago-based firm. But numerous accounts by inmates describe various torture methods that alumni of the American gulag system will find familiar. These include being forced to sit silently in hard plastic chairs for weeks on end. Detainees also claim staffers have been highly verbally abusive. Medical treatment was also reportedly withheld, and the inmates claimed a disabled woman was forced to march on crutches until a staph infection developed under her arms.

Detainees also say they were required to spend many hours each week singing children's songs, which is described as a "mind-crushing" activity. This too is a practice associated with the gulags I've written about here before. In effect, SAFPF appears to be a brainwashing cult where inmates are broken down and made into unflinching followers of the program. Having inmates rat out other inmates (under threat of punishment for those who fail to snitch) is another example of SAFPF's climate of fear.

The "treatment" was so severe that a lawsuit may be in the works because of it.

Many former SAFPF prisoners are afraid to come forward because of potential retaliation by the state, such as loss of their probation.

So it's not only abuse by a privately run facility but also government corruption. It's not news to me that various levels of government within the U.S. have coddled and stoked privately owned gulags, and that's one of the reasons America today has become little different from an old-fashioned totalitarian state.

(Source: http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=627435;
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A627436)