From Ribbons and Dolls to Fish Nets and Johns

Hookers. Whores. Harlots. Wenches. Women of ill-repute. Prostitutes. There are many names and titles for women who sell their bodies for sex. Did you ever think "child" would be one of them? Most people don't. Even when we think of children being used for sex, we think sexual abuse and pedophiles, not solicitation and pimps. What about the phrase "human trafficking"? For most, the term brings to mind thoughts and images of foreigners, refuges, unfortunates being shipped in from around the world, gliding through the US borders under the cloak of the black market for sexual favors. It doesn't foster mental pictures of American teenage girls on the street corners of LA, New York, Nevada, and many more states working their territory as a villainous pimp lurks in the shadows nearby. But that is exactly what is going on in the US today, and has been for quite some time.

Many girls and boys in the US are being scooped up in the despicable world of solicitation by pimps and gang bangers just looking to make some quick money. And when I say girls and boys, I mean exactly that. At this time, the average age for entry into solicitation is 12, though children as young as 7 have been documented to have been sold for sex in the states. Girls are more prominent in the population than boys, but there are young boys being utilized on the streets as well. This blog, however, will address the females since most studies have focused on them and more information is readily available. How do these girls get picked up? Pimps practically soar above the dankest neighbors and cities like hawks, searching for prey, and have an eye for the "type".

Most girls who are easily manipulated and drawn into "the life" (as they call solicitation) are girls coming from broken or disturbed homes. Many struggle with self-esteem; they lack the attention and involvement they should be getting from their parents, lack a sense of safety and belonging. Many are runaways, and most have been sexually abused in the past, which automatically raises the risk for re-victimization. Being well-educated on their needs and short-comings, pimps ride in on their soiled horses, a knight in aluminum armor, ready to sweep these tragic children off their feet and persuade them with a fairy tale ending, which is of course nothing more than a fairy tale. Typically, a pimp finesses the child, sweet talks her, and makes her feel important, wanted. He might compliment her on her beauty, tell her she's special, make superficial promises. An introductory dialog might go like this: "Hey baby, you are looking so beautiful tonight, I can't believe you don't have a man looking out for you! You are gorgeous, you got it going on! Why don't you let me take care of you, baby? Let me take you out, I'll take you to nice places to eat, I'll buy you this dress, I'll get you some diamonds,you'll live in this great house, come on girl, get in the car!" While most of us know a pathetic game when we hear it, a 12 or 13 year old girl who has been emotionally neglected for the majority of her life and still suffers from the poor judgment all tweens have is overwhelmed by the positive attention, gushes and blushes and jumps in the car to start her new life. A life, a fantasy, which lasts a few weeks at best.

There is, at times, wining and dining and some flirting and "love". After a week or two, though, once the trust has been earned, the fairy tale shatters, and the dark nightmare begins. The pimp, who is done with the flowers and the threads, suddenly turns on the girl, tells her in short "girl, I'm a pimp, you're now my bitch, and you're gonna make me some money." Threats of harm follow to cement the reality of the situation. Of course, in that brief period of ecstasy that preceded this revelation, information has also been gathered on the girl's family and their addresses. So to secure the business deal, viable threats toward her family are made. The girl is coerced into sexual exploitation and she begins her fairy tale life of rape, violence, johns, pimps, and degradation.

A pimp usually has multiple girls in his pocket and one "head girl" ironically named the "bottom bitch." This girl is typically favored by the pimp, receives the most benefits, and is in charge of managing the other girls, as well as recruiting potential workers. They teach the new girls the ropes, show them how to draw in the customers, coach them on discerning between undercover police and legitimate johns, and most importantly, teach them about the life under their new "daddy." There are quotas to meet, rules to follow, expectations for behaviors, and severe consequences for any breach in guidelines or protocol. Missing a quota usually results in a beat down, refusal of food, shaving one's head, and walking home barefoot as the pimp drives behind them. Many girls have reported being run down and hit by the pimp's car, not hard enough to kill them, just enough to make a point. Sometimes it means compensating for the loss of money (a gang rape), or in one girl's case, being tied down naked to the bed and, like a revolving door, having one john after another come in and rape her, leaving the money with the pimp before each encounter. The girl was 13. If, on the other hand, the girl meets her quota, her rewards depend on the pimp. Some will give them a small percentage of the money earned. Some girls have reported earning a $1 cheeseburger at McDonald's if they meet their quota (most quotas are set to $700 and above every night). Some just avoid physical abuse and live to work another day.

The most effective weapon these pimps have to reign these girls in is psychological warfare. As previously mentioned, these street princes bait the girls with charming hollow promises and whispers of sweet nothings, then like a pumpkin carriage on the stroke of midnight, they transform into the menacing antagonist they are at heart. Threats of harm towards the girls and their families keep them in his pocket, too terrified to run and pursue freedom. It was once reported that a girl had attempted to run away from her pimp, but was caught. To set an example, the pimp gathered his other girls, took them all out to a field, and lined them up. He told the others "this is what happens when you try to leave me!" and shot the runaway in the head, leaving the others far too frightened to try a similar escape. But, at times, even when the looking glass has shattered and they see the reality before them, some girls cannot accept the truth. Suffering from trauma bonding, formally known as Stockholm Syndrome, these girls develop a sense of love and affection for their exploiters, who, in their eyes, can do no wrong. Many have deluded themselves into their own fabricated fairy tale, lamenting "he really does love me! He buys me clothes, and we sleep in the same apartment, he gives me some of the money I earn, he takes me out to nice dinners and he's a good daddy to our son!" They ignore the beatings, the fact that he has four other girlfriends, and that at the end of the day, if money is low, he will send them out to have sex with other men for more money.

The justice department is of course, not much help. Though many girls picked up by the police are underage, they are charged for solicitation and detained or placed on probation. Ironically, in the state of California, an individual under the age of 18 cannot consent to sex with someone over the age of 18. Under normal circumstances, if a 17 year old child is found having intercourse with an adult, the adult can be charged which sexual assault or statutory rape. If a 13 year old child prostitute is found having intercourse with an adult, the child is arrested, and the adult is giving a warning or a ticket. The child can spend up to a year in juvenile hall. The adult? An 8 hour course on illegal solicitation (this is the same consequence for receiving a traffic ticket). Other times, the police actually become johns, being educated on where these children work, they have no difficulty taking advantage of what they find to be favorable circumstances. A recent proposition was passed in California in the 2012 elections which would criminalize pimps and johns for seeking intercourse from minors, which passed overwhelmingly, however the prop was placed on hold after a judge deemed the language of the bill "too ambiguous to protect the rights of the accused." And these girls are once again victimized by people who were expected to protect them.

It is has become a dark world when a child cannot walk home from school alone because pimps are recruiting on the street corners. I have begun working with many of these clients; it is tragic when 20% of my clients have been approached by pimps, and another 20% have worked for one at some point and time, if they aren't still. Child Sex Trafficking is made up of a population with many titles which are constantly changing to provide the most accurate perception, from Sexually Exploited Minors (SEM), to Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC), and now Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST) to reiterate that we are not talking about foreign refuges and unfortunates. Many cases are hard to swallow, many break my heart, and some have traumatized me. But this is a problem that has flown under the radar for so long it can never begin to be resolved if it continues. If awareness cannot be bred, these children cannot be saved.

For more information on domestic child trafficking, visit these sites:
http://www.misssey.org/
http://www.gems-girls.org/

And you can watch the informative documentation, Very Young Girls on YouTube Here:
Part One:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycgaPw38fkc

Part Two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7I54dPNQqk

Part Three:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gEbqPRnBEI

Apologies

Sorry to my few readers for the extreme delay in blogging, life has been cray-cray with a new job, new apartment, and all kinds of crazy new experiences, which will undoubtedly be blogged within the next few weeks. Hope you enjoy the latest!

The Cold, Callous Child: Sociopath in Training

To act without emotion, without a sense of empathy, with little concern for the pain one causes another and even an almost obscene enjoyment of harmful acts. These are symptoms usually reserved to describe most individuals with sociopathy today, also known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. As with most personality disorders, there are age requirements and limits to meet the criteria for diagnosis, and with APD, one must be at least 18. So what happens before 18? It has been shown through most studies that those who qualify for APD as adults presented with symptoms of Conduct Disorder as children. Both are categorized with symptoms of criminal behavior: harm to others, theft and property damage, serious rule violations, deception and defiance. But one key symptom seemed to have been left out of Conduct Disorder that presents in APD: lack of remorse. While most children with Conduct engage in maladaptive behaviors, there is usually resulting remorse or regret, even if it’s simply the fear or disdain of the punishment that inevitably follows. Additionally, studies have demonstrated that most children eventually grow out of such behaviors by the age of 21 rather than progress to the more chilling diagnosis of APD. However, aside from Conduct Disorder, there is no other diagnosis that can accurately diagnose children presenting with possible Antisocial tendencies. But is that to say it doesn’t exist? Can children be sociopaths and should we diagnose them at such young ages?

In my line of work as a therapist working with severely disturbed children, I have handed out many diagnoses of Conduct Disorder and all kids have had similar symptoms as well as similar origins. Most are given this disorder due to serious rule violations (truancy from school or running away from home), deceitfulness (lying about where they are going), theft (stealing from family or local stores), and other negative activities such as drug use, gang activity, etc. One last category included in the diagnosis is of course harm to other people or harm to animals. In nearly all my cases, harm to others has included fighting with peers at school; in rare cases, it was fighting with staff at their school or group homes. All were impulsive acts, poorly thought out, all fueled by anger or pain, and while some did not openly express remorse toward their victims, there was an element of emotional response: anger for being caught and punished or blame toward the victim for upsetting them (typical to avoid self-blame and thus remorse).

In Antisocial Personality Disorder, aggression and acts of violence towards others are rarely impulsive. These behaviors are usually planned and carefully calculated. A premeditated act, there is no crime of passion or rage, just cold, undeserved punishment against some defenseless victim. A good example of such would be Timothy McVeigh, who for months plotted a terrorist attack against the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He had no particular victims in mind, no one who upset him other than the US Government. McVeigh detonated a car bomb which caused over $500 million in damage and killed 168 people. When he learned there was a daycare in the building, he wrote the lives of 19 children off as “collateral damage”. He remained calm and collected throughout his arrest, questioning, trial and death. In the remaining years of his life before being executed, he never expressed remorse for his actions.

While it is difficult to imagine a child as cold-hearted as McVeigh, to assume that such characteristics arise purely in adulthood is absurd. Signs and symptoms present themselves early in life. Ted Bundy had such an incident when he was 5, where he stood by his aunt’s bed while she slept. When she awoke, she found him with a devilish grin, watching intently. As she became more alert and aware of her surroundings, she found that she was surrounded by a collection of knives laid on the bed, points directed inward toward her. The book “Children Who Kill" also gives several accounts of disturbed children engaging in acts of cold murder and torture far beyond typical problem children. And I have had the unfortunate business in my 21 months of work as a therapist to come across two such kids.

Both were six years old. My first was much harder to diagnosis: he presented with a mosaic of symptoms, bits and pieces of disorders never quite coming together to conclusively provide one concrete diagnosis. His symptoms ranged from possible autism, Aspergers, or developmental delay, Conduct Disorder or Oppositional Defiance, anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder. He was moody, most times without antecedent, which would throw him into fits of rage that would last for several hours, or an abundance of depression, triggering crying fits for days. He also presented with a remarkable ability to control his emotions and behaviors, having fits and tantrums at home but not any issues at school. Even in a brief exchange during therapy, while I was explaining that therapy was a safe place to talk about our thoughts and feelings, he angrily retorted “I KNOW!" Taken slightly aback by this abrupt outburst, I calmly addressed it, asking why he felt so frustrated. His physique changed in the flash of a moment: his hunched shoulders sloped, his furrowed brow relaxed, his expression almost angelic, and he sat back and cooly responded “Nothing, I’m fine”, as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and tried to cover the evidence. He acted aggressively towards his younger brother, 3, whom he would drag around the house from room to room on their tile floors by a small limb, or whom he would calmly walk up to him and without warning scream inches from his face and frighten him to tears. Previous therapists could not pinpoint a disorder, and my task was no easier. While my supervisor pushed for Conduct, at the time to me a conduct disorder diagnosis was a life sentence on a dark road to sociopathy. He was given a provisional diagnosis of conduct, but it wasn’t until 8 months later that I was no longer given an option. A call from his frightened mother informed me that he had killed a duck at the local park, and she believed it was intentional. While somewhat fantastic, she relayed the tale of woe, that he, a pitcher for his local little league with a strong arm, had collected a pinecone, approached a duck by the riverbank, and threw the pinecone full force at the duck’s head. The duck began seizing, no doubt from a hemmorhage, and flopped over in the water, dead. Mom reported he did not seem phased by the incident and did not show remorse. When I later asked him what his intent was, he stated he “wanted to see what would happen”. He later confided that he had the option between the duck and a turtle that was also in the water, but noting the turtle’s protective shell, he stated “I knew if I hit the turtle, nothing would happen, he would just swim away, so I threw it at the duck”. Chilled by this calculated thought process, I reluctantly listed Conduct Disorder on his file.

My most recent case, I cannot go into detail with given that the case is still open, however he presents with a less complex case, nearly no mood lability or developmental delay but similar symptoms of disturbances which resulted in the death of an animal. Both children we exceptionally bright, both came from families with histories of significant mental health issues.

What has become apparent is that in comparison to my typical conduct cases, these children are in a class all their own. While Conduct Disorder has been generally considered the childhood APD, the connection between Conduct and Antisocial Personality Disorder is built on nothing more than a mere resemblance of one another. As previously stated, APD lacks the crucial component of humanity: empathy and care for one another, regret and remorse for our own behaviors, which is not necessarily reflected in CD. But even if the DSM could create a more appropriate diagnosis for children presenting with sociopathy, would the field allow it? Much like my reluctance to diagnose a 6 year old with such a dismal label, many others would most likely be just as apprehensive to diagnose a child with a damning sociopathy label. But as with my dilemma, my concern for labeling a patient and my hesitation to do so did not bring that duck back to life, and it did not make my patient’s difficulties disappear. If anything, it only delayed receiving more appropriate treatment. While labels can be hurtful, refusing to diagnose for fear of social stigma can be far more detrimental and as a therapist it is ethically unsound.

Dan Waschbusch, a researcher at Florida International University, has continued his study in children presenting with similar symptomology as my cases, and even one child named Michael was an almost exact replicate of my first kid with moody lability, hysterical outbursts, calculated aggression and violence toward his siblings and amazing mood control. Waschbusch described the condition as “Callously Unemotional Children”, and began a research camp where many children with the same affliction were sent to be observed and treated. The level of manipulation was immeasurable and bringing these children together could have been a recipe for disaster. Many children ended up worse, some remained the same, few improved, though Washbusch maintains that early intervention and intensive treatment could drastically improve the chances of these children growing into productive members of society. I am not so sure that I agree at this point and time, as an effective treatment cannot have been developed yet; typical behavioral interventions are probably ineffective as a simple system of rewards and consequences mean little to children who struggle with apathy. Certain medicinal interventions have been ruled out such as Ritalin, which would decrease any impulsivity the child suffered from and allow them more time and mental clarity to plan and coordinate more intricate attacks. In residential or treatment facilities they would be grouped with other children either with the same symptoms which they could pair with and learn from, or in facilities with children of different diagnoses they could dominate or harm. But no one wants to write any case off as being hopeless or untreatable and we have to try, at the very least to intervene when it might still make a difference.

It is impossible to claim that Antisocial tendencies don’t exist in children, and it has been demonstrated that it is inappropriate to lump preliminary APD into the Conduct Disorder category. On the other side of the scales lies the concern of wrongly diagnosing a child. What needs to be developed is not only an appropriate diagnosis and supporting criteria, but diagnostic tools to assist in accurately recognizing this disorder in children. Only when that path is paved can we begin to explore and create more effective treatments and help these kids before it’s too late.

Bullying: Bruised and Battered

Hey guys, Happy New Year! We're starting off 2012 celebrating four years of Another Drop in the Ocean (which was really three if you consider the year-long hiatus I took)! Thanks to my readers, however few and far in between, for staying with me and reading my rants and raves about various issues. Admittedly this post is a few days late of my anniversary, but I struggled with topics and you just can't force this stuff out. So here's my latest, inspired by the movie "Cyberbully".

Bullying has been an age-old pastime for children, teens, and even adults. But times have changed, the ante has been upped. The bullying of past decades starkly pales in comparison to the bullying of today. Older generations can recall schoolyard scuffles with a laugh and a shake of the head. Younger generations recall them with pain, trauma, and at times, lifelong impacts on their self-worth. Perhaps this is why so many people don’t take it seriously. Far removed from the reality and severity of the case, many parents, school administrations, and even law-makers tsk tsk the wounded and sweep the problem under the rug. And that is when it becomes deadly.

Back in the day, playground banter was better described as superficial childish name-calling. The classics are ones we’ve all heard: if you wore glasses, you were named four-eyes, if you were fat, they called you various derivatives of tubby, fatty, piggy, etc. If you wore braces you were metal mouth, acne: pizza face, and so on. These were names that would sometimes send kids home crying, only to face their antagonists again the next day. Now I won’t pretend that such names weren’t hurtful or somehow damaging to a child’s confidence, but most usually overcame the experiences and moved on to successful lives.

Nowadays, bullying has reached new levels of brutality that blaze through the barriers of harassment and teeter on the edges of assault. What was once simple teasing, usually on the basis of appearance has escalated to deeply damaging slurs, character defamation and public humiliation. In the golden days, bullying was usually an unfortunate chance encounter by the monkey bars or crossing the wrong street when walking home from school. Now they’ve turned into hunts, with bullies banking on growing intimidation; they scout the school grounds like packs of wolves for weaker prey, and the slaughter is horrific to watch.

My own experiences with bullying were extensive, to say the least. Resigned to wear glasses, in elementary school, I endured the superficial name calling, nothing that left a very deep impact. It wasn’t until I reached Jr. High that the bullying started. I was always heavy but gained much weight as I got older, and my peers took notice. Names like lardo, Free Willy, and fat ass were not in short supply from my classmates, but I was usually able to brush it off.

High school was where it became unbearable. I was heavier than ever, wore glasses, and hardly put any effort or thought into my appearance; I never wore make-up or styled my hair and my clothes were a fashion disaster. Bullying me was like shooting fish in a barrel, and it attracted new patrons all the time. Accustomed to my typical bullies who were in my classes, I was suddenly being attacked by people I’d never met, which caught me off guard. People I didn’t know would trip me in the hallways, one spit gum in my hair as I was walking by, and one day, for no reason at all, while walking down the hallway, a boy passed me and slammed me into the concrete wall before walking on, laughing with his friends. The people I knew were much worse. I endured name-calling and trash talking in class, usually as other students sat by and laughed as my tormentor rattled off painful insults. One episode sent me running out of the class crying. Another pushed me to the brink, and I rose from my desk, approached the student and slapped him across the face. He took a pen and attempted to stab me in the throat, but couldn’t break the skin.

But this was just one level of bullying. Many students began to go out of their way to make my life hell. Students who took issue with me, though for what reason I never knew, started a regimen of harassment. Figuring out my schedule, some would get hall passes, walk by my class, stand in the hallway out of the teacher’s view, and mouth insults and threats to me. At times, during passing periods they followed me to my next class, tormenting me for the three minute trip. Once I reached my room, they would stand outside the door, talk trash, and peek into the class to watch my reactions and laugh at me. I wasn’t safe after school either. There were times when I had to walk home, which left me wide open for attack. One day, two girls made it a point to follow me home to bully me. Never mind the fact that they lived in the opposite direction, they stayed five steps behind me for the twenty minute walk, calling me names like whore, fat ass, slut, bitch, dyke, and fag. When I reached my street, two cars pulled up and multiple students filed out. At first confused by their presence, I realized somehow word had spread that I was being harassed and some anticipated that a fight would ensue. They wanted front row seats. I entered my house and stole glances outside my bedroom window. The girls stood at the foot of my driveway, yelling obscenities and slurs at my house, threatening me before finally disappearing. Even the faculty had their moments. During one class, I tripped and fell back on the floor. The teacher, standing on the far side of the room, blurted out “wow, I felt that all the way over here!” and the class erupted in laughter. Another teacher who also had her assumptions about my sexuality overheard a piece of a conversation about me chasing down a girl and she remarked in front of my classmates “so you’re chasing girls?” with a smirk.

I asked my mother to allow me to be home-schooled in order to get away from the daily torture, but given that I was in the midst of my depression and was becoming increasingly isolated from society, my mother was concerned that if I were home-schooled, I would never leave the house. She refused, and the hell continued, though it ultimately contributed to lasting damage to my self-esteem, and to my suicide attempt my sophomore year.

Today, risks of suicide have increased, creating a new trend called Bullycide, breeding electronically. The internet brings with it not only a new tool for bullies, but the anonymity of false names, faceless interaction, and little to no personal responsibility for your words. Text messages, stalking, degradation, insulting web pages, embarrassing photos, and impersonation are all new ways that bullies have begun to attack their victims. The harassment has reached a new level, where bullies and their minions go above and beyond name-calling and taunting and have actually told their victims that they should kill themselves; the victims obliged. Ryan Halligan told a “friend” he was going to kill himself, and the friend responded “it’s about time”. Another bully told Phoebe Prince she should hang herself. So she did. Ashlynn Conner was only ten years old when she hanged herself in her closet due to excessive bullying.

Sadly, bullying doesn’t stop after high school, as it seems more and more people are failing to grow up. The perpetrators continue on into adulthood intimidating, insulting, lying, back-stabbing, creating drama, and laughing at the pain of their victims, as if someone were filming a sequel to Mean Girls starring the Plastics: All Grown Up. Sitting in my Master’s Program class, I couldn’t believe the insulting and degrading comments I would hear from my cohort about other peers, bullies who were twenty years older than me, but acting like they were sixteen.

Now I’m not going to sit here with my pipe-cleaner halo and pretend I’ve been the innocent by-stander all these years. I have fought fire with fire; I’ve bullied those who bullied me. I remember in high school I was in the girls’ room with my friends and a rival came in. She called me fat ass. Noting her up-turned nose that from the proper angle resembled that of a pig’s snout, I retorted “who are you calling fat, Miss Piggy?” My friends and I laughed and began pressing our noses up with our fingers, snorting at her. A look of pain flashed across her face and she quickly exited the bathroom. My heart sank when I realized I’d lowered myself to her level and hurt her. But even today, I’ve made my comments about people and joined in on the laughter when comments were made by others, even when I knew I shouldn’t have been laughing. It’s a work in progress and I’m always trying to improve myself by taking the high road. Sometimes I fail, but try again the next day.

I hate to sound cliché and regurgitate the heavily spewed dicta regarding the breeding of bullies, but it all rings true. Most bullies suffer from an inferiority complex, they are insecure with low self-esteem, so they put others down not to raise themselves up, but simply to bring their victims down to their level; “if I feel lousy, why should you be so happy?” Misery loves company, yes? Other times they don’t even know they make people feel bad. Again, though I wouldn’t consider myself a bully, there have been times when I’ve unintentionally made people feel dumb while trying to showcase my own intelligence. Now I’m no Einstein, but I’m certainly no Gomer Pyle either. Thanks to all the bullying I endured, I draw most of my self-esteem from the one thing that I succeeded in: academics. But in trying to prove my worth, at times I’ve embarrassed others, moments I still look back on and cringe: “why must I always be right?” And yes, many bullies become such because they’ve been bullied themselves. My usual tormentors came from seemingly perfect families, but I later found their mothers were alcoholics, or their fathers were abusive. People like that just need empathy, love, and forgiveness. Chances are they don’t have many friends anyways; chances are they’ve been hurt by many more bullies. So don’t add insult to injury by becoming another one in their lives. Take the high road, you’ll feel better in the end.

If you're being bullied or see that someone else is, speak up! Visit:
http://www.stopbullying.gov/

Frankenfood and Famine

The fight over genetically modified foods is a battle that has carried on for years on many different fronts. What opponents have called playing God, those in favor of the scientific advances being made in agriculture see a solution to a worldwide problem. Once again, the mediator in this debate is good old fashioned propaganda, and, like so many other situations the media sticks its nose in, the results can be and have been deadly for decades.

The genetic modification of foods started as nothing more than the interbreeding of different species in a laboratory. Experimenting with such began as purely that, experimentation: out of simple curiosity, researchers wanted to know what would happen if the genetics of one species were manipulated with the genetics of another. Becoming an expedited process of unnatural selection, the results of these trials produce strings of both unremarkable and fascinating organisms which grow and develop in ways never before thought possible. With the exchange of some proteins, individual chromosomes, and full DNA strands, plant species were created that could grow larger and in different climates.

Of course, once you mention that a lab experiment encompassing what is abstractly the slicing and dicing two beings and pasting them into one, a Frankenfood of sorts, the crazed pitchfork wielding mob screaming “monster!” is not far behind. This mob, littered with various personalities like environmentalists and theological zealots, is mostly headed by Greenpeace. And once they nabbed the media’s ear, common sense gave way to ignorant fear.

The media was thrown into its usual disarray as when any group has an aversive agenda, shoving misinformation down the general public’s throat and frightening them into submission. Erroneous claims were splashed across newspapers and websites such as animal and plant genes being mixed and sold, upsetting the natural course of life by playing God with a Petri dish, untested, unregulated sales of produce that would ultimately replace all produce in American stores, and worst of all, fighting the technology that could end world hunger. I recall in my undergraduate program in an ecology class, we were given various environmental issues and had to give a presentation on the pros and cons of each. While most projects had differing arguments and points to make, the group presenting on GM foods presented and debated facts that mirrored each other, as if one side stood in Bizarro world and the other in our own. “Foods are unregulated” “Foods are regulated by the government.” “They mix animal genes with plant genes”. “No they don’t”. “They’ll sell nothing but GM!” “No they won’t.” If soon to be college graduates couldn’t extract from their in depth research more compelling arguments than this, how can the average American by simply watching TV?

As mentioned before, science is driven by curiosity, and all the advances that come with it are the result of experimentation, simple trial and error. We would not be where we are medically, environmentally, or socially if someone somewhere hadn’t asked themselves “what if?” These lab explorations began with switching the genes of plant species with one another, and gradually migrated towards playing with animal genes. However, in spite of the outrageous claims, these animal-plant experiments are simply that-experiments. The Greenpeacers insist that labs are taking fish genes and putting them in lettuce and taking rat genes and putting them in tomatoes and stocking the shelves with them, therefore vegetarian and vegan practices are undoubtedly in danger! Once GM foods infiltrate and overrun the produce market of America, vegans and vegetarians will be unable to find animal friendly vegetation and they will starve and vie. I mean die. Unfortunately for the anarchists, universities and agricultural researchers alike assure us that though they are observing what such changes in an organism these manipulations create for the purpose of science, these specimens were never meant to be used as a food crop, and will never be sold in any store to the general public. Even if they wanted to, the government would never allow it.

One statement that has been a widely used favorite of the GM opponents is that these crops are completely and totally untested and unregulated by the U.S. government. This produce is created in labs, grown in crops, cut and sold in stores, without the government even bothering to glance over their shoulders at, let alone examine the process. Right. The Federalians are good, but they are not that good; they would never get away with that. As a matter of fact, GM foods are more carefully tested than any other produce sold in stores and it took millions of dollars and years of testing to be approved for human consumption. They are also heavily regulated by the U.S.D.A to determine the effects on the surrounding environment where they’re grown, the F.D.A for food safety, and the E.P.A if a pesticide is involved in the crop growing. To be perfectly clear, it’s probably safer to eat GM produce than organic or even plain old pesticide riddled regular vegetables. But, thanks to the American way of business, never fear! You will always have a choice on what types of produce you want to buy. If you don’t want the Frankenfood, you can pay extra for that crazy organic crap, which, mind you, you spend more time washing off bugs, slugs, and caterpillars (yup, found ‘em all in my lettuce). If you don’t like the added protein from the insecta class, and don’t trust the GM stuff, you will always be able to buy the regular veggies. To monopolize the market with one type of food is not just frustrating, it’s communism. But hey, even if we had one choice, and one choice only, who are we to bitch if we are lucky enough to have food?

Many have also argued that by manipulating the natural order of these species DNA strands and creating hybrids is like playing God, and therefore is an abomination. I believe that letting people all around the world starve to death is an abomination. Now I’m not a Bible Thumper myself, but I believe that God is as much like a parental figure as anyone else. No parent who wants their child to grow and become successful believes that doing every little task for them will help them achieve this. No decent parent comes running the minute their child cries out, ready to pull them out of the mess instead of letting them learn to find their own way. Like any good parent, they provide the tools and sit back to see what their child can accomplish with them. God has provided us the tools. He has provided us the brains that developed the technology to resolve our own problems. And not only do we keep crying for help, straddled by religion-induced self-helplessness, but we actually fight the people who might just have the answer.

The various hybrids created by these experiments have been engineered to not only grow larger and feed more people, but they can actually sustain life in harsher climates with fewer necessities. Many people in third world countries starve, not because they’re lazy, not because they don’t want to help themselves, but because in most countries, the summers are too hot, the winters, too cold; the region too dry or far too wet, the soil, useless. They cannot grow their own crops because no crops survive. Many of these GM foods can last in dry heats with minimal water or in flooding rains. They can survive permafrost; they can survive with few nutrients most other crops require in rich soil. They would thrive in nations in Africa or Southern Europe. And people would live. Norman Borlaug knows this story well. Using similar technology, he helped engineer various strains of grains (wheat and rice) and introduced these specimens to Mexico, India, and Pakistan, doubling their food production in less than 5 years. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970 and has been credited for saving over one billion (yes, BILLION) people from starvation. Way to kick ass, Mr. Borlaug.

So taking this into consideration, some Americans are still not happy with GM foods being sold in America. Fine, but this technology is not just for you. We are fat. We are gluttons. We really don’t need it. But others do. So let’s send the food and technology over to the other countries and let them enjoy it, right? Wrong, said Greenpeace. Damn it, those little tree-hugging hippies are at it again! And this time, it wasn’t just propaganda through interpretive dance that we could all ignore. At the 2002 Environmental Summit in Africa, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth crammed their misinformation down the throats of several African presidents, convincing them GM foods were poisonous and harmful. Therefore, many countries turned down tons of GM foods that had been donated by the U.S., leaving their people to continue starving. One fact Greenpeace forgot to mention? In the last 50 years, not one person has ever become ill or died as a result of consuming a GM food product.

It never ceases to amaze me that the people who are fighting the biotechnology that could feed the world are always the ones who have enough food in their refrigerators. Even if there were risks, could you look at your starving child and deny them food that may make them sick in 30 years, even though without it, they will die in 30 days? As one Greenpeace hippie dude said about GMs, “yeah we could save the world but, like, uh your kid might grow four eyeballs!” Watch out world, we’re in the presence of a mental giant here. Norman, we miss you.

Minhaj Gedi Farah, starving baby weighed just over 7 pounds at 7 months old. Weeks later, after receiving nutrients through an IV, he's almost at a normal weight for his age. Come on Greenpeace, you're doing this to everyone.

Violence in Occupation

The occupy protests have taken the spotlight in news as of late, but not for the reasons they should. Across the nation protesters are gathering to begin a peaceful revolution in the corrupt system that has been misguiding our country and our economy, steering us into this crippling recession. Unfortunately, that’s all old news. The headlines today are covering the police brutality that’s taking place against the usually harmless people who are sitting in on the demonstrations, and the country is split between horror and justification.

In most locations where protests are taking place, the local law enforcement has asked for the crowds to disperse for a wide array of reasons: sometimes it’s a traffic matter if they’re blocking roads or sidewalks, sometimes it’s a safety matter (some protesters have been killed and raped at the camps), and sometimes it’s simply a way for law enforcement to rid themselves of the nuisance the people have become, an attempt to silence the rising voice of the 99%. Most protestors believe it to be the latter, and all have refused to dissipate, bringing the tension between police officers and demonstrators to a head.

Many demonstrations have simmered into a boil as police encroach upon the gathered civilians and civilians respond by banding together and refusing to move. Some confrontations have become face to face showdowns, where police and civilians stand nose to nose waiting for the other to blink. Frustrations mount as a war of words flies between the two adversaries, and then someone makes the first move: a shove from a civilian or a baton to the stomach by an officer, and all hell breaks loose. Civilians are beaten as officers throw punches, jab their batons, and pepper spray the living daylights out of the crowds.

Given the excitement, the massive numbers of the crowds and officers, and the muddle of the two meshed together in extremely close proximity, 20 years ago it would have been difficult to know who started what, which side was justified, and who was the innocent party. But in this day and age, thanks to the incredible advancements in technology (and let’s face it, even with the simplest of inventions like cameras) one does not have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize in most cases, the police are using excessive force in trying to “regain control” of the crowds, some of which weren’t out of control to begin with, for example a group of students at Northern California’s UC Davis. Protestors sat on the ground, arms interlocked, refusing to move as police officers circled and marched along the line like power drunk dictators. Suddenly, completely unprovoked, officers began shooting pepper spray over the heads and in the faces of the peaceful individuals. Many ducked, most had their heads covered with their jacket hoods, but if you’ve ever been around a fresh cloud of pepper spray, you don’t need it to be shot directly in your face, you don’t even need to be present when it is sprayed for it to have an effect on you, stinging your eyes and burning your throat as you breathe in the residual vapor that lingers in the air.

Other protests have resulted in harmless non-violent civilians being pepper sprayed as well, including 84 year old Dorli Rainy, and a priest. Elizabeth Nichols (pictured above) said a police officer actually began the dispute by jabbing her in the ribs with a baton then pressing it against her throat. When she reacted verbally by shouting at the officer that she was being mistreated, she was met with a steady stream of pepper spray at approximately a range of no more than two feet.

Driving out to dinner tonight with my dad, he had the car radio tuned to his favorite talk show, and they were discussing the typical debate of whether the force was necessary. Some on the show agreed that police are justified to react to any violence portrayed by the demonstrators. “What are you going to do when you have people standing right up in your face, shouting, spitting, and shoving you? Are you going to stand there and let them shove you and spit in your face? You do what you have to do,” said one. And I sat, thinking, "you couldn’t be more wrong."

I’ve frequently and very recently discussed my experiences working in group homes with troubled teens and the violence we were usually faced with when intervening in their crises or simply being in the way when they were having a bad day. The rules were clear: do not ever put your hands on a client, do not ever use physical force unless they are a clear and immediate danger to themselves or others. Such work is a high stress job and it takes a very patient and dedicated individual to do it and do it well. Usually, employees like this were in short supply, thus the several reports that speckled the news headlines when teens were dying in restraints in various facilities; employees who lost their cool and patience and used too much force. But at our facilities, the preceding policy usually meant if you had a client in your face screaming and shouting, if you had a client spit at you, or if you had a client shove you with minimal-moderate force (if they didn’t shove you hard enough to make you fall down), you were expected to take it, walk away, or call group therapy. Sometimes, even more violent behavior was tolerated, simply because you managed to keep your cool or because restraints require a minimum of two attending staff members and you were alone. Whatever the case, there were several times I was threatened and injured without resigning to physical force: being pushed down the stairs, being cut with a small piece of glass, being slammed into a wall, being hit with a metal folding chair and other various pieces of furniture, the list goes on.

Of course it’s easier to maintain one’s self-control when starting at 0, but what happens when you’re rushing towards 60? Many cases of police brutality occur after a high intensity event, such as car chases, or during riots or stand offs, when the adrenaline is rushing and some claim it's hard to maintain control. Well, sorry boys, but that’s usually bullshit too. There were plenty of moments where we were forced to engage in restraints at our facility, those moments where they were a danger to themselves or others; at one time in our facility when we housed a few more colorful characters, we were engaging in, on average, 15 restraints a week, sometimes as many as four restraints on four different clients in one day. Of course company policy also stated if it was determined to be required, place them in a restraint that would immobilize them, NOT harm them, making sure to never use more force than necessary. This meant stop them, get them to the ground or wall, and hold their arms and legs still until they calmed down, making sure they could breathe and their circulation was adequate at all times. Now at times, restraints did not go smoothly. Sometimes the clients were difficult to get on the ground. Sometimes there was a chase or a great struggle before they could be effectively immobilized. Sometimes their struggles and attempts to break free resulted in their own injuries. Our adrenaline was usually pumping by the time we hit the floor, and with a kick to the face or chest, a bite on the hand, or a sudden grasp of hair that is quickly ripped from your scalp, the test of maintaining your calm becomes almost impossible.

But we were trained to handle those moments, to avoid reaching what our training supervisor called the level of “pisstivity”. Now everyone’s human, everyone makes mistakes. I recall the moment when I finally reached my level of pisstivity with a client. She had attempted to strangle me with a lanyard draped around my neck. After trying to evade her until I was backed into a corner, I finally went into a wall restraint with her and another staff member. She was too strong for us to hold against the wall so we transferred her to the floor, where she proceeded to struggle for the next 30 minutes, biting me on the hand twice. After she claimed she was calm, we allowed her up. She slowly rose to her feet, straightened her clothing, then turned to me and snapped “Bitch! You can’t hold me down!” and shoved me with brute force. I flew back and slammed into a steel pole, my head flying back and cracking against the metal. We immediately resumed a wall restraint and at one point, as we struggled with her, I became fed up and forced her to the wall a bit harder than I needed to. It went unnoticed by the belligerent teen, but I still felt guilty when all had passed.

It’s reasonable to assume that at some point, even a police officer is going to be pushed to the brink; they are, after all, human. But if anyone should be better trained in maintaining their cool in high-stress situations, and using appropriate force at appropriate times, it’s those who have to face these types of behaviors on a regular basis. If people who are given guns, batons, and pepper spray can’t be trusted to use it effectively, why the hell are we giving them these things? Why are we entrusting our safety to people who have no knowledge of how to provide and maintain it? They are given weapons and limitless power, practically free of consequence and responsibility. But someone needs to remind them that having power doesn’t make you powerful. Having the power to control yourself is true strength.

Troubled Teens and Jaded Juveniles: Failing Our Kids Part 2

The ominous situation most juvenile delinquents find themselves in is that no better than the punishments typically reserved for adults. Though some may think that Juvenile Hall is a playground for the young offenders of today, the nature of the environment is unfortunately exact to the nature of prison. There is an element of survival, a hierarchy one must navigate through in the social construct of federal and state reprimand. To prove oneself, through acts of structural defiance, acts of loyalty, and further criminal behaviors, is to guarantee one’s protection. Other times watching and learning the inner workings of the placement assists the convict in manipulating the system to best meet their needs. And such behaviors are hardly limited to imprisonment.

As an alternative, in order to provide juvenile offenders with a better opportunity for self-improvement and successful reintegration into society, many convicted delinquents are sent to behavioral treatment facilities, high level group homes, and work camps. Through tightly structured days, afforded slightly more intervention and support than that found at the Hall, these facilities were ideal compared to the juvenile prison. But it was far from perfect, and here, the kids are expected to grow and fall on the right path. But what really are the odds?

One event I noticed on occasion both in my work with the teen girls at the BT facility and working with the male juvenile delinquents at their facility was that at times, teens are misplaced for one reason or another, a decision that compromises their future. With the boys, I found one young man placed in the facility for a very minimal offense (stealing a bike and truancy from school), though the rap sheet of his peers typically included robbery, grand theft, drug dealing, assault with a deadly weapon, and in one case, manslaughter. Though we were a level 12 facility for the girls with specific behavioral criteria for admission, some girls were merely placed with us because extraneous circumstances left them with no better placement. They had mild behavioral issues, usually depression, but significant medical issues such as diabetes or epilepsy, conditions far too risky for a level 10 or 8 home. Therefore they were placed with us, though we were no medical center either.

When it came to the young man, achieving protected status in the dormitory of 24 other delinquents became his priority. A typical 13 year old, he was well-mannered, polite, seeming to be of middle-class status, and terrified of his new surroundings. When a fight began to ensue between his roommates, he did what he believed to be the right thing, alerted the staff member on duty. Unfortunately for him, in this society, he was now labeled a snitch, and became a target. After one beat-down, he quickly began what Jane Goodall would refer to as displaying in the chimp community, proving his worth by showing off his machismo. He began to break rules, disrespect staff, and fight with other clients to climb the social ladder. After proving himself, he was accepted into the protective circle of the thug society and was deemed a pain in the ass by staff throughout the facility. After a confrontation between him and other peers took place, fearful that he would be moved to the Hall, he ran away from the facility in the dead of night and I never heard of him again.

With the girls, while there were several instances of behavior changes to graft a niche into the group home society, one behavior I typically observed was the modification to get one’s needs met. This is where the key element of the Social Learning Theory, first presented by Albert Bandura, comes into play in these environments. Individuals observe behaviors others engage in, note the pay off of the behavior (are they punished or do they receive some kind of reward) and in turn imitate the behavior themselves.

When girls were placed in our facility who really didn’t belong there, they were typically the better behaved kids who followed the rules, went to school, completed chores, and offered to help around the facility whenever possible. While staff attempted to provide as much praise and rewards as possible for their efforts, it becomes difficult to give the individualized attention these teens so desperately needed when 17 or 18 other girls in the house were acting out. The girls who were more problematic were constantly requiring attention, redirection, and crisis intervention, and it didn’t take long for the better behaved girls to become frustrated, as they should have been. “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing, and yet I’m invisible.” I imagine they concluded. Eventually, they made themselves heard. Resorting to similar behaviors, we had several girls display about the house, sheepishly throwing objects at windows that never broke, spraying fire extinguishers, and threatening to kill themselves by jumping off the second story balcony, after which they would march to the balcony and hesitate, glancing over their shoulders to see if we were following. Naturally, whether or not we knew they weren’t serious, we were obligated by company policy to follow, and reinforced their attention-seeking behaviors. Once, however, when we became distracted with another girl threatening to kill herself, the one who had dashed off to the balcony realized we were not coming to rescue her, and returned, loudly displaying in the hallway, stomping her feet and cursing. Eventually behaviors escalated in severity, and the girls rarely returned to their sweet dispositions.

Though social problems in the group homes and treatment facilities largely contribute to exacerbating the issues these teens are faced with, it seems they are set up for failure right from the start by being placed in these facilities to begin with. It was mentioned in part one of this blog that compliance with the teen girls was difficult to come by. With the boys, it was not quite so hard. Given that these boys were placed in this facility as an alternative to the Hall, they understood that whatever problems they faced here, they were much worse there. With the threat of being replaced in the Hall looming, they were more motivated to try. As previously mentioned, the structure was tighter, interventions and support was more readily available in order to help these kids. In other words, they were placed in a laboratory.

Every moment of their day was planned out for them, from getting up in the morning to breakfast, school, group therapy, activity, showers, homework, dinner, more group, and sleep. Their roommates were carefully selected, they had emotional support and guidance from staff, and limited temptation from outside sources. They were removed from the environment that created so many of their issues to begin with: friends who were bad influences, families who were dysfunctional and damaging, freedom and free time to make bad decisions. What else could they do but succeed in such an intricately designed program? Many still struggled as they found other ways to get in trouble: fighting, gambling, refusing to attend school, being disrespectful to staff. But when you take into consideration the things they were placed there for, these offenses pale in comparison. They thrived in a strictly controlled environment.

After their time is served, however, they are returned to the defunct natural environments that bred them. They go back to their broken homes, back to their crime-riddled neighborhoods, back to the friends whose opinions mean so much and who always have access to drugs and booze, back to unlimited free will with little motivation to make the right choices in everyday life, and left without much aftercare. No one bothers to come out and check on them, no one bothers to take time out of their day to keep them in line. If they don’t go to school, no one really cares. If they don’t do their homework, they rarely have anyone to answer to; no one holds them accountable anymore. How long do you believe it takes them to revert to their previous lifestyle?

Such is the problem for adult convicts as well, and is a distinct answer to the question of rampant recidivism in prisons and juvenile halls. You cannot take an unruly chimp, teach him how to behave in a cage, then release him to the world and expect the same results you achieved in lockdown.

A better alternative, argued Richard Mendel in his report Less Hype, More Help: Reducing Juvenile Crime… was instead of removing the teens from their homes, to provide care within the natural environment. Offering therapeutic treatments in the home with the entire family, assigning a mentor to keep close tabs on the teen, and facilitating a collaborative effort between the multiple facets in their lives, such as family, teachers, and outreach programs, Mendel believed that the individual had a higher chance at success. The program’s therapeutic approaches, titled Multi-Systematic Therapy and Family Functional Therapy, addressed the issues at the root of the presenting problems, and guided the teen to make better independent choices in the current environment, instead of within a superficial one where the possibility to make their own choices was significantly reduced, thereby teaching them nothing. After longitudinal studies were conducted, not only did these programs prove to be more effective than treatment facilities and group homes, they were also significantly cheaper, costing anywhere between $2,000-5,000, whereas facilities and homes cost approximately $50,000 annually.

Granted, placement in this program is not appropriate for everyone, higher risk offenders that have been convicted on charges of violence, for instance, need alternative placement, but many of the offenders for drug use, minor theft, and behavioral issues such as truancy would benefit from it, rather than being placed in “criminal college”, where they will learn to be better convicts from more seasoned offenders, where their behaviors only get worse, and where emotionally, they’re as lost as they ever were.

So the question now is: when are we going to save them from themselves?