1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:13,535 --> 00:00:15,537 [man] Where would you all be if you weren't here? 4 00:00:15,580 --> 00:00:16,799 Where would you end up? 5 00:00:18,322 --> 00:00:22,631 You'd either be in jail, in a hospital or dead, okay? 6 00:00:22,674 --> 00:00:25,068 It's time to take your life seriously. 7 00:00:25,112 --> 00:00:26,200 Get your feelings off. 8 00:00:26,243 --> 00:00:27,723 You worthless piece of shit! 9 00:00:27,766 --> 00:00:29,072 You're nobody to me! 10 00:00:29,116 --> 00:00:31,553 I'll fucking slay you, you foreign motherfucker! 11 00:00:31,596 --> 00:00:33,207 You piece of shit! 12 00:00:33,250 --> 00:00:35,861 I'll tear your fucking limb off and beat you fucking with it! 13 00:00:35,905 --> 00:00:38,821 Piece of shit asshole, I'll fucking kill you! 14 00:00:38,864 --> 00:00:41,432 I don't give a fuck who you are, you're nobody! 15 00:00:41,476 --> 00:00:44,218 You're stuck here for good, and I'll makes sure of that! 16 00:00:44,261 --> 00:00:46,046 Fuck you! 17 00:00:57,231 --> 00:00:59,711 My parents tell me, they're like, 18 00:00:59,755 --> 00:01:02,062 "Well, next week we're going to look at boarding schools 19 00:01:02,105 --> 00:01:06,022 and just packing up stuff for a week or whatever, 20 00:01:06,066 --> 00:01:09,112 and we're just going to go look at two or three different schools." 21 00:01:09,156 --> 00:01:10,418 So I was like, "Okay, cool." 22 00:01:12,289 --> 00:01:14,117 Called my friends, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to be gone for a week. 23 00:01:14,161 --> 00:01:16,380 I'll see you in like a week, da da da da." 24 00:01:16,424 --> 00:01:18,817 Packed a bag, took all my music with me 25 00:01:18,861 --> 00:01:20,906 because I ain't go anywhere without my music. 26 00:01:21,646 --> 00:01:25,737 Left everything else behind, and I'm like, 27 00:01:25,781 --> 00:01:27,696 "Well, I thought we were going to Massachusetts." 28 00:01:27,739 --> 00:01:29,915 And my parents were like, "The plane is going to Maine." 29 00:01:35,878 --> 00:01:37,923 [woman] I did not want to go up to Maine. 30 00:01:37,967 --> 00:01:41,623 I'd already heard a little bit about it ahead of time, 31 00:01:41,666 --> 00:01:46,845 and I knew it was going to be very strict, though I didn't know just how strict. 32 00:01:47,585 --> 00:01:51,894 It used to be that we had bad kids who were locked away in reform schools, 33 00:01:51,937 --> 00:01:55,245 and sick kids who were locked away in mental hospitals, 34 00:01:55,289 --> 00:01:58,640 but in the past decade we've been seeking an alternative. 35 00:01:59,206 --> 00:02:02,644 Instead of simply punishing unacceptable behavior, 36 00:02:02,687 --> 00:02:05,864 we've been looking for ways to change that behavior. 37 00:02:06,430 --> 00:02:10,478 This facility called Elan claims to be able to do that. 38 00:02:11,566 --> 00:02:13,176 Why was I sent there? 39 00:02:13,220 --> 00:02:14,395 That's heavy, man. 40 00:02:15,222 --> 00:02:16,832 Why was I in Elan? 41 00:02:20,183 --> 00:02:22,359 [man] From a very young age 42 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:26,276 things went very badly for me. 43 00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:30,628 [woman] I was pretty angry and confused about a lot of things, 44 00:02:30,672 --> 00:02:34,066 and I was just constantly trying to distract myself. 45 00:02:34,110 --> 00:02:36,460 So yeah, I was... whatever drugs I can get a hold of. 46 00:02:36,504 --> 00:02:39,289 If that was what it was, or just not going to school. 47 00:02:39,333 --> 00:02:43,815 Freshman year I'm trying to think, I put roaches in a girl's purse as a prank. 48 00:02:43,859 --> 00:02:47,428 Pre-lunch, so she'd open them and whatever. 49 00:02:47,471 --> 00:02:49,778 The school charged me with assault for that. 50 00:02:49,821 --> 00:02:52,868 [Peter] Well, I was always in trouble with the law 51 00:02:52,911 --> 00:02:55,479 when I was eight or nine years old. 52 00:02:55,523 --> 00:02:58,830 If you had something that I wanted I'd break in your house 53 00:02:58,874 --> 00:03:00,354 when you weren't there and take it. 54 00:03:00,397 --> 00:03:02,660 I got jumped by a couple juniors. 55 00:03:02,704 --> 00:03:05,620 I beat the fuck out of one kid who started it, 56 00:03:05,663 --> 00:03:08,710 and they charged me with assault and battery for that. 57 00:03:09,406 --> 00:03:14,324 And then just a whole litany of bullshit like that pretty much. 58 00:03:14,368 --> 00:03:18,154 It was all the same like instigating a fight or being involved in this. 59 00:03:18,198 --> 00:03:21,897 Me, I could get laid, 60 00:03:21,940 --> 00:03:24,334 smoke a lot of bud, enjoy myself, 61 00:03:24,378 --> 00:03:27,294 have good music like the Gifts of the Grateful Dead. 62 00:03:27,337 --> 00:03:30,732 I know for me it was pretty much about getting as fucked up as you could, 63 00:03:30,775 --> 00:03:34,779 dancing as hard as you could for as long as you could and listening to music. 64 00:03:34,823 --> 00:03:38,566 [man] Or I could go home be in bed at 10 o'clock, get up at 6:00, go to school. 65 00:03:38,609 --> 00:03:39,828 You know. 66 00:03:39,871 --> 00:03:41,786 It was a no-brainer, 67 00:03:41,830 --> 00:03:46,269 it was just when you start at 12 they get kind of a little pissy about it. 68 00:03:46,313 --> 00:03:48,489 [woman] I started using drugs when I was 13. 69 00:03:48,532 --> 00:03:51,361 If you consider marijuana a drug, I was 13. 70 00:03:51,405 --> 00:03:55,670 I snorted coke when I was 14 at some house party I was at. 71 00:03:55,713 --> 00:03:57,454 Prior to me going to Elan, 72 00:03:57,498 --> 00:04:01,153 I was mostly smoking pot and eating acid, drinking occasionally. 73 00:04:01,197 --> 00:04:04,287 Drinking was getting really dangerous and out of control. 74 00:04:04,331 --> 00:04:06,158 About a month before I went to Elan, 75 00:04:06,202 --> 00:04:08,639 I ran away off a home pass from a psych hospital 76 00:04:08,683 --> 00:04:11,251 and stole a bunch of beer out of the back of a restaurant, 77 00:04:11,294 --> 00:04:13,122 and they found me on a friend's driveway. 78 00:04:13,165 --> 00:04:14,515 I... 79 00:04:15,342 --> 00:04:18,345 While on lithium and Prozac I drank all this beer 80 00:04:18,388 --> 00:04:21,130 and just basically passed out on their lawn. They thought I was dead. 81 00:04:21,173 --> 00:04:26,701 When I found out about Peter's heroin use, I was very scared for him. 82 00:04:26,744 --> 00:04:31,575 [Peter] My mother came in my room, and my friend and I were shooting up. 83 00:04:31,619 --> 00:04:35,013 [Liz] I ratted him out because I was that scared. 84 00:04:35,057 --> 00:04:37,842 [Alec] I was going to buy Bud for my girlfriend, 85 00:04:37,886 --> 00:04:40,497 and I was getting me Adderall for tests and shit. 86 00:04:40,541 --> 00:04:44,980 I got pinched with that, it was like a quarter of weed and a couple of pills. 87 00:04:45,807 --> 00:04:49,158 And I was on probation at the time, 88 00:04:49,811 --> 00:04:52,466 so my mother called my probation officer, 89 00:04:52,509 --> 00:04:54,511 and I woke up the next morning 90 00:04:54,555 --> 00:04:57,862 and he was standing at the foot of my bed with a urine cup. 91 00:04:57,906 --> 00:05:00,822 [Alec] Possession, intent to distribute in a school zone. 92 00:05:00,865 --> 00:05:05,566 Fucking horrible, at 15 caught like a class whatever and whenever, 93 00:05:05,609 --> 00:05:09,004 possession intent to distribute charge. That's what ruined me. 94 00:05:09,047 --> 00:05:14,009 It started when I was a kid at about eight when my dad died, 95 00:05:14,618 --> 00:05:17,360 and I got slightly out of control with mom, 96 00:05:17,404 --> 00:05:19,841 and couldn't handle me and all that I guess. 97 00:05:20,450 --> 00:05:22,060 And I ended up in one home. 98 00:05:22,104 --> 00:05:24,541 [woman] When they started sending me to group homes 99 00:05:24,585 --> 00:05:26,630 and foster homes and things like that 100 00:05:26,674 --> 00:05:30,373 is where I learned how to misbehave, and I learned about drugs. 101 00:05:30,417 --> 00:05:35,378 Because I didn't know any of that stuff living with my mother and my stepfather. 102 00:05:35,422 --> 00:05:38,729 I didn't run the streets, I didn't get in trouble, I wasn't truant, 103 00:05:38,773 --> 00:05:43,604 any of that. It took me getting into the system to learn how to do those things. 104 00:05:43,647 --> 00:05:45,954 Back then they really didn't have too many rules 105 00:05:45,997 --> 00:05:50,872 about what you could and couldn't do to kids, so I was rather abusive. 106 00:05:50,915 --> 00:05:54,354 [man] I was in the Connecticut Junior Republic, it was a boy's home. 107 00:05:54,397 --> 00:06:00,185 I was little, I was from Bridgeport, I didn't know them, they didn't want to know me. 108 00:06:00,229 --> 00:06:03,624 They wanted to rape me, they wanted to beat the shit out of me. 109 00:06:03,667 --> 00:06:05,495 And I escaped from there. 110 00:06:05,539 --> 00:06:07,976 Then I got into some trouble with the law and I was sent to Long Lane. 111 00:06:08,019 --> 00:06:11,196 So a lot of bruises are showing up on me. What do you think? 112 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:14,504 They didn't do anything. So you take matters in your own hand. 113 00:06:14,548 --> 00:06:16,680 You just get them all, get them all at once. 114 00:06:16,724 --> 00:06:21,903 I barricaded the room, I let them all go, and that was the end of that. 115 00:06:21,946 --> 00:06:25,950 I was institutionalized from when I was 13 until I was 18. 116 00:06:25,994 --> 00:06:28,692 There was a three-week break that I did come home, 117 00:06:28,736 --> 00:06:32,696 but that's when I took that overdose of alcohol and Prozac. 118 00:06:32,740 --> 00:06:35,351 After I had been in the hospital for an overdose 119 00:06:36,483 --> 00:06:39,268 I tried to kill myself in the hospital. 120 00:06:39,311 --> 00:06:44,839 I had broken a light bulb and actually cut my wrists, and then I had also run away. 121 00:06:44,882 --> 00:06:46,536 I'd been hospitalized several times 122 00:06:46,580 --> 00:06:49,974 and pretty much ran away from every place my parents put me in. 123 00:06:50,018 --> 00:06:54,022 The Dead were always on tour, so there was always somewhere else to go. 124 00:06:54,065 --> 00:06:58,418 [Dave] The more I escaped from another place then I went to a worse place and a worse place. 125 00:06:59,114 --> 00:07:01,986 Until I finally found myself in places 126 00:07:02,030 --> 00:07:06,730 that were more brutal than I wanted to deal with, put it that way. 127 00:07:06,774 --> 00:07:08,384 Adolescents are very shrewd. 128 00:07:08,428 --> 00:07:11,474 If you go into a hospital and you don't want to stay there, 129 00:07:11,518 --> 00:07:16,305 all you have to do is make an aggressive gesture at a nurse and you're kicked out. 130 00:07:16,348 --> 00:07:19,917 All you have to do is light your bed on fire and you're kicked out. 131 00:07:19,961 --> 00:07:24,226 So consequently, kids learn how to get out of treatment. 132 00:07:24,269 --> 00:07:26,402 They were trying to find a school that would keep me 133 00:07:26,446 --> 00:07:28,448 no matter how many times I ran away. 134 00:07:28,491 --> 00:07:32,016 Finally in August when I was 12 they shipped me up to Elan 135 00:07:32,060 --> 00:07:35,237 because Elan said that they kept runaways. 136 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:39,284 At Elan the first thing they learn is you're not going to get out of here. 137 00:07:39,328 --> 00:07:42,505 If you burn the place down we'll sleep in a tent together. 138 00:07:42,549 --> 00:07:46,030 No matter how many times you run away, we will go and get you. 139 00:07:46,074 --> 00:07:50,513 Why? Because we have a commitment to you and to ourselves. 140 00:07:50,557 --> 00:07:55,779 What I did was wrong, they did CAT scans on me and all that. 141 00:07:55,823 --> 00:07:57,172 And so... 142 00:07:57,215 --> 00:07:59,435 They're saying I know I went before a judge. 143 00:07:59,479 --> 00:08:02,917 Instead of me going to Leahy in Worcester, 144 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:05,397 which is like the juvenile facility they have out here, 145 00:08:05,441 --> 00:08:10,707 they offered up a plea for me to go to Elan instead. 146 00:08:10,751 --> 00:08:14,537 I was 12. They said you're going away until you turn 18. 147 00:08:14,581 --> 00:08:16,670 [Alec] They were explaining that it would be 148 00:08:17,366 --> 00:08:20,238 more intense than juvie pretty much. 149 00:08:20,282 --> 00:08:23,328 I got on a plane, I went to Elan. 150 00:08:23,372 --> 00:08:25,679 The court officers 151 00:08:26,549 --> 00:08:31,815 took me to an airport where Dr. Davidson came down on the plane. 152 00:08:31,859 --> 00:08:33,817 I had never had a driver's license, 153 00:08:33,861 --> 00:08:37,473 so I had never paid attention to where we were going, 154 00:08:37,517 --> 00:08:42,217 and all of a sudden I was in the middle of the woods in Maine. 155 00:08:42,260 --> 00:08:45,133 [woman] I was like I'm in the fucking boondocks. This is nuts. 156 00:08:45,176 --> 00:08:48,919 [man] Some of the kids have mentioned that they or their peers were snatched. 157 00:08:48,963 --> 00:08:49,790 What does that mean? 158 00:08:51,879 --> 00:08:53,097 Yeah, I remember that night. 159 00:08:54,577 --> 00:08:57,101 Well, it's usually in the morning you see. 160 00:08:57,841 --> 00:09:00,148 When four residents 161 00:09:00,975 --> 00:09:05,806 and generally big people or taller and heavier, 162 00:09:05,849 --> 00:09:10,114 will show up at someone's house 163 00:09:10,158 --> 00:09:14,075 and go into a new resident's bedroom and say, 164 00:09:14,118 --> 00:09:17,731 "Hi Johnny, we're from Elan and we'd like you to come with us." 165 00:09:17,774 --> 00:09:19,907 And they talk very nicely, 166 00:09:19,950 --> 00:09:25,390 but they're big and they're strong and they're insistent and there are four of them. 167 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:27,784 And so it happens. 168 00:09:27,828 --> 00:09:31,832 [Todd] I was sleeping in my bed, and probably at about 4:00 AM 169 00:09:31,875 --> 00:09:34,878 two guys came into my room, woke me up. 170 00:09:34,922 --> 00:09:37,968 One of the guys said, "We're taking you to your new school." 171 00:09:38,012 --> 00:09:40,405 My mom was telling me this was for the best. 172 00:09:40,449 --> 00:09:42,407 I tried to run, they grabbed me, 173 00:09:42,451 --> 00:09:46,107 and they threw me in a van and drove me up to Poland Springs, Maine. 174 00:09:46,847 --> 00:09:51,939 So I get off the plane, and there's two kids, 175 00:09:51,982 --> 00:09:54,637 just gigantic huge kids, 176 00:09:54,681 --> 00:09:59,642 maybe a year older or maybe two years older than me, and two adults. 177 00:09:59,686 --> 00:10:02,210 They're like, "We're taking you to the school." 178 00:10:02,253 --> 00:10:05,387 They didn't really tell me too much about where I was going. 179 00:10:05,430 --> 00:10:09,478 So all of a sudden we're going up this dusty dirt road. 180 00:10:09,521 --> 00:10:13,743 I just remember thinking, "God, this place is out in the middle of nowhere." 181 00:10:13,787 --> 00:10:17,660 [Tracy] And there's these scattered house I feel like I'm going to summer camp. 182 00:10:17,704 --> 00:10:22,665 And after you're in Long Lane for six months anything looks better. 183 00:10:22,709 --> 00:10:28,192 And a couple staff came with really pretty pictures of the lake and the property, 184 00:10:28,236 --> 00:10:30,717 and it looked really nice. 185 00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:33,241 And they were talking about the horseback riding 186 00:10:33,284 --> 00:10:36,548 and canoeing and hiking and house trips. 187 00:10:36,592 --> 00:10:40,901 I thought that I was going from complete lockup 188 00:10:40,944 --> 00:10:43,555 to summer camp paradise. 189 00:10:43,599 --> 00:10:46,428 I'm like, "Where's the swimming pool, the horses and the tennis courts?" 190 00:10:46,471 --> 00:10:50,345 So now when I arrived in August of '73, 191 00:10:50,388 --> 00:10:55,698 V-J Day as a matter of fact, I saw this white Victorian house sitting up on the hill. 192 00:10:55,742 --> 00:10:58,005 And my parents brought me in, 193 00:10:58,048 --> 00:11:03,271 and I was taken right in to the director's office, Joe Ricci. 194 00:11:03,314 --> 00:11:04,881 [Joseph] We don't bullshit kids. 195 00:11:04,925 --> 00:11:08,406 We don't tell kids that this is some kind of utopia, 196 00:11:08,450 --> 00:11:10,931 that everything is going to work out for you. 197 00:11:10,974 --> 00:11:16,023 And so they bring me into this trailer, and we were being told about the program. 198 00:11:16,066 --> 00:11:20,462 Looked my mother straight dead in the eye and said, "This is the last stop on the bus." 199 00:11:20,505 --> 00:11:26,555 Not one time did anybody say, even hinted at what I was about to go through. 200 00:11:26,598 --> 00:11:31,473 If you don't send your son here he's going to be dead, you can count on it. 201 00:11:31,516 --> 00:11:33,649 You have six minutes to say goodbye to your parents, 202 00:11:33,693 --> 00:11:36,783 and if you say anything disrespectful to them I'm going to put you in a corner. 203 00:11:39,611 --> 00:11:43,441 And I just looked at my dad and I just was shaking my head, I started crying. 204 00:11:43,485 --> 00:11:46,706 I was like... just looked at him, because me and my dad were closer. 205 00:11:46,749 --> 00:11:49,447 Me and my mom always had issues, me and my dad were very close. 206 00:11:51,188 --> 00:11:54,104 So I was getting my search to get inside and my dad started crying, 207 00:11:54,148 --> 00:11:57,455 and my mom was just like, "I can't." And they left. 208 00:11:59,414 --> 00:12:01,851 [Mary] I couldn't believe they were going to leave me there, 209 00:12:03,679 --> 00:12:06,421 but after a while they did, you know. 210 00:12:22,002 --> 00:12:26,441 When I brought my kid today I just cried. 211 00:12:27,703 --> 00:12:31,011 I know, and the people in school knew that he was coming up here to stay. 212 00:12:31,838 --> 00:12:35,276 You know that if he doesn't change he's going to get arrested. 213 00:12:35,319 --> 00:12:38,845 You know that sooner or later he's going to steal something to get money. 214 00:12:39,541 --> 00:12:41,325 I worried them a lot. 215 00:12:41,369 --> 00:12:45,112 The phone rings at 10 o'clock at night, three o'clock in the morning. 216 00:12:45,155 --> 00:12:49,072 They were getting calls 2:00, 3:00 in the morning from the cops. 217 00:12:49,116 --> 00:12:52,380 You're shaking, you're wondering, what's this call going to mean? 218 00:12:52,423 --> 00:12:55,557 Your son's run away again. We don't know where he is. 219 00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:59,648 And that's the fear that we live in. We're ready to-- 220 00:13:00,127 --> 00:13:03,478 -[woman] Crack. -Just an example, ready to crack. 221 00:13:03,521 --> 00:13:06,176 I love him so much. I wouldn't want to lose him. 222 00:13:06,220 --> 00:13:10,224 It's important for parents to know that we understand all of that. 223 00:13:10,267 --> 00:13:12,400 We're going to help your child go through all of that 224 00:13:12,443 --> 00:13:16,839 so that you can have the kid back that you remember, and the one that you love. 225 00:13:16,883 --> 00:13:20,582 [Mary] I was raised by adopted parents 226 00:13:20,625 --> 00:13:25,021 who were very devout Catholics, my mother in particular. 227 00:13:25,065 --> 00:13:29,983 And she had a bad temper, she wasn't able to forgive me 228 00:13:30,026 --> 00:13:33,247 because I had bonded with one of the nuns at the infant home, 229 00:13:33,290 --> 00:13:36,511 and preferred her over my adopted parents. 230 00:13:37,904 --> 00:13:41,777 I'd always had an active imagination and a fantasy life, 231 00:13:41,821 --> 00:13:45,607 but it became more intense when I was around her. 232 00:13:46,826 --> 00:13:49,263 My father, he wasn't much help. 233 00:13:49,306 --> 00:13:52,570 Our father was never present, 234 00:13:53,745 --> 00:13:57,053 and our mother drank too much. 235 00:13:57,097 --> 00:13:58,838 Way too much. 236 00:13:58,881 --> 00:14:01,449 [Jaela] I was taken away from my mother when I was 13. 237 00:14:01,492 --> 00:14:07,063 My mother had issues with alcoholism, and she married an extremely abusive man. 238 00:14:07,107 --> 00:14:10,240 Not only was he abusing my mother, but he was hitting me. 239 00:14:10,284 --> 00:14:14,418 [Julie] I was in an abusive home environment. 240 00:14:14,462 --> 00:14:17,857 My mother was physically abusive, emotionally abusive. 241 00:14:17,900 --> 00:14:21,904 My mother used to tie me to the radiator and beat the shit out of me. 242 00:14:21,948 --> 00:14:23,993 She beat the crap out of me on several occasions. 243 00:14:24,037 --> 00:14:27,518 Threw me in tubs with hot scalding water. 244 00:14:27,562 --> 00:14:31,218 When I was 11 years old she told me get the fuck out of the house and not come back. 245 00:14:31,261 --> 00:14:32,959 I went to grab some cookie, 246 00:14:33,002 --> 00:14:36,092 she kicked the chair from underneath me, split my head open. 247 00:14:36,136 --> 00:14:38,703 I ran into my bedroom and tried to hide. 248 00:14:38,747 --> 00:14:42,751 My eye right here above my eye, the bone is fractured. 249 00:14:42,794 --> 00:14:45,362 My mom came in with a belt and beat the crap out of me. 250 00:14:45,406 --> 00:14:47,843 [Doug] Had it not been for Mr. Bright, 251 00:14:47,887 --> 00:14:52,413 the people who live next door, I probably would have been dead. 252 00:14:52,456 --> 00:14:54,937 That's when the state removed me from her. 253 00:14:54,981 --> 00:14:59,768 My dad from as early as I can remember he was physically abusive, 254 00:14:59,811 --> 00:15:01,596 mentally abusive, sexually abusive. 255 00:15:01,639 --> 00:15:03,467 And no one knew about it. 256 00:15:03,511 --> 00:15:07,384 My mother didn't know, it was only my brother and I who really knew, 257 00:15:07,428 --> 00:15:09,778 and that wasn't found out until Elan. 258 00:15:09,821 --> 00:15:13,651 In my 17 years at Elan I've seen a lot of kids come through the program 259 00:15:13,695 --> 00:15:18,526 who had had some horrible relationships with family members. 260 00:15:18,569 --> 00:15:22,922 Who all still love each other very dearly, but had really hurt each other, 261 00:15:22,965 --> 00:15:25,098 and had really done some pretty self-destructive 262 00:15:25,141 --> 00:15:28,710 and destructive things to other people in their family. 263 00:15:28,753 --> 00:15:32,409 And it all got twisted, and it all got confused. 264 00:15:33,062 --> 00:15:38,981 I think the trouble then is where do you release this? 265 00:15:39,025 --> 00:15:42,419 The hurt or this stuff. 266 00:15:42,463 --> 00:15:44,421 Where do you then take this? 267 00:15:44,465 --> 00:15:48,469 Because the perpetrators aren't going to talk to you about it. 268 00:15:49,035 --> 00:15:50,645 Okay, so where do you take it? 269 00:15:51,254 --> 00:15:54,170 And I think for a lot of us 270 00:15:55,606 --> 00:15:58,174 that went through Elan that I know, 271 00:15:58,958 --> 00:16:03,136 some things happened and the parents needed to dump. 272 00:16:04,485 --> 00:16:06,008 That was their solution. 273 00:16:12,188 --> 00:16:15,235 So for me the first day was one of extreme bewilderment, 274 00:16:15,278 --> 00:16:18,020 and an ultimate realization that I was in for a new kind of life. 275 00:16:18,064 --> 00:16:22,285 [man] I said goodbye to my parents and Mark Rosenberg took me down to Elan VIII. 276 00:16:22,329 --> 00:16:23,460 [man] I went to Elan III. 277 00:16:23,504 --> 00:16:25,201 [man] They sent me to Parsonsfield. 278 00:16:25,245 --> 00:16:28,030 [Jaela] I went... of course you go straight to the dorm 279 00:16:28,074 --> 00:16:31,555 and then you have your Kwell shower, the famous Kwell. 280 00:16:31,599 --> 00:16:33,644 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 281 00:16:33,688 --> 00:16:38,736 The louse shampoo and all that shit. Going up there for your indoctrination. 282 00:16:38,780 --> 00:16:43,089 You have to change your clothes and remove your jewelry and your shoelaces and all of that. 283 00:16:43,132 --> 00:16:46,701 Take your fucking hat off, tuck your shirt... 284 00:16:46,744 --> 00:16:48,224 I'm like, just the regular emotions 285 00:16:48,268 --> 00:16:50,922 of never hearing anything like this before in your life. 286 00:16:50,966 --> 00:16:53,447 [Peter] They asked me, why'd you run away from your last place? 287 00:16:53,490 --> 00:16:56,493 Being 16 and you know, I was like, "I wanted to get laid." 288 00:16:56,537 --> 00:16:59,105 I took a girl with me. 289 00:16:59,148 --> 00:17:01,890 And Marty said to me, "Well, you can't get laid here. 290 00:17:01,933 --> 00:17:03,022 You can't even flirt here." 291 00:17:03,065 --> 00:17:04,762 My jaw kind of dropped, it was like, 292 00:17:05,285 --> 00:17:08,070 "Yeah, you say that, but the students will say something else." 293 00:17:08,114 --> 00:17:14,076 [Tracy] So some kid that was my SP in Clara walks me up to Elan VII, which wasn't far. 294 00:17:14,120 --> 00:17:17,558 But as I'm walking up there I'm hearing screaming. 295 00:17:20,213 --> 00:17:24,086 [Peter] So I walked in the door and the first thing they told me 296 00:17:24,130 --> 00:17:27,046 was "You get to leave when you change." 297 00:17:27,089 --> 00:17:32,225 [Tracy] So I get in Elan, and I'm looking around, in Elan VII, and I'm like, 298 00:17:33,748 --> 00:17:37,012 "Okay, this kid is scrubbing the corner. 299 00:17:37,056 --> 00:17:40,494 This kid is wearing a fucking piece of poster board around their neck, 300 00:17:40,537 --> 00:17:42,409 this kid is in the corner, 301 00:17:42,452 --> 00:17:46,587 and there's a bunch of other kids just sitting around looking miserable. 302 00:17:46,630 --> 00:17:48,197 [people shouting over each other] 303 00:17:48,241 --> 00:17:50,156 [Tracy] I'd never seen anything like that in my life. 304 00:17:50,199 --> 00:17:52,375 Stand right there! 305 00:17:52,419 --> 00:17:55,291 [man] I just remember looking around seeing people with signs and shaved heads 306 00:17:55,335 --> 00:17:58,120 and somebody wearing a clown outfit. 307 00:17:58,164 --> 00:18:00,557 [man] I thought everybody was out of their minds. 308 00:18:00,601 --> 00:18:04,953 I didn't have relatives. I was brought in during lunch time, and I sat down at the table. 309 00:18:04,996 --> 00:18:08,739 Immediately I turned to the girl next to me, I'm like, "This shit is fucking crazy. 310 00:18:08,783 --> 00:18:10,176 Where am I?" 311 00:18:10,219 --> 00:18:11,612 Where the fuck am I? 312 00:18:11,655 --> 00:18:14,180 And apparently she was a non-strength. 313 00:18:14,223 --> 00:18:17,618 Immediately I got pulled into another room and I got dealt with. 314 00:18:17,661 --> 00:18:20,099 [Tracy] So I started crying, like profusely crying. 315 00:18:20,142 --> 00:18:22,275 Threw a tantrum, I was like, "I'm not staying here. 316 00:18:22,318 --> 00:18:26,366 I don't want to be here. You made a mistake, this is not me. 317 00:18:26,409 --> 00:18:29,804 I don't know what the fuck is going on, but you all are fucking crazy." 318 00:18:29,847 --> 00:18:33,764 I was almost begging to go back to the detention center. 319 00:18:33,808 --> 00:18:38,073 It was surreal, to say the least. It was unreal. 320 00:18:38,117 --> 00:18:40,902 [Peter] It was as if we were in a parallel universe 321 00:18:40,945 --> 00:18:44,471 and for some reason the kids were all acting like they liked it. 322 00:18:44,514 --> 00:18:46,603 Very bizarre. 323 00:18:46,647 --> 00:18:50,738 So I'm continuing to cry, and people are trying to tell me like, "Tighten up." 324 00:18:51,478 --> 00:18:55,046 Using these terms that I've never heard like, 325 00:18:55,090 --> 00:18:57,266 "We're not going to placate you." 326 00:18:57,310 --> 00:18:59,877 At 16, I had no idea what placate meant. 327 00:18:59,921 --> 00:19:01,705 "We're not going to placate you. 328 00:19:01,749 --> 00:19:04,404 You need to tighten up, you're causing a scene. 329 00:19:04,447 --> 00:19:06,362 You're disrupting the community." 330 00:19:06,406 --> 00:19:08,408 [Dave] The first day at Elan 331 00:19:08,451 --> 00:19:13,587 I had taken in the lunch line two milks instead of one milk. 332 00:19:13,630 --> 00:19:14,849 Next thing I know. 333 00:19:14,892 --> 00:19:16,633 General fucking meeting. 334 00:19:16,677 --> 00:19:17,982 Get in front of your house. 335 00:19:18,026 --> 00:19:19,810 Oh fuck. 336 00:19:19,854 --> 00:19:22,161 And all the kids are like, "Go, go. Stand up there. Stand up there." 337 00:19:22,204 --> 00:19:24,380 [Dave] I find myself up against the wall 338 00:19:24,424 --> 00:19:28,776 with about, easy, 150 people in that place. 339 00:19:28,819 --> 00:19:32,171 [Tracy] So I'm standing up there and I'm still bawling my eyes out crying. 340 00:19:32,214 --> 00:19:34,956 When you got a GM, they break you down, man. 341 00:19:34,999 --> 00:19:39,700 And Tanya just starts ripping me like, "You fucking are manipulative. 342 00:19:39,743 --> 00:19:45,445 You're a fucking lying brat. You fucking destroyed your family." 343 00:19:45,488 --> 00:19:47,795 You couldn't do nothing but cry. 344 00:19:47,838 --> 00:19:52,452 [Tracy] "You destroyed your family. You made everybody around you miserable." 345 00:19:52,495 --> 00:19:56,630 They would talk about what you'd done wrong in these terms like you'd murdered somebody. 346 00:19:56,673 --> 00:20:02,418 [Tracy] The house is worked up into such a feeding frenzy, and into such a battle mode. 347 00:20:02,462 --> 00:20:05,160 It's like the gladiators in the fucking Coliseum man. 348 00:20:05,204 --> 00:20:07,380 You could feel the house tremble. 349 00:20:07,423 --> 00:20:11,775 [Alec] Someone's thrown up there in chains and they let all the tigers out. 350 00:20:11,819 --> 00:20:15,170 [Tracy] So then she's like, "Does anybody else have feelings about this?" 351 00:20:15,214 --> 00:20:17,259 "Does anybody have any feelings about it?" 352 00:20:17,303 --> 00:20:19,000 "Who's got feelings for him? Get him." 353 00:20:19,043 --> 00:20:21,002 "Get his ass." 354 00:20:21,045 --> 00:20:24,745 [Tracy] Next thing I know, I have 50 fucking kids rushing at me. 355 00:20:24,788 --> 00:20:28,705 People rush, I mean chairs flung... 356 00:20:28,749 --> 00:20:32,492 as they get out of their chair it falls on the floor behind them. 357 00:20:32,535 --> 00:20:34,145 They would bum-rush you. 358 00:20:34,189 --> 00:20:36,147 They were this far away from your face. 359 00:20:36,191 --> 00:20:37,279 Screaming at-- 360 00:20:37,323 --> 00:20:38,454 The top of their lungs. 361 00:20:38,498 --> 00:20:43,503 [people screaming] 362 00:20:47,028 --> 00:20:51,075 "You fucking asshole. How can you do this? I can't stand... 363 00:20:51,119 --> 00:20:53,208 I'm going to kick your motherfucking ass. 364 00:20:53,252 --> 00:20:55,993 If I knew you on the street, you're a little mama's boy, 365 00:20:56,037 --> 00:20:58,300 you'd be sucking my dick, blah, blah, blah." 366 00:20:58,344 --> 00:21:01,956 Spitting in your face the whole time and you have to stand there like this. 367 00:21:01,999 --> 00:21:05,307 When they finished with you, you were completely degraded, 368 00:21:05,351 --> 00:21:07,962 humiliated, you wasn't worth damn. 369 00:21:08,005 --> 00:21:09,311 [gavel banging] 370 00:21:11,313 --> 00:21:13,489 [woman] Thank you very much everybody, great to hear all of you. 371 00:21:14,882 --> 00:21:17,754 Last week two judges in Pennsylvania plead guilty 372 00:21:17,798 --> 00:21:21,062 to taking over 2.5 million dollars in kickbacks 373 00:21:21,105 --> 00:21:26,110 for placing over 5000 teens in private wilderness program in a juvenile detention center. 374 00:21:26,154 --> 00:21:30,245 What's shocking here is not just the judge's horrific misconduct, 375 00:21:30,289 --> 00:21:34,162 but the fact that the same thing takes place all the time legally 376 00:21:34,205 --> 00:21:36,599 in the private placements we've just heard about. 377 00:21:36,643 --> 00:21:38,601 Like the private prison business, 378 00:21:38,645 --> 00:21:42,344 this industry is about making money by locking up children. 379 00:21:42,388 --> 00:21:44,215 It is not about helping them. 380 00:21:44,259 --> 00:21:47,436 The treatment they sell is abuse. The abuse is not... 381 00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:52,136 [Maia] When I was in college and in high school, I had a drug problem. 382 00:21:52,180 --> 00:21:54,791 I became addicted to cocaine and heroin. 383 00:21:54,835 --> 00:21:57,316 And I was afraid to get treatment 384 00:21:57,359 --> 00:21:59,970 because what I'd read about addiction treatment 385 00:22:00,014 --> 00:22:04,497 was that the whole idea was to humiliate and break and attack you. 386 00:22:04,540 --> 00:22:08,022 And I thought that's exactly the opposite of what I need 387 00:22:08,065 --> 00:22:10,198 because the reason I'm using drugs 388 00:22:10,241 --> 00:22:14,289 is because I feel uncomfortable and unsafe around other people. 389 00:22:14,333 --> 00:22:18,424 And so when I got into recovery eventually 390 00:22:18,467 --> 00:22:22,645 I wanted to understand where did this idea come from 391 00:22:22,689 --> 00:22:25,169 that we should break addicts to fix them? 392 00:22:25,213 --> 00:22:28,390 [man] Throughout the 1960s many new treatment programs 393 00:22:28,434 --> 00:22:31,045 had been launched in and out of government. 394 00:22:31,088 --> 00:22:34,527 Perhaps the most publicized is Synanon, 395 00:22:34,570 --> 00:22:39,270 a private organization founded and managed by ex-addicts. 396 00:22:39,314 --> 00:22:41,534 Best thing for people is people, 397 00:22:41,577 --> 00:22:46,103 and Synanon provides the environment to bring together people from all walks of life. 398 00:22:48,367 --> 00:22:51,152 [man] Synanon was founded by a man named Charles Dederich, 399 00:22:51,195 --> 00:22:54,503 an ex-alcoholic and frequent speaker at alcoholics anonymous. 400 00:22:54,547 --> 00:22:58,115 It was his answer to the dilemma drug addicts were facing during the early '60s. 401 00:22:58,159 --> 00:23:00,379 There was nowhere they could go for help. 402 00:23:00,422 --> 00:23:03,512 During that time, drug addiction was seen as much more severe than alcohol addiction. 403 00:23:03,556 --> 00:23:05,688 So Dederich came up with a solution 404 00:23:05,732 --> 00:23:09,866 using the 12 steps made famous in Alcoholics Anonymous, but with a new twist. 405 00:23:09,910 --> 00:23:12,303 [Maia] He thought that AA wasn't tough enough. 406 00:23:12,347 --> 00:23:15,350 He thought that the 12 steps were all well and good, 407 00:23:15,394 --> 00:23:18,745 but they really wouldn't work unless you forced people to do them. 408 00:23:18,788 --> 00:23:21,704 [man] At the core of Synanon were group sessions that relied 409 00:23:21,748 --> 00:23:24,272 on highly intense confrontation between group members. 410 00:23:24,315 --> 00:23:25,621 -You're a little baby. -Really? 411 00:23:25,665 --> 00:23:27,971 -I want, I want, I want. -[talking a the same time] 412 00:23:28,015 --> 00:23:30,060 When I want to go, I go. 413 00:23:30,104 --> 00:23:32,019 [man] The idea was to break down their defenses 414 00:23:32,062 --> 00:23:34,325 to make them reveal their innermost deepest troubles. 415 00:23:34,369 --> 00:23:36,937 Only then would they be able to help themselves towards sobriety. 416 00:23:36,980 --> 00:23:39,722 In Synanon, this ideology was known as The Game. 417 00:23:39,766 --> 00:23:42,029 Today it's more commonly known as-- 418 00:23:42,072 --> 00:23:47,251 Attack therapy is basically the idea that you've developed this horrible bad personality, 419 00:23:47,295 --> 00:23:52,909 and we need to attack you and break you 420 00:23:52,953 --> 00:23:58,611 entirely in order to eliminate it and to rebuild you as a good person. 421 00:23:58,654 --> 00:24:00,961 [man] Synanon achieved massive success. 422 00:24:01,004 --> 00:24:04,007 However, it wasn't long before stories of abuse and cult-like behavior 423 00:24:04,051 --> 00:24:07,184 began to emerge, and after a lengthy legal battle with the IRS, 424 00:24:07,228 --> 00:24:09,491 Synanon would eventually shutdown. 425 00:24:09,535 --> 00:24:13,147 But not without leaving behind a legacy that is still being felt to this day. 426 00:24:13,190 --> 00:24:16,716 After getting massive amounts of publicity, 427 00:24:16,759 --> 00:24:19,675 a major motion picture, all the evening news, 428 00:24:19,719 --> 00:24:23,810 all the big media was saying how this is this wonderful cure. 429 00:24:23,853 --> 00:24:27,857 It spread to New York where Phoenix House and Daytop were founded. 430 00:24:27,901 --> 00:24:31,382 [man] Daytop Village is typical of the halfway house concept. 431 00:24:31,426 --> 00:24:36,823 Where the addict is slowly eased back into society, one step at a time. 432 00:24:36,866 --> 00:24:41,436 Synanon evolved into Daytop and other therapeutic communities. 433 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,440 And Joe Ricci went to Daytop. 434 00:24:45,484 --> 00:24:50,532 [man] The man who runs Elan is Joe Ricci, himself a former delinquent and heroin addict. 435 00:24:50,576 --> 00:24:54,405 [Daniel] Joe came out of Daytop in '67 or '68. 436 00:24:54,449 --> 00:24:56,582 He went through the program then he worked for it. 437 00:24:56,625 --> 00:25:01,500 [man] And ultimately wanted to found his own therapeutic version of Daytop. 438 00:25:01,543 --> 00:25:03,937 [Daniel] And then he was introduced to Gerald Davidson. 439 00:25:03,980 --> 00:25:08,768 Dr. Davidson was a Harvard educated psychiatrist. 440 00:25:08,811 --> 00:25:10,552 [man] And they went up to Maine. 441 00:25:10,596 --> 00:25:14,425 What I understand, Maine had less stringent laws 442 00:25:14,469 --> 00:25:17,777 on who could operate and what kind of permits you needed. 443 00:25:17,820 --> 00:25:21,563 [man] In 1970 Joe Ricci and Gerald Davidson opened the first facility 444 00:25:21,607 --> 00:25:23,130 in the small town of Sebago, Maine. 445 00:25:23,173 --> 00:25:25,393 They called it Elan I, 446 00:25:25,436 --> 00:25:28,831 and like Daytop, the program mainly focused on rehabilitating hardened drug addicts. 447 00:25:28,875 --> 00:25:32,400 It started out early, it started out drunks, 448 00:25:32,443 --> 00:25:35,316 and most of the people were 18 and over. 449 00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:37,797 As a matter of fact they were well within their 20s. 450 00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:39,973 Most of them were junkies, 451 00:25:40,016 --> 00:25:44,368 and Elan truly was their last stop before prison or death. 452 00:25:44,412 --> 00:25:49,896 And then they were convinced that they could take on other people. 453 00:25:50,549 --> 00:25:52,681 Runaways, a lot of runaways. 454 00:25:52,725 --> 00:25:55,162 Running away or being truant from school. 455 00:25:55,205 --> 00:25:56,467 Promiscuity. 456 00:25:56,511 --> 00:25:58,948 Girls that had gotten pregnant as teenagers. 457 00:25:58,992 --> 00:26:01,211 Your very violent offenders. 458 00:26:01,255 --> 00:26:04,127 [Tracy] Stealing cars, breaking into houses. 459 00:26:04,171 --> 00:26:06,652 Marty Maxwell was there, he was there for robbing banks. 460 00:26:06,695 --> 00:26:07,783 [Tracy] Mugging people. 461 00:26:07,827 --> 00:26:09,611 There were a lot of gang members. 462 00:26:09,655 --> 00:26:12,005 -We had manslaughter. -[Tracy] Held people at knife point. 463 00:26:12,048 --> 00:26:13,441 Pedophilia. 464 00:26:13,484 --> 00:26:15,878 Some kids I remember I had heard had raped people. 465 00:26:15,922 --> 00:26:21,580 Maybe half the people there had been sexually abused consistently. 466 00:26:21,623 --> 00:26:26,802 [Daniel] People that had very serious emotional and psychological problems. 467 00:26:26,846 --> 00:26:28,717 [Tracy] There were a lot of kids there 468 00:26:28,761 --> 00:26:32,025 that had been put in every kind of placement center or treatment 469 00:26:32,068 --> 00:26:35,681 or whatever you want to call it that their state could possible send them to. 470 00:26:35,724 --> 00:26:39,946 They come from mental institutions or juvenile detention centers. 471 00:26:39,989 --> 00:26:43,036 And Elan was the last place that they would send these kids. 472 00:26:43,079 --> 00:26:46,605 We started to move into autism, we started to move into Asperger's. 473 00:26:46,648 --> 00:26:50,696 After I'd been at Elan for a few years and I was receiving a general meeting, 474 00:26:50,739 --> 00:26:53,742 the director suddenly turned to everybody and said, 475 00:26:53,786 --> 00:26:59,443 "Did you know that before she came to Elan, she had been diagnosed as semi-autistic?" 476 00:26:59,487 --> 00:27:01,750 We started to move into-- 477 00:27:01,794 --> 00:27:02,969 [man speaking] 478 00:27:04,405 --> 00:27:05,624 [Daniel] Murder. 479 00:27:07,277 --> 00:27:09,236 [man] It was the night before Halloween 27 years ago 480 00:27:09,279 --> 00:27:11,934 when 15-year old Martha Moxley was found beaten to death 481 00:27:11,978 --> 00:27:14,241 outside her home in upscale Greenwich, Connecticut. 482 00:27:14,284 --> 00:27:17,548 Among the suspects, her next door neighbor Michael Skakel. 483 00:27:17,592 --> 00:27:19,333 - [woman] Michael Skakel. - Michael Skakel. 484 00:27:19,376 --> 00:27:20,551 Michael Skakel. 485 00:27:20,595 --> 00:27:22,815 A Kennedy cousin serving 20 years to life-- 486 00:27:22,858 --> 00:27:24,773 For a murder that shocked the nation, 487 00:27:24,817 --> 00:27:27,689 Skakel was convicted in a 1975 murder 488 00:27:27,733 --> 00:27:30,083 of his 15-year-old neighbor in Greenwich. 489 00:27:30,126 --> 00:27:32,781 [man] It was at Elan during group therapy 490 00:27:32,825 --> 00:27:37,351 that Michael would allegedly confess to killing Martha Moxley. 491 00:27:37,394 --> 00:27:40,702 We got way out of our purview there, way out. 492 00:27:41,442 --> 00:27:45,664 [Julie] There were kids there who talked to boys, 493 00:27:45,707 --> 00:27:49,537 and that was their only problem. 494 00:27:49,580 --> 00:27:52,279 They talked to boys, they came from a religious family. 495 00:27:52,322 --> 00:27:54,324 Some kids just acted badly 496 00:27:54,368 --> 00:27:57,850 and I think their parents had the money to send them there, so Elan took them. 497 00:27:57,893 --> 00:28:00,679 For the most part these troubled teen programs, 498 00:28:00,722 --> 00:28:04,552 the evaluation they do is what I call a wallet biopsy. 499 00:28:04,595 --> 00:28:06,423 Do you have enough money to afford it? 500 00:28:06,467 --> 00:28:09,470 Then yes, your problem is severe enough. That's it. 501 00:28:09,513 --> 00:28:14,257 [cashier dinging] 502 00:28:14,301 --> 00:28:20,307 [man] By 2011, the annual tuition for one-year stay at Elan, over $54,000. 503 00:28:20,350 --> 00:28:25,704 [interviewer] That's far more expensive than even the most expensive university education. 504 00:28:27,357 --> 00:28:28,663 Do you still think it's worth it? 505 00:28:29,664 --> 00:28:30,709 Yes, indeed. 506 00:28:31,318 --> 00:28:32,362 Could you tell me why? 507 00:28:33,842 --> 00:28:37,237 Well, what's the worth of a life? 508 00:28:41,371 --> 00:28:44,810 [Mary] In January of '74 there was a major fire. 509 00:28:45,462 --> 00:28:50,729 Up in the attic this boy named Burt set a fire because he hated the place, 510 00:28:50,772 --> 00:28:53,514 and he knew that a lot of us hated it too. 511 00:28:53,557 --> 00:28:57,605 He knew that the neighbors hated us and wanted us out. 512 00:28:57,648 --> 00:29:01,261 So he set a fire and because the old house 513 00:29:01,914 --> 00:29:05,395 consisted of wood it just burned fast. 514 00:29:05,439 --> 00:29:09,399 [man] After Elan I burned down, operations were moved to the facility in Waterford. 515 00:29:09,443 --> 00:29:10,879 This would be Elan II. 516 00:29:10,923 --> 00:29:13,490 Soon the main campus in Poland Springs was opened, 517 00:29:13,534 --> 00:29:16,885 and then a maximum security facility was established in Parsonsfield 518 00:29:16,929 --> 00:29:20,323 to house state wards and kids that were facing severe criminal charges. 519 00:29:20,367 --> 00:29:23,544 Yes, Elan certainly was Joe Ricci's big success, 520 00:29:23,587 --> 00:29:26,373 and like any good businessman he diversified his investments. 521 00:29:26,416 --> 00:29:28,157 He bought the Scarborough Downs race track. 522 00:29:28,201 --> 00:29:30,986 [man] Scarborough Downs still a cut above the best. 523 00:29:31,030 --> 00:29:32,596 [man] And ran for governor. 524 00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:35,469 Hi, I'm Joseph Ricci, Democratic candidate for governor. 525 00:29:35,512 --> 00:29:38,777 [man] Joe's empire was expanding and so was the new troubled teen industry. 526 00:29:38,820 --> 00:29:41,344 Parents, psychologists and courts from all over the world 527 00:29:41,388 --> 00:29:43,956 were sending their troubled kids to Elan for treatment. 528 00:29:43,999 --> 00:29:47,916 The troubled teen industry has become connected. 529 00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:53,226 Sometimes a drug rehab will recommend a wilderness program, 530 00:29:53,269 --> 00:29:56,664 and sometimes a psychiatrist will recommend these things, 531 00:29:56,707 --> 00:30:00,189 largely because they're ignorant of what actually goes on, 532 00:30:00,233 --> 00:30:02,844 and also because unfortunately 533 00:30:02,888 --> 00:30:06,065 professional treatment is not always so professional either. 534 00:30:06,108 --> 00:30:07,240 [man screaming] 535 00:30:07,283 --> 00:30:08,850 [man] You won't get out of doing it! 536 00:30:08,894 --> 00:30:10,721 You and everybody else has to! 537 00:30:10,765 --> 00:30:12,158 [man screaming] 538 00:30:12,201 --> 00:30:13,768 [woman screaming] You know this lack of quality, 539 00:30:13,812 --> 00:30:16,858 you know this crap, you know it just will not be tolerated! 540 00:30:16,902 --> 00:30:19,339 [man] Yeah, you're the first one to do it! 541 00:30:19,382 --> 00:30:24,257 [man] Day in day out, life at Elan is constant confrontation. 542 00:30:24,300 --> 00:30:25,824 [inaudible]. 543 00:30:25,867 --> 00:30:27,651 [man] Unrelenting pressure. 544 00:30:27,695 --> 00:30:30,306 I couldn't believe all the shit that was left on those things! 545 00:30:30,350 --> 00:30:35,442 [man] Your feelings, your negative attitudes are broken down, dissected, torn apart. 546 00:30:36,051 --> 00:30:39,576 The idea is to change your behavior. 547 00:30:40,229 --> 00:30:44,755 [man] The Elan program was two-fold. In one sense there were therapeutic groups. 548 00:30:44,799 --> 00:30:46,279 [woman] Primal groups. 549 00:30:46,322 --> 00:30:48,020 -[woman] Encounter groups. -[man] A parent group. 550 00:30:48,063 --> 00:30:49,935 The other side of Elan 551 00:30:49,978 --> 00:30:55,418 was a functional working microcosm of the work world. 552 00:30:55,462 --> 00:30:57,551 Everybody had a job around the house, 553 00:30:57,594 --> 00:31:02,773 and everybody had to make the house, 554 00:31:02,817 --> 00:31:05,864 the society of sorts, to function. 555 00:31:05,907 --> 00:31:07,909 It was very Lord of the Flies. 556 00:31:07,953 --> 00:31:12,435 Yes. I've actually explained it that way to people I've known several times. 557 00:31:12,479 --> 00:31:15,308 That's the best part, it's the most ingenious fucking thing ever. 558 00:31:15,351 --> 00:31:18,311 You have the prisoners run the prison. 559 00:31:18,354 --> 00:31:22,184 It seemed like patients therapeutatized the other patients. 560 00:31:22,228 --> 00:31:24,883 It's great because everybody wants to move up. 561 00:31:24,926 --> 00:31:27,320 We all know we want to get out of this place. 562 00:31:27,363 --> 00:31:29,800 That's the only way you can convince people to, 563 00:31:31,715 --> 00:31:34,980 I don't know, shut off their real human convictions. 564 00:31:35,023 --> 00:31:37,156 [man] You're disgusting. 565 00:31:37,199 --> 00:31:40,942 Because everyone here's trying to be the exact opposite of what you are now, 566 00:31:40,986 --> 00:31:42,335 and you want to hold on to it. 567 00:31:42,378 --> 00:31:43,858 That's the disgusting part of it. 568 00:31:43,902 --> 00:31:45,816 You just better start being honest with us man, 569 00:31:45,860 --> 00:31:47,601 because everyone's getting pretty hostile. 570 00:31:47,644 --> 00:31:49,646 [Peter] And I bought into the whole thing. 571 00:31:50,299 --> 00:31:54,651 I am going to do whatever they tell me to do, okay? 572 00:31:54,695 --> 00:32:00,396 I am going to hurt anybody they want me to because I want to get out of here. 573 00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,573 Elan does things a little differently, 574 00:32:04,661 --> 00:32:09,188 more of an emphasis on integrity honesty, accountability. 575 00:32:10,015 --> 00:32:15,020 Wellness kind of a model rather than a psychiatric or illness model. 576 00:32:15,063 --> 00:32:20,199 And the kids often don't know they're being therapized, if I can use that word. 577 00:32:20,242 --> 00:32:23,419 [man] Each Elan house functioned through the collective work of five offices. 578 00:32:23,463 --> 00:32:26,335 The service crew were the janitors, the kitchen crew handled the food, 579 00:32:26,379 --> 00:32:28,294 the business office filed paperwork, 580 00:32:28,337 --> 00:32:30,905 the communications office brought news from the outside world, 581 00:32:30,949 --> 00:32:33,038 and the expediters enforced security. 582 00:32:33,081 --> 00:32:35,954 Each office was managed by a specific hierarchy of positions 583 00:32:35,997 --> 00:32:39,783 that each resident had to work through in order to graduate the program. 584 00:32:39,827 --> 00:32:43,396 [woman] I remember when you came in you were non-strength and you were a worker. 585 00:32:43,439 --> 00:32:47,182 Everybody went into service crew first, and you were a worker. 586 00:32:49,402 --> 00:32:52,100 [man] Elan residents are taught to obey authority. 587 00:32:52,883 --> 00:32:57,105 They're made to work at menial jobs, to do what they're told to do. 588 00:32:57,149 --> 00:33:01,588 You just cleaned floors, you'd do this, you'd do that, you'd dust this. 589 00:33:01,631 --> 00:33:03,720 And then you had a ramrod. 590 00:33:03,764 --> 00:33:08,073 Then you got some dudes coming around with a white glove checking your work out, 591 00:33:08,116 --> 00:33:11,815 and if it wasn't right, you'd be there half a day again redoing it. 592 00:33:11,859 --> 00:33:16,124 There was worker and ramrod, and those were the two non-strength positions. 593 00:33:16,168 --> 00:33:19,171 And in order to talk to somebody else that wasn't a strength, 594 00:33:19,214 --> 00:33:22,826 you had to have a strength being aware of your conversation. 595 00:33:22,870 --> 00:33:24,959 Monitoring your conversation. 596 00:33:25,003 --> 00:33:26,961 [Jeff] You always had somebody watching you. 597 00:33:27,005 --> 00:33:29,137 You couldn't go to the bathroom on your own. 598 00:33:29,181 --> 00:33:32,184 [man] Each household is a tightly structured community. 599 00:33:32,227 --> 00:33:36,144 New residents do the dirty work under the supervision of more senior residents. 600 00:33:36,188 --> 00:33:38,364 [Tracy] And then you would go to expediter. 601 00:33:38,407 --> 00:33:42,672 Once you hit expediter, that was the first time that you were a strength. 602 00:33:42,716 --> 00:33:46,546 Expediters were responsible for security. 603 00:33:46,589 --> 00:33:49,288 [Joseph] The expediter is a police man. 604 00:33:49,331 --> 00:33:54,032 They're the line of defense between the normal people and the lunatics. 605 00:33:54,075 --> 00:33:56,208 [Gillian] The expediters had clipboards, 606 00:33:56,251 --> 00:34:01,039 and they would be put on certain designated spots throughout the houses called zones. 607 00:34:01,082 --> 00:34:06,087 The expediters would watch the doors to make sure nobody ran, and then at the dorm. 608 00:34:06,131 --> 00:34:08,959 The night owl made sure that you didn't run in the middle of the night. 609 00:34:10,135 --> 00:34:12,050 [man] In the households, 610 00:34:12,093 --> 00:34:15,314 discipline is maintained by an elite group called the expediters. 611 00:34:15,357 --> 00:34:20,493 They relay orders, keep track of every resident, and report negative behavior. 612 00:34:20,536 --> 00:34:22,712 Some call them spies. 613 00:34:22,756 --> 00:34:25,324 [Gillian] They would watch and write down all the things 614 00:34:25,367 --> 00:34:27,935 that people have done wrong throughout the day. 615 00:34:27,978 --> 00:34:33,027 [man] They record the names, the actions of everyone in every room continuously. 616 00:34:33,071 --> 00:34:37,597 I'll have to tell you, this is probably not very... something I should be proud of. 617 00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:39,468 Nobody ever ran away on my time. 618 00:34:39,512 --> 00:34:41,557 [man] At Elan there is no privacy. 619 00:34:42,906 --> 00:34:47,128 Incoming mail is open, outgoing mail is read and censored. 620 00:34:47,172 --> 00:34:49,130 Telephone calls are monitored. 621 00:34:49,174 --> 00:34:53,352 Every conversation is subject to eavesdropping and informing. 622 00:34:53,395 --> 00:34:58,705 And then was it department head from there? And then it was department head. 623 00:34:58,748 --> 00:35:00,446 A department head 624 00:35:00,489 --> 00:35:05,625 was basically when you first became a manager. 625 00:35:05,668 --> 00:35:07,235 Department head of the kitchen crew. 626 00:35:09,194 --> 00:35:12,545 And then you would go to shingle. Shingle was the head of the expediters. 627 00:35:12,588 --> 00:35:15,591 Michelle, take dining room zone. 628 00:35:15,635 --> 00:35:17,506 Rachel, go to top zone please. 629 00:35:17,550 --> 00:35:20,988 I'm pretty sure I was a shingle for like a fucking year-and-a-half. 630 00:35:21,031 --> 00:35:23,469 [Gillian] And then you had coordinator. 631 00:35:23,512 --> 00:35:25,340 Coordinator of communications. 632 00:35:25,384 --> 00:35:27,125 I loved being COD. 633 00:35:27,168 --> 00:35:29,475 COD stood for coordinator on duty. 634 00:35:29,518 --> 00:35:31,781 Pretty much you ran the house for that day. 635 00:35:31,825 --> 00:35:33,740 You were the boss, you were in charge, 636 00:35:33,783 --> 00:35:36,569 and you were accountable for everything that went on in your house. 637 00:35:38,397 --> 00:35:40,747 [Peter] Well, first of all there were directors, 638 00:35:40,790 --> 00:35:45,186 and below them there were assistant directors, 639 00:35:45,230 --> 00:35:48,407 and below them were staff. 640 00:35:48,450 --> 00:35:51,627 And the staff members were the people in reentry. 641 00:35:51,671 --> 00:35:57,720 I did reentry staff then I... I never was officially hired. 642 00:35:57,764 --> 00:36:01,071 It was a job for them until they went home 643 00:36:01,855 --> 00:36:04,162 or decided to stay. 644 00:36:04,205 --> 00:36:08,296 You have hundreds of years of expert people up here to walk you through this, 645 00:36:08,340 --> 00:36:12,082 hold your hand, help you, push you through a window, 646 00:36:12,126 --> 00:36:14,694 pull you through a window, and help you change. 647 00:36:14,737 --> 00:36:19,960 So consequently the only thing you have to do here is to be as hardworking as you can, 648 00:36:20,003 --> 00:36:24,443 and to be totally as honest as you can. 649 00:36:24,486 --> 00:36:26,662 [Julie] I don't know a lot about the staff in Elan, 650 00:36:26,706 --> 00:36:31,406 I do know that a lot of them were former residents who had graduated the program. 651 00:36:31,450 --> 00:36:35,802 And I don't know if there actually were any staff there 652 00:36:35,845 --> 00:36:38,283 with formal psych training or anything. 653 00:36:38,326 --> 00:36:40,676 I don't think so. I never saw a psychiatrist while I was there, 654 00:36:40,720 --> 00:36:42,548 I never saw a psychologist. 655 00:36:42,591 --> 00:36:48,031 [Peter] These were all people who had no training, no psychology classes. 656 00:36:48,075 --> 00:36:52,688 Their only qualification was that they themselves had been through the program. 657 00:36:52,732 --> 00:36:55,822 They thought that because they had been through experiences 658 00:36:55,865 --> 00:36:59,521 that, that qualified them to handle disturbed kids. 659 00:36:59,565 --> 00:37:04,091 [man] There are no national standards nor even a consensus of expert opinion 660 00:37:04,134 --> 00:37:06,702 on how much formal training should be required 661 00:37:06,746 --> 00:37:09,531 of person involved in treating troubled kids. 662 00:37:09,575 --> 00:37:12,795 But both Dr. Davidson, a trained psychiatrist, 663 00:37:12,839 --> 00:37:15,885 and Joe Ricci, who did not graduate from college, 664 00:37:15,929 --> 00:37:18,410 believe that experience is the best teacher 665 00:37:18,453 --> 00:37:22,849 when it comes to helping the type of kids who come to Elan. 666 00:37:22,892 --> 00:37:24,242 ...if you ask for help. 667 00:37:25,460 --> 00:37:31,336 Now, when you get shot down you lose your position. 668 00:37:31,379 --> 00:37:35,601 Yeah, I was shot down. I got shot down three times for having sex. 669 00:37:35,644 --> 00:37:38,691 [Julie] If you're going to be shot down you have to scrub floors, 670 00:37:38,734 --> 00:37:40,301 you have to GI the toilets. 671 00:37:40,345 --> 00:37:43,435 No, no, no, no. They didn't scrub it, they had toothbrushes. 672 00:37:43,478 --> 00:37:46,699 [man] It doesn't matter if the floor is brand new. 673 00:37:46,742 --> 00:37:50,703 You've got to sit there and scrub it for 18 hours. 674 00:37:50,746 --> 00:37:54,141 And God forbid you were fucking shot down and you had to pee, 675 00:37:54,184 --> 00:37:59,015 because you would have to go through a worker, a ramrod, 676 00:37:59,059 --> 00:38:04,369 a department head, a coordinator, senior coordinator, and then to staff. 677 00:38:04,412 --> 00:38:08,503 So it had to go through 11 different people for you to get permission to pee. 678 00:38:09,678 --> 00:38:13,465 And then you had to find somebody to be aware of you while you peed 679 00:38:13,508 --> 00:38:15,641 because you couldn't go in the bathroom alone. 680 00:38:17,207 --> 00:38:20,472 [man] Throughout the day residents functioned within their departments, 681 00:38:20,515 --> 00:38:25,520 only breaking for meals, meetings, a few hours of school at night, and of course, groups. 682 00:38:27,914 --> 00:38:31,613 [Julie] I remember there was a box at the front of the house, 683 00:38:31,657 --> 00:38:33,441 and there was a little slip of paper. 684 00:38:34,181 --> 00:38:35,835 Encounter groups. 685 00:38:35,878 --> 00:38:38,272 You couldn't swear at somebody or tell them you hated them 686 00:38:38,316 --> 00:38:41,362 unless you were in a general meeting or group therapy. 687 00:38:41,406 --> 00:38:45,366 If you were to make me angry, you told me to do something I didn't want to do, 688 00:38:45,410 --> 00:38:50,545 I'd write, "To Todd from Gillian, anger." I'd circle that, drop it in the box. 689 00:38:50,589 --> 00:38:53,374 Everybody would sit in a circle in one of the rooms, 690 00:38:53,418 --> 00:38:57,596 and then the staff or the director who was running it would say, 691 00:38:57,639 --> 00:38:59,554 "Okay, get your feelings off." 692 00:38:59,598 --> 00:39:03,950 And you would commence to basically cursing each other out one at a time, 693 00:39:03,993 --> 00:39:06,126 at the top of your fucking lungs. 694 00:39:07,083 --> 00:39:12,480 [man screaming and gasping for air]. 695 00:39:32,457 --> 00:39:35,285 And that was supposed to be how you dealt with your feelings. 696 00:39:35,329 --> 00:39:37,026 [man] In so-called encounter groups, 697 00:39:37,070 --> 00:39:40,247 residents are encouraged to express their hostile feelings. 698 00:39:40,290 --> 00:39:43,772 The result is usually a stream of curses and obscenities. 699 00:39:43,816 --> 00:39:48,734 You would yell at the person, swear at them, degrade them. 700 00:39:48,777 --> 00:39:50,170 -[man] Cunt. -[man] Whore. 701 00:39:50,213 --> 00:39:51,867 -[man] Needle dick. -[woman] Fucking slut. 702 00:39:51,911 --> 00:39:54,653 You could say anything you wanted to. 703 00:39:54,696 --> 00:39:57,917 They'd stomp their feet, and they'd be going like this. 704 00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:02,443 Frothing at the mouth, grabbing their pants like this. Rocking back and forth. 705 00:40:02,487 --> 00:40:04,967 Some people's seats would be popping up off the ground. 706 00:40:05,011 --> 00:40:07,230 [Gillian] Screaming at me, making eye contact. 707 00:40:07,274 --> 00:40:10,233 Calling me a bitch and all this stuff. 708 00:40:10,277 --> 00:40:13,367 Sometimes it was for the dumbest reasons too. 709 00:40:13,411 --> 00:40:16,239 [Peter] Somebody left their tube of shampoo in the shower 710 00:40:16,283 --> 00:40:19,329 because they were coming in after me to use it. 711 00:40:19,373 --> 00:40:21,593 I had no idea, it was right there. 712 00:40:21,636 --> 00:40:23,508 I used the Judy's Secret, 713 00:40:23,551 --> 00:40:28,426 I did it then the guy that went in afterwards, his shampoo was gone. 714 00:40:28,469 --> 00:40:31,907 Well, he dropped a slip on me and took me into an encounter group 715 00:40:31,951 --> 00:40:35,694 and he's sitting there screaming at me how he's going to kill me 716 00:40:35,737 --> 00:40:38,610 because I took his tube of Judy's Secret shampoo. 717 00:40:38,653 --> 00:40:41,482 You know what? I'm sick and tired of your garbage around here. 718 00:40:41,526 --> 00:40:43,832 You know I've got to deal with your-- 719 00:40:43,876 --> 00:40:49,708 If you weren't participating in the encounter groups intensely enough, 720 00:40:49,751 --> 00:40:51,971 it was you that would be in trouble. 721 00:40:52,014 --> 00:40:54,190 [Gillian] Most of the time when I was in groups 722 00:40:54,234 --> 00:40:56,758 it was a lot of going through the motions and just yelling because I had to, 723 00:40:56,802 --> 00:40:58,499 but there was one group in particular 724 00:40:58,543 --> 00:41:01,284 where a girl who I thought I was really close to 725 00:41:01,328 --> 00:41:03,417 had gone on her first visit with her mother. 726 00:41:03,461 --> 00:41:06,725 She told her that she shouldn't be there 727 00:41:06,768 --> 00:41:11,381 because there's girls who were raped by their father and stuff like that there, 728 00:41:11,425 --> 00:41:12,905 and she's not like that. 729 00:41:12,948 --> 00:41:15,385 Then I was in a group with her 730 00:41:15,429 --> 00:41:18,258 and that was the first time I ever actually yelled and meant it. 731 00:41:18,301 --> 00:41:21,914 I was crying so hard, I couldn't believe that someone had said something like that. 732 00:41:21,957 --> 00:41:25,308 As if I'm a disease and you are better than me. 733 00:41:25,352 --> 00:41:28,964 I can say that at that moment I was glad that something in this world 734 00:41:29,008 --> 00:41:31,967 was called an encounter group and I wasn't choking her. 735 00:41:32,011 --> 00:41:35,797 Back in the day when I was going through a lot of places 736 00:41:35,841 --> 00:41:39,627 being in institutions, there were no encounter groups. 737 00:41:39,671 --> 00:41:44,806 We would just simply beat each other's ass on the spot if something like that broke out. 738 00:41:44,850 --> 00:41:48,462 [man] After the shouting there is an attempt to resolve hostilities. 739 00:41:48,506 --> 00:41:51,900 With the ultimate goal of not only having peace, 740 00:41:51,944 --> 00:41:54,816 but having a better outcome in your daily interactions. 741 00:41:54,860 --> 00:41:57,906 They taught us that everyone in the world has feelings, 742 00:41:59,081 --> 00:42:01,127 and that's all they are is feelings. 743 00:42:01,170 --> 00:42:05,392 And the difference between a positive person and a negative person 744 00:42:05,435 --> 00:42:08,177 was how they reacted off of those feelings. 745 00:42:11,354 --> 00:42:15,663 [man] We're talking about attempting suicide by eating 15 pills of Antabuse, 746 00:42:15,707 --> 00:42:18,492 and then going out and having a glass of scotch. 747 00:42:18,536 --> 00:42:20,581 We're talking about waking up in the morning 748 00:42:20,625 --> 00:42:23,715 and just because you don't have booze, drinking shaving lotion, 749 00:42:23,758 --> 00:42:25,760 just to get alcohol out of it. 750 00:42:25,804 --> 00:42:28,371 We're talking about going into convulsions, 751 00:42:28,415 --> 00:42:34,029 and going into seizures and going into blackouts that you almost never came out of. 752 00:42:34,682 --> 00:42:39,121 [woman] I was at the point where I was pretty wasted one night, 753 00:42:39,165 --> 00:42:44,779 and I went out and I got a butcher knife and started stabbing myself in my stomach, 754 00:42:44,823 --> 00:42:48,609 which partly because I wanted my father to come and say, 755 00:42:48,653 --> 00:42:52,004 "It's okay Diana. You're going to be all right, you're a very sick little girl. 756 00:42:52,047 --> 00:42:54,789 We'll take you to the hospital and sew you up." 757 00:42:54,833 --> 00:42:59,620 I just wanted to know that he loved me because I felt like he didn't. 758 00:42:59,664 --> 00:43:01,622 I felt like nobody did. 759 00:43:01,666 --> 00:43:05,626 You have to make the decision whether or not it's worth it for you to live. 760 00:43:06,671 --> 00:43:10,022 You have got to do it for yourself. 761 00:43:12,633 --> 00:43:14,592 I want you to think about the times 762 00:43:14,635 --> 00:43:18,117 that you could never sit somebody down and spill your guts out. 763 00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,250 And I want you to say, "I'm lonely and it hurts me." 764 00:43:21,294 --> 00:43:23,165 Hold hands and think about that. 765 00:43:23,992 --> 00:43:26,386 Let's get in touch with what you are. 766 00:43:27,953 --> 00:43:30,259 [woman] I'm lonely and it hurts me. 767 00:43:30,303 --> 00:43:35,264 [Peter] You would think about a feeling that you had that made you sad. 768 00:43:35,308 --> 00:43:38,006 I'm lonely and it hurts me. 769 00:43:38,050 --> 00:43:41,401 That you felt bad about. 770 00:43:41,444 --> 00:43:45,100 [man] Think about what goes on inside. "I'm lonely and it hurts me," let's go. 771 00:43:45,144 --> 00:43:46,580 I'm lonely and it hurts me. 772 00:43:46,624 --> 00:43:51,367 I'm scared. I hate my father. This person raped me. 773 00:43:51,411 --> 00:43:53,631 I'm lonely and it hurts me. 774 00:43:53,674 --> 00:43:58,418 [Daniel] It was trying to go to your most inner child. 775 00:43:59,375 --> 00:44:02,074 I'm lonely and it hurts me. 776 00:44:02,117 --> 00:44:03,379 The hurt. 777 00:44:03,423 --> 00:44:06,382 I'm lonely and it hurts me! 778 00:44:06,426 --> 00:44:09,472 [Daniel] The wound's just left unidentified. 779 00:44:09,516 --> 00:44:12,650 [woman] I'm lonely and it hurts me! 780 00:44:12,693 --> 00:44:13,607 [man] Talk about it! 781 00:44:13,651 --> 00:44:17,480 I'm lonely and it hurts me! 782 00:44:17,524 --> 00:44:20,135 I'm lonely and it hurts me! 783 00:44:20,179 --> 00:44:23,269 I'm lonely and it hurts me! 784 00:44:23,312 --> 00:44:26,751 [screaming] 785 00:44:26,794 --> 00:44:31,103 [man] Get it all out. Get it all out. It's okay to cry. 786 00:44:31,146 --> 00:44:33,496 [Peter] And it was supposedly a way of-- 787 00:44:33,540 --> 00:44:36,848 -[Liz] Cleansing. -[Peter] ...cleansing out your problems. 788 00:44:39,024 --> 00:44:41,635 [man] You are watching primal scream therapy, 789 00:44:41,679 --> 00:44:45,421 which is intended to release a youngster's deepest fears and emotions. 790 00:44:45,465 --> 00:44:50,426 I had two primal groups surrounding my father's death. 791 00:44:50,470 --> 00:44:52,254 [man] Do you remember what you were screaming? 792 00:44:54,779 --> 00:44:56,781 [Liz] Yeah, why'd you leave me? 793 00:44:59,218 --> 00:45:03,526 When I got into high school I found amphetamines. 794 00:45:04,789 --> 00:45:07,008 Then I found crystal speed, 795 00:45:07,052 --> 00:45:12,666 and I did a lot of amphetamines and a lot of crystal, and I would drink a lot. 796 00:45:12,710 --> 00:45:17,062 Got thrown out of high school and went to night school. 797 00:45:17,105 --> 00:45:21,762 Then I got kicked out of night school for truancy. 798 00:45:21,806 --> 00:45:26,767 I had said to my father, "I need help, I think I'm going crazy." 799 00:45:27,507 --> 00:45:30,858 And he said, "Well, 800 00:45:30,902 --> 00:45:33,774 I would like you to consider going to Elan. 801 00:45:33,818 --> 00:45:36,951 Your brother went there and it seems to have done a world of good for him." 802 00:45:36,995 --> 00:45:40,433 He said, "I'll call you every day to make sure you're doing all right." 803 00:45:40,476 --> 00:45:44,176 And two days later I made this phony suicide attempt 804 00:45:44,219 --> 00:45:49,355 thinking I'd end up in the plush Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey, 805 00:45:49,398 --> 00:45:53,707 and instead I ended up on the psych ward. 806 00:45:54,316 --> 00:45:56,318 And my father died the next morning. 807 00:45:56,362 --> 00:45:59,757 He dropped dead jogging on a business trip in Chicago. 808 00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:03,456 They said the heart attack was so massive he was dead before he hit the pavement. 809 00:46:03,499 --> 00:46:08,200 So I felt so guilty about having made that suicide attempt and thinking, 810 00:46:08,243 --> 00:46:12,291 "Well, that probably contributed to my father's heart attack, which killed him." 811 00:46:13,161 --> 00:46:16,469 And my mother wanted me to go to Elan, 812 00:46:16,512 --> 00:46:20,995 and I'm pretty sure Peter at that point was advocating for me to go there as well. 813 00:46:21,735 --> 00:46:23,911 So I went to Elan. 814 00:46:26,131 --> 00:46:27,872 [woman] We are in a structured environment 815 00:46:27,915 --> 00:46:31,701 where these kids may not know how to have things organized. 816 00:46:31,745 --> 00:46:36,358 Don't know how to keep anything on time, how to do something, 817 00:46:36,402 --> 00:46:39,797 and this teaches them to live in an environment where there is actually discipline. 818 00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:43,670 [man] Along with their job, every resident had a set of daily responsibilities. 819 00:46:43,713 --> 00:46:46,629 Dropping slips was one of them, and then there was the incident book. 820 00:46:46,673 --> 00:46:48,588 At Elan there were three cardinal rules. 821 00:46:48,631 --> 00:46:51,025 No drugs, no sex and no violence. 822 00:46:51,069 --> 00:46:54,072 Breaking any of the three cardinal rules meant severe punishment. 823 00:46:54,115 --> 00:46:58,293 But then there were rules for everything else, and this is where the incident book came in. 824 00:46:58,337 --> 00:47:03,516 [Peter] The incident book was something controlled by a shingle expediter. 825 00:47:03,559 --> 00:47:07,694 Someone who you could kind of compare to a police lieutenant or captain. 826 00:47:07,737 --> 00:47:10,044 You had to be careful what you said around everybody 827 00:47:10,088 --> 00:47:15,789 because people were encouraged to tattle on each other all the time for every little thing. 828 00:47:15,833 --> 00:47:17,791 [Peter] Students would book each other 829 00:47:17,835 --> 00:47:20,272 or hold each other accountable for breaking the rules. 830 00:47:20,315 --> 00:47:25,407 They would say to the shingle, "I want to book an incident." They'd say, "On who? For what?" 831 00:47:25,451 --> 00:47:27,018 You'd get booked for goofing. 832 00:47:27,061 --> 00:47:30,325 You could be walking around with a shoelace that's untied. 833 00:47:30,369 --> 00:47:32,284 [Tracy] Not doing your chore correctly. 834 00:47:32,327 --> 00:47:35,635 Let too many cigarette butts collect in an ash tray. 835 00:47:35,678 --> 00:47:37,898 [Jaela] Because I was the house fatty, 836 00:47:37,942 --> 00:47:41,989 I couldn't sit through a meal without being booked by 10 people for eating too much. 837 00:47:42,033 --> 00:47:44,731 This is my favorite, stealing a pencil. 838 00:47:44,774 --> 00:47:46,689 But stealing a pencil isn't stealing a pencil. 839 00:47:46,733 --> 00:47:50,084 Stealing a pencil is like a pencil was on the ground and you picked it up, 840 00:47:50,128 --> 00:47:52,782 and you didn't make a fucking announcement on the pencil 841 00:47:52,826 --> 00:47:55,046 to let everybody know that you were taking the pencil. 842 00:47:55,089 --> 00:47:57,700 Because you didn't want to take those two extra steps 843 00:47:57,744 --> 00:47:59,441 to raise your hand and make an announcement 844 00:47:59,485 --> 00:48:02,053 and find out whose fucking pencil it is before you pocket it, 845 00:48:02,096 --> 00:48:06,405 you have now committed a crime in the kingdom of Elan. 846 00:48:06,448 --> 00:48:09,974 The shingle would come up to you if you were booked and say, "Valid or invalid?" 847 00:48:10,017 --> 00:48:15,196 Your explanation had some weight, but not a whole hell of a lot. 848 00:48:16,110 --> 00:48:20,419 The injustice of it was guilty or innocent, you usually got dealt with. 849 00:48:20,462 --> 00:48:24,771 If it's an injustice, deal with it. 850 00:48:24,814 --> 00:48:26,991 -[man] Knock! -[knocking on door] 851 00:48:27,034 --> 00:48:29,384 [man] Who's out there? Come in. 852 00:48:32,518 --> 00:48:34,955 I was dealt with a lot, on a daily basis. 853 00:48:35,695 --> 00:48:39,394 I mean, God I could knock 20 times a day, 30 times a day. 854 00:48:39,438 --> 00:48:41,440 You say knock, the person knocks. 855 00:48:41,483 --> 00:48:44,747 -They'd say, "Who's there?" And you say Julie, and they'd say-- -Come in. 856 00:48:44,791 --> 00:48:47,098 [Julie] You'd walk in and you'd close the door behind you, 857 00:48:47,141 --> 00:48:49,274 and you'd stand in front of four other residents 858 00:48:49,317 --> 00:48:53,104 with your feet shoulder-width apart and your hands at your sides. 859 00:48:53,147 --> 00:48:55,497 And they would say, "You know why you're standing there?" 860 00:48:55,541 --> 00:48:56,759 For stealing a pencil. 861 00:48:56,803 --> 00:48:59,327 That was your responsibility! 862 00:48:59,371 --> 00:49:01,808 You had to clean the bathroom this morning! 863 00:49:01,851 --> 00:49:05,246 [people screaming over each other] 864 00:49:08,554 --> 00:49:10,251 You can just lay back in the cut, 865 00:49:10,295 --> 00:49:12,862 and it's just everything that goes around here! 866 00:49:12,906 --> 00:49:15,430 [man] In the jargon of Elan, this is a haircut. 867 00:49:15,474 --> 00:49:18,912 The theory is that blowing the most trivial incidents out of proportion 868 00:49:18,956 --> 00:49:24,048 with angry shouting, will lead the supposed offender to take a closer look at himself. 869 00:49:24,091 --> 00:49:26,789 [people screaming over each other] 870 00:49:26,833 --> 00:49:28,748 [woman] You're going to make sure things get done! 871 00:49:28,791 --> 00:49:32,143 So I suggest for the next time you should put more...! 872 00:49:32,186 --> 00:49:37,148 And if you stand there and you react at all like roll your eyes or, "Yeah, right. Whatever." 873 00:49:37,975 --> 00:49:40,412 It would just get worse and worse and worse. 874 00:49:40,455 --> 00:49:44,938 [people moaning] 875 00:49:44,982 --> 00:49:48,550 [man] At Elan you succeed and survive if you accept the program. 876 00:49:48,594 --> 00:49:53,947 If you don't, there are punishments. They're usually called learning experiences. 877 00:49:54,556 --> 00:49:56,645 [Todd] You had to make a choice when you came to Elan. 878 00:49:56,689 --> 00:50:00,562 You can choose to go through the hard way or you can choose the motherfucker way. 879 00:50:01,128 --> 00:50:04,610 From the hottest fire comes the strongest steel. 880 00:50:08,570 --> 00:50:10,398 [Daniel] But I caught on real quick. 881 00:50:12,009 --> 00:50:15,577 I got smart the first day I was there, and a couple of guys came 882 00:50:15,621 --> 00:50:18,624 and asked me come in a room and they just said, 883 00:50:18,667 --> 00:50:21,235 "Hey, we can do this one way or we can do it another way." 884 00:50:21,888 --> 00:50:24,499 And I just went, "Really?" 885 00:50:24,543 --> 00:50:26,066 And they go, "Really." 886 00:50:26,110 --> 00:50:27,850 And I said, "Okay, cool." 887 00:50:27,894 --> 00:50:30,157 I just didn't feel like fighting, 888 00:50:30,201 --> 00:50:34,118 because I intuitively knew I wasn't going to win. 889 00:50:34,161 --> 00:50:36,903 I wasn't buying into their system right away. 890 00:50:36,946 --> 00:50:41,821 [Jaela] My first year in Elan was scrubbing floors and facing corners. 891 00:50:41,864 --> 00:50:45,216 I had almost a general meeting a day for probably six months. 892 00:50:45,259 --> 00:50:49,220 So I was on the service crew for 30 days and then I tried to run away and I got caught. 893 00:50:49,263 --> 00:50:50,612 [Tracy] I wanted to get kicked out. 894 00:50:50,656 --> 00:50:52,658 My first year that's all I wanted to do. 895 00:50:52,701 --> 00:50:56,662 That was my dream. My dream was to get kicked out of Elan. 896 00:50:56,705 --> 00:51:00,013 I had my clothes on all night long in bed, 897 00:51:00,057 --> 00:51:03,843 trying to get the guts to get up and run out the door. 898 00:51:03,886 --> 00:51:08,543 And finally when I did, I ran right into the night man. 899 00:51:08,587 --> 00:51:11,459 [Tracy] But had I known how hard people had tried 900 00:51:11,503 --> 00:51:16,508 for the past 20-something years prior to me getting there to get kicked out, 901 00:51:16,551 --> 00:51:19,598 and the things that they had tried and they had never gotten kicked out, 902 00:51:19,641 --> 00:51:22,209 I would probably have conformed sooner. 903 00:51:22,862 --> 00:51:26,866 [man] Many Elan residents have tried to escape, but they've all failed. 904 00:51:27,475 --> 00:51:31,131 [Jeff] I split from Elan probably about six or seven times. 905 00:51:31,175 --> 00:51:36,049 Made it out of the state of Maine every time, as far as California. 906 00:51:36,093 --> 00:51:39,487 Anybody who tried to run away was usually caught. 907 00:51:39,531 --> 00:51:43,926 [man] When they've managed to get off the grounds, trackers are sent out after them. 908 00:51:43,970 --> 00:51:46,146 [Peter] They send student trackers after you. 909 00:51:46,190 --> 00:51:50,846 [Jeff] Next thing I know I get jumped somewhere, and next thing I'm back. 910 00:51:51,891 --> 00:51:55,590 [Peter] You were brought back and you were basically therapeutically killed. 911 00:51:55,634 --> 00:51:59,725 And you often had security precautions put on you 912 00:51:59,768 --> 00:52:03,381 that were unprecedented for any time in your stay. 913 00:52:03,424 --> 00:52:09,126 [man] When they caught this 15-year-old boy he was put in a rabbit suit and leg shackles. 914 00:52:09,169 --> 00:52:12,912 [Alec] After I ran away, I mean I already had no fucking shoelaces or anything anyway. 915 00:52:12,955 --> 00:52:14,261 So they got me down to a sandal, 916 00:52:14,305 --> 00:52:19,136 I can only wear sandals, pocket, pockets out. 917 00:52:19,179 --> 00:52:21,312 15-foot spread from windows and doors. 918 00:52:21,355 --> 00:52:23,096 A strength and a high strength. 919 00:52:23,140 --> 00:52:25,925 They've got to be with me at all times, and I'm in a pod, 920 00:52:25,968 --> 00:52:28,971 which is each tile is like a foot, one-by-one all right? 921 00:52:29,015 --> 00:52:32,061 So I got nine, that was me. 922 00:52:32,105 --> 00:52:34,455 That was me for nine fucking months. 923 00:52:34,499 --> 00:52:35,500 That's my pen. 924 00:52:35,543 --> 00:52:37,589 That's where I live it's taped. 925 00:52:38,242 --> 00:52:41,636 Taped, outlined, if I went out of it, "Chief!" 926 00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:43,203 [man] What does it do? 927 00:52:43,247 --> 00:52:46,293 Okay, it humiliates him and it restricts his movement. 928 00:52:46,337 --> 00:52:49,992 He's run away from here four times, okay? 929 00:52:50,036 --> 00:52:54,910 He's run away from every place he's been before at least 17 or 18 times. 930 00:52:55,563 --> 00:52:59,132 This boy's been in and out of juvenile detention centers for years, 931 00:52:59,176 --> 00:53:02,527 and faced charges of breaking and entering and assault. 932 00:53:02,570 --> 00:53:05,834 For him, it was either Elan or jail. 933 00:53:05,878 --> 00:53:09,925 [Peter] So, I was shot down for the next 30 days, 934 00:53:09,969 --> 00:53:12,189 and I was a worker for the next 30 days, 935 00:53:12,232 --> 00:53:14,365 and then they transferred me to Waterford. 936 00:53:14,408 --> 00:53:19,979 I met the best friend I've ever had in my life, a guy named Scott Ketchum. 937 00:53:20,022 --> 00:53:25,027 And he had a sign, and I remember exactly what his sign said. 938 00:53:25,071 --> 00:53:28,640 I walked in and I looked over, and the whole room had to be quiet 939 00:53:28,683 --> 00:53:30,729 because he just walked in and he said, 940 00:53:30,772 --> 00:53:35,212 "I'm Scott, the hospital tot. I like to make people laugh a lot. 941 00:53:35,255 --> 00:53:39,216 I find it hard to see that I have guilt and it's killing me." 942 00:53:39,259 --> 00:53:43,568 [man] Residents are made to wear signs for days, sometimes weeks. 943 00:53:43,611 --> 00:53:46,179 Bluntly spelling out their problems and failures. 944 00:53:46,223 --> 00:53:50,444 [Tracy] You would have to stand up every morning at morning meeting and read your sign. 945 00:53:50,488 --> 00:53:53,882 Hickory dickory dock, responsible I am not. 946 00:53:53,926 --> 00:53:58,322 I fell asleep like a little sheep, ask me why I'm a dummy. 947 00:53:58,365 --> 00:54:01,194 [Tracy] And the house would have to confront you on your sign. 948 00:54:01,238 --> 00:54:04,328 "Why are you a dummy?" Because I fell asleep on night duty. 949 00:54:04,371 --> 00:54:06,504 [Jeff] It was a big piece of white poster board 950 00:54:06,547 --> 00:54:10,290 and Elan was so nice that they would let you make your own sign. 951 00:54:10,334 --> 00:54:14,381 You could even put silly flowers and dogs and cats on it. 952 00:54:14,425 --> 00:54:18,994 I'm a lunatic, I totally lose control when things don't go my way. 953 00:54:19,038 --> 00:54:20,909 That's why I've been in and out of hospitals. 954 00:54:20,953 --> 00:54:25,697 Please confront me as to why I have so little self-control 955 00:54:25,740 --> 00:54:27,525 that I've become a blob. 956 00:54:27,568 --> 00:54:30,267 Please ask me why I continue to goof. 957 00:54:30,310 --> 00:54:32,747 I'm a disgusting little coward. 958 00:54:32,791 --> 00:54:36,925 If I continue to take everything as a joke, I'm going to end up dead. 959 00:54:36,969 --> 00:54:41,147 All I have in the future to look forward to is getting raped in prison. 960 00:54:41,190 --> 00:54:46,152 I got a sign as a result of the fact that I broke cardinal rules. 961 00:54:46,195 --> 00:54:51,157 I was kind of flirting with one of the guys from Elan III in classes. 962 00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:53,725 The lights had gone out during school, 963 00:54:53,768 --> 00:54:57,294 and we held hands for probably about five seconds. 964 00:54:57,337 --> 00:54:59,600 And they kept telling me that I had guilt, 965 00:54:59,644 --> 00:55:01,820 and I had no clue what they were talking about. 966 00:55:01,863 --> 00:55:06,738 [Peter] Guilt was basically any behavior you engaged in contrary to Elan policy 967 00:55:06,781 --> 00:55:10,481 that was not found out, but you carried with you. 968 00:55:10,524 --> 00:55:14,049 Elan was very big on making you feel guilty. 969 00:55:14,093 --> 00:55:16,313 [Peter] Every couple of weeks they would say, 970 00:55:16,356 --> 00:55:19,011 "Have you copped to your guilt? When was the last time you copped to your guilt?" 971 00:55:19,054 --> 00:55:22,580 And you'd write it out on a piece of paper, what you did. 972 00:55:22,623 --> 00:55:25,539 [Julian] I couldn't figure out if somebody had seen me in the dark 973 00:55:25,583 --> 00:55:31,545 touch hands with this other guy for five seconds, so I actually copped to that as my guilt. 974 00:55:31,589 --> 00:55:34,592 Two new residents talking to each other without a strength 975 00:55:34,635 --> 00:55:39,379 being aware of the conversation might be a relatively minor form of guilt. 976 00:55:39,423 --> 00:55:40,337 You know. 977 00:55:42,208 --> 00:55:45,211 Kissing someone on the back stairs, you're getting a general meeting. 978 00:55:45,254 --> 00:55:48,388 [Julie] So I got shot down, I got a general meeting, 979 00:55:48,432 --> 00:55:50,912 and I got a sign about, "Ask me why am I whore," 980 00:55:50,956 --> 00:55:54,351 because I held hands with somebody for about five seconds. 981 00:55:55,961 --> 00:55:59,878 I remember this poor girl named Jennifer. 982 00:55:59,921 --> 00:56:04,752 She liked a kid, and they put a whore costume on her. 983 00:56:04,796 --> 00:56:07,320 Oh, oh. Costumes. 984 00:56:07,364 --> 00:56:09,931 [Dave] Every morning she had to get up in front of the whole house, 985 00:56:09,975 --> 00:56:14,022 dance around and strut like she was a whore, and sing this song. 986 00:56:14,066 --> 00:56:18,244 How do you tell somebody that had been sexually abused 987 00:56:18,984 --> 00:56:22,683 since they were four years old that they're a whore? 988 00:56:22,727 --> 00:56:27,166 ♪ They call me Flamin' Jenny 'cause I'm♪ 989 00:56:27,209 --> 00:56:31,388 ♪ Ha! For many I'm the hottest baby In the house♪ 990 00:56:31,866 --> 00:56:37,002 ♪ And when it comes to lovin' I'm the human oven♪ 991 00:56:37,045 --> 00:56:40,135 ♪ I'm the hottest baby In the house♪ 992 00:56:40,179 --> 00:56:41,049 Growl! 993 00:56:45,532 --> 00:56:50,232 [Julie] I think I was oversexed because I'd been abused, 994 00:56:50,276 --> 00:56:54,715 so I was sexually provocative. 995 00:56:54,759 --> 00:56:59,459 I was sexually abused when I was younger by someone close to my family, 996 00:56:59,503 --> 00:57:01,853 and it had gone on for a very long time, 997 00:57:01,896 --> 00:57:06,988 a period of eight years and just kind of the backup of dealing with that problems in school. 998 00:57:07,032 --> 00:57:12,341 I'd entrusted to a friend that I was being sexually abused, 999 00:57:12,385 --> 00:57:17,129 and that friend got mad at me and decided to spread it around the school. 1000 00:57:17,172 --> 00:57:20,088 So I was known in junior high 1001 00:57:20,132 --> 00:57:23,222 as the girl who fucked this person. 1002 00:57:24,136 --> 00:57:26,094 I think that I just wanted out. 1003 00:57:27,574 --> 00:57:29,533 I just wanted everything to be quiet. 1004 00:57:29,576 --> 00:57:34,276 [inaudible]. 1005 00:57:36,801 --> 00:57:40,413 [Mary] They used to put people in some humiliating costumes. 1006 00:57:40,457 --> 00:57:43,590 Me and this girl would dress up as the Bobbsey Twins, 1007 00:57:43,634 --> 00:57:46,245 our hair was put up in pig tails. 1008 00:57:46,288 --> 00:57:50,379 We were very immature and we used to act up, and they wanted to humiliate us. 1009 00:57:50,423 --> 00:57:53,470 The costume would always suit the person who was put into it. 1010 00:57:53,513 --> 00:57:56,821 My subject was terrible with the math. 1011 00:57:56,864 --> 00:58:00,564 If you didn't do well in it, they'd make you wear this big dunce cap. 1012 00:58:00,607 --> 00:58:02,566 [man] If their behavior is deemed infantile, 1013 00:58:02,609 --> 00:58:05,699 they're made to wear diapers over their clothes, and to carry rattles. 1014 00:58:05,743 --> 00:58:08,572 I don't know how I was being a baby, but I guess I was. 1015 00:58:08,615 --> 00:58:10,617 I had the bonnet and the big rattle. 1016 00:58:10,661 --> 00:58:13,577 Denise Hubbard, she had syphilis, 1017 00:58:14,229 --> 00:58:17,363 and they made her wear tampons in her hair. 1018 00:58:17,406 --> 00:58:19,539 I thought that was downright disgusting. 1019 00:58:19,583 --> 00:58:21,193 [man] Why would they do that? 1020 00:58:21,236 --> 00:58:25,458 Because she has syphilis. That was their way of treating her. 1021 00:58:26,111 --> 00:58:29,680 Take my buddy Kevin Hicks for instance. 1022 00:58:30,419 --> 00:58:31,899 Rolling. 1023 00:58:31,943 --> 00:58:35,903 He pulled a couple stunts, and they put a costume on him. 1024 00:58:35,947 --> 00:58:37,557 [Kevin] Oh I was out of control. 1025 00:58:37,601 --> 00:58:41,692 And so, I was shot down, I was in Parsonsfield 1026 00:58:41,735 --> 00:58:43,476 and we had a morning meeting, 1027 00:58:44,259 --> 00:58:48,481 and I said I think that we should get a house dog. 1028 00:58:49,177 --> 00:58:52,311 Elan III has a beautiful golden retriever, 1029 00:58:52,354 --> 00:58:56,576 and wouldn't it be nice if we could get a dog for the house. 1030 00:58:56,620 --> 00:59:00,232 Next thing I knew, I was getting a general meeting 1031 00:59:00,275 --> 00:59:03,757 for suggesting that we should have a house dog, 1032 00:59:04,366 --> 00:59:09,546 and it was determined that I should be the house dog. 1033 00:59:09,589 --> 00:59:11,243 And I was not allowed to speak. 1034 00:59:11,983 --> 00:59:17,379 I was only allowed to bark once for yes, bark twice for no. 1035 00:59:17,423 --> 00:59:21,732 I had to walk around on fours, for my dinner I was given a dog dish, 1036 00:59:21,775 --> 00:59:23,690 plus I had to do tricks. 1037 00:59:23,734 --> 00:59:27,564 They would teach me tricks and I would have to do these tricks on command. 1038 00:59:28,260 --> 00:59:33,570 Jennifer was mummified, they wrapped this white bandage tape 1039 00:59:33,613 --> 00:59:35,093 all round her head, 1040 00:59:35,136 --> 00:59:37,791 leaving an opening for her nose so she could breathe. 1041 00:59:38,487 --> 00:59:42,579 And then a leash was put around her neck so that she couldn't run off on her PO, 1042 00:59:42,622 --> 00:59:44,537 personal overseer. 1043 00:59:44,581 --> 00:59:48,585 I drew a picture of that, among a lot of other pictures. 1044 01:00:13,871 --> 01:00:15,960 [Mary] It was tough being there as a kid. 1045 01:00:16,003 --> 01:00:20,312 My best memories it seems were when I was acting up with somebody else. 1046 01:00:20,355 --> 01:00:26,100 Just being silly, goofing on the program or making silly wise cracks, 1047 01:00:26,144 --> 01:00:27,798 running around the room. 1048 01:00:27,841 --> 01:00:31,758 To my mind, it was merely playing, 1049 01:00:31,802 --> 01:00:34,413 but to the directors it was anarchy, 1050 01:00:34,456 --> 01:00:38,199 and we had to be dealt with swiftly and forcefully. 1051 01:00:38,243 --> 01:00:40,027 [interviewer] Joe, you make no bones about it. 1052 01:00:40,071 --> 01:00:42,421 There is corporal punishment here at Elan. Tell us about it. 1053 01:00:42,464 --> 01:00:45,729 What are the stages it comes in, who's it administered by? 1054 01:00:46,468 --> 01:00:49,515 Well, it's administered by the kids first of all. 1055 01:00:49,558 --> 01:00:53,127 Corporal, it's a harsh term. 1056 01:00:55,434 --> 01:00:57,262 [man] Do you remember Kim Freehill? 1057 01:00:57,305 --> 01:01:02,963 [Liz] Kim was from a wealthy family in Long Island. 1058 01:01:03,007 --> 01:01:05,270 After she had only been there a month, 1059 01:01:05,313 --> 01:01:10,188 she had lice, and I think that episode really hit her hard. 1060 01:01:10,231 --> 01:01:13,278 All the females, we had to wash all our clothes, 1061 01:01:13,321 --> 01:01:18,500 put the pillows in plastic bags, and everybody had to get Kwelled again, 1062 01:01:18,544 --> 01:01:20,807 and I'm sure it was mortifying for her. 1063 01:01:20,851 --> 01:01:24,463 And after that she just started kind of unraveling. 1064 01:01:24,506 --> 01:01:27,596 So then they gave her a GM 1065 01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:32,776 because she was starting to act a little nuts. 1066 01:01:32,819 --> 01:01:34,995 Like mental patient issues, 1067 01:01:36,388 --> 01:01:41,393 and during that GM she just let go and peed on the floor. 1068 01:01:41,436 --> 01:01:47,094 So they took her and threw her in a cold shower with all her clothes on, 1069 01:01:47,138 --> 01:01:49,357 and then brought her back dripping wet 1070 01:01:49,401 --> 01:01:51,490 to stand in front of the house again. 1071 01:01:51,533 --> 01:01:54,058 But she wasn't cooperating 1072 01:01:54,101 --> 01:01:56,930 because she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown. 1073 01:01:56,974 --> 01:01:59,063 So they spanked her. 1074 01:01:59,106 --> 01:02:03,545 It's one resident spanking another resident, and it's done with a ping-pong paddle. 1075 01:02:03,589 --> 01:02:08,637 [woman] For the first two years that I was there, they would spank with a clipboard. 1076 01:02:08,681 --> 01:02:12,816 Clipboards, hands, 1077 01:02:13,512 --> 01:02:15,035 anything here. 1078 01:02:15,079 --> 01:02:18,517 Usually a person won't get spanked more than once or twice. 1079 01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:19,997 Usually when they use a paddle 1080 01:02:20,040 --> 01:02:23,740 they may have four or five people spank a person 1081 01:02:23,783 --> 01:02:26,177 like three to five times each. 1082 01:02:26,220 --> 01:02:29,006 [woman] They'd have the students lined up, five or six of them, 1083 01:02:29,049 --> 01:02:32,052 and they would each have to take a turn at paddling the wrongdoer. 1084 01:02:32,096 --> 01:02:35,316 [Liz] So she was being spanked 1085 01:02:36,013 --> 01:02:40,104 repeatedly in wet pants. 1086 01:02:40,147 --> 01:02:45,239 When they spanked me they didn't have to spank me so I turned black and blue, simple as that. 1087 01:02:45,283 --> 01:02:49,026 And that was just one time after another. I was so sore I couldn't sit down. 1088 01:02:49,766 --> 01:02:52,725 [Liz] Kim had scabs 1089 01:02:53,857 --> 01:02:59,645 that had to be three quarters of an inch thick on her rear 1090 01:02:59,688 --> 01:03:01,168 from being paddled. 1091 01:03:01,212 --> 01:03:03,083 [Mary] Oh yes, it was painful. 1092 01:03:03,127 --> 01:03:06,217 I had to learn fast to hold back my tears, 1093 01:03:06,260 --> 01:03:08,567 because I thought, I'm not going to give them that. 1094 01:03:08,610 --> 01:03:11,788 I won't look weak in front of them. Better to look angry. 1095 01:03:11,831 --> 01:03:16,140 I would cop an attitude instead, even if that got me in more trouble, 1096 01:03:16,183 --> 01:03:18,664 it was better than giving them my tears. 1097 01:03:19,230 --> 01:03:24,322 They thought I needed it because I supposedly was a terribly big baby. 1098 01:03:24,365 --> 01:03:27,238 If you're going to act like a baby, you should be treated like a baby. 1099 01:03:27,281 --> 01:03:32,025 So after hours and hours of this GM, which was horrific, 1100 01:03:32,069 --> 01:03:36,900 horrific GM, she was just gone. 1101 01:03:36,943 --> 01:03:38,597 Just catatonic. 1102 01:03:41,730 --> 01:03:44,211 [Maia] There's no federal regulation on these places, 1103 01:03:44,255 --> 01:03:46,648 and the state regulations are very weak. 1104 01:03:46,692 --> 01:03:50,957 Nail salons are more regulated than guys 1105 01:03:51,001 --> 01:03:53,438 who come and kidnap your kid at 2:00 in the morning. 1106 01:03:53,481 --> 01:03:56,180 [woman] The treatment we saw called for isolation. 1107 01:03:56,223 --> 01:03:58,704 [Maia] And that they're more regulated than facilities 1108 01:03:58,747 --> 01:04:02,490 that lock up kids and are allowed to physically punish them. 1109 01:04:02,534 --> 01:04:04,971 [reporter] They couldn't talk to each other. 1110 01:04:05,015 --> 01:04:08,888 [Maia] We have had a completely dysfunctional congress for a long time now, 1111 01:04:08,932 --> 01:04:14,502 and there has been regulation that has passed the house twice, 1112 01:04:15,373 --> 01:04:18,767 but has never really gone anywhere. 1113 01:04:18,811 --> 01:04:22,815 So the chances of getting regulation 1114 01:04:22,859 --> 01:04:25,165 through this congress are pretty low. 1115 01:04:26,297 --> 01:04:32,259 [singing together] 1116 01:04:38,178 --> 01:04:40,006 [Doug] I tried to kill myself there. 1117 01:04:41,660 --> 01:04:44,271 My biggest punishment was they put me in a corner. 1118 01:04:44,315 --> 01:04:49,886 See, I love to talk, I really don't have a problem talking, so I had to sit in the corner. 1119 01:04:51,017 --> 01:04:54,542 Everybody's doing whatever they got to do all around me. 1120 01:04:54,586 --> 01:04:56,849 This is in Waterford, and I'll never forget, 1121 01:04:56,893 --> 01:05:00,287 because I got the scar right here on my finger. 1122 01:05:00,331 --> 01:05:03,638 I had a piece of chicken and I made an X on my finger. 1123 01:05:03,682 --> 01:05:05,640 I was trying to kill myself. 1124 01:05:05,684 --> 01:05:08,078 I was in the corner only a few times. 1125 01:05:08,121 --> 01:05:11,168 Each stay was between three to five days, 1126 01:05:11,211 --> 01:05:13,997 which I understand is not an extremely long time. 1127 01:05:14,040 --> 01:05:16,651 [Jeff] It's exactly what it sounds like. 1128 01:05:16,695 --> 01:05:21,047 Like when you're a child and mom or dad says, "Go stand in the corner." 1129 01:05:21,091 --> 01:05:25,878 You go stand in the corner, face against the wall. 1130 01:05:25,922 --> 01:05:29,926 And you stand, and you stand, and you stand until you cannot stand. 1131 01:05:29,969 --> 01:05:31,449 And then you sit. 1132 01:05:31,492 --> 01:05:34,278 But it was worse than that for sure. 1133 01:05:34,321 --> 01:05:38,586 It's not just like facing... it's not like five-minute fucking like turnaround. 1134 01:05:38,630 --> 01:05:39,979 You were fucking in there forever. 1135 01:05:40,023 --> 01:05:42,068 You talked about Donovan earlier, 1136 01:05:42,112 --> 01:05:46,029 dude they shut him away for I think like four months straight one time. 1137 01:05:46,072 --> 01:05:49,380 I've seen people that had been in the corner for six months. 1138 01:05:49,423 --> 01:05:54,037 Oh my God, I literally would stare at a spot on the wall 1139 01:05:54,080 --> 01:05:56,691 until it would just fuzz out on you. 1140 01:05:56,735 --> 01:05:59,216 [Doug] You could count the holes in the wall, 1141 01:05:59,259 --> 01:06:03,002 the nooks and cranny, the dots on the curtain. 1142 01:06:03,046 --> 01:06:07,528 [Jeff] You were eating standing there, you were sleeping in the corner. 1143 01:06:07,572 --> 01:06:10,357 They would bring a mattress, you would sleep right there. 1144 01:06:10,401 --> 01:06:13,317 [Tracy] And as soon as the sun came out, you'd go back and face the corner. 1145 01:06:13,360 --> 01:06:16,537 [Jeff] You're going to do that for week, after week, after week 1146 01:06:16,581 --> 01:06:20,628 until you've been good for days, and then they decide they want to let you out. 1147 01:06:20,672 --> 01:06:24,023 Yo, I'd rather take an ass whooping than sit there. 1148 01:06:24,067 --> 01:06:29,072 That is just my opinion because I mean, wow, that's torture. 1149 01:06:29,811 --> 01:06:33,380 [Tracy] And then the poor person that had to sit there and watch you was another kid, 1150 01:06:33,424 --> 01:06:35,382 which was like your support person. 1151 01:06:35,426 --> 01:06:37,819 And that was the only person you were allowed to talk to. 1152 01:06:38,733 --> 01:06:43,303 [Mary] I had this imaginary friend when I was in the corner too, her name was Emily. 1153 01:06:43,347 --> 01:06:46,480 She was a colonial girl a few years younger than me. 1154 01:06:47,090 --> 01:06:48,874 But even her presence didn't help 1155 01:06:48,917 --> 01:06:51,964 when people were allowed to come up and swear at me. 1156 01:06:52,008 --> 01:06:56,621 They were given open swearing privileges directed at Mary O'Brien. 1157 01:06:56,664 --> 01:07:01,104 Anybody who wanted could come up to me while I was in the corner and cuss me out. 1158 01:07:01,147 --> 01:07:06,370 Tell me how ugly, stupid and fat I was, and how I was a loser, 1159 01:07:06,413 --> 01:07:08,154 how I made them sick. 1160 01:07:10,330 --> 01:07:13,768 It was so humiliating that I used to make her go away while they were doing that, 1161 01:07:13,812 --> 01:07:18,599 because I didn't want her to hear me being called all those names. 1162 01:07:23,169 --> 01:07:25,476 Duck in a Raincoat is full of scandal. 1163 01:07:25,519 --> 01:07:27,913 News Center's Sharon Randall tells us about it. 1164 01:07:27,956 --> 01:07:31,960 [woman] The book begins in Port Chester, New York, where Ricci grew up, 1165 01:07:32,004 --> 01:07:35,834 and takes the reader down the sometimes bumpy road of Ricci's life. 1166 01:07:35,877 --> 01:07:39,185 The opening of Elan, his lucrative drug treatment center. 1167 01:07:39,229 --> 01:07:42,797 The mysterious fire that destroyed the clubhouse at Scarborough Downs, 1168 01:07:42,841 --> 01:07:47,106 a failed run for the 1986 Democratic nomination for governor, 1169 01:07:47,150 --> 01:07:51,154 and of course the famous lawsuit against KeyBank. 1170 01:07:51,763 --> 01:07:55,375 [Daniel] When you first meet Joe and you're a street kid like me, 1171 01:07:55,419 --> 01:07:58,074 and let's make no mistake, I grew up on the street. 1172 01:07:58,117 --> 01:08:03,514 I hung out in Providence, and I hung out in Cranston, and it was... 1173 01:08:04,645 --> 01:08:07,039 Anyway, there were a lot of Italians yadda yadda yadda. 1174 01:08:07,083 --> 01:08:10,999 So Joe, there's no mistaking who he is and what he is. 1175 01:08:11,043 --> 01:08:13,306 He was cool, he was confident. 1176 01:08:13,350 --> 01:08:15,134 [Daniel] He always had a lot of money. 1177 01:08:15,178 --> 01:08:17,658 -[Peter] He had a Rolls Royce. -[Daniel] He was eccentric. 1178 01:08:17,702 --> 01:08:20,618 -[Peter] He had a mink coat. -[Daniel] He was extremely grandiose. 1179 01:08:20,661 --> 01:08:23,055 If he walked in the room you'd want to stand up to greet him. 1180 01:08:23,099 --> 01:08:25,579 -[Peter] He was the man. -He ruled everything. 1181 01:08:25,623 --> 01:08:27,146 And so he was Italian. 1182 01:08:27,842 --> 01:08:30,106 [woman] KeyBank had cut off Ricci's line of credit 1183 01:08:30,149 --> 01:08:32,673 because of rumors he had ties to organized crime. 1184 01:08:32,717 --> 01:08:37,461 Ricci sued, and a federal jury awarded him 15 million dollars. 1185 01:08:38,375 --> 01:08:40,159 Well, in my simplicity, 1186 01:08:41,813 --> 01:08:43,206 I looked up to that. 1187 01:08:43,249 --> 01:08:47,427 Joe was my idol. I wanted to be like Joe. 1188 01:08:47,471 --> 01:08:49,560 [Daniel] And he bought into me, 1189 01:08:49,603 --> 01:08:53,433 and I bought into him, like he did with a lot of other people. 1190 01:08:53,477 --> 01:08:57,437 Kind of took me under his wing, buys you a lot of stuff. 1191 01:08:57,481 --> 01:09:01,180 He bought me all my clothes, he bought me my first car. 1192 01:09:01,224 --> 01:09:03,878 For Christ's sake, he owned the house I lived in. 1193 01:09:04,923 --> 01:09:07,230 So I was bought and paid for pretty much. 1194 01:09:07,273 --> 01:09:11,451 [woman] He got his major judgment based on the fact that his civil rights were violated. 1195 01:09:11,495 --> 01:09:14,237 Yet throughout the book there are accounts of many times 1196 01:09:14,280 --> 01:09:16,543 that other people's civil rights were violated 1197 01:09:16,587 --> 01:09:19,633 by his treatments center for troubled adolescents. 1198 01:09:19,677 --> 01:09:23,594 [reporter] And that's part of the story that Curley contends the media missed. 1199 01:09:23,637 --> 01:09:27,119 You'd want to please him, basically for your own survival. 1200 01:09:27,163 --> 01:09:29,817 -[Peter] He was mean. -He was paranoid. 1201 01:09:29,861 --> 01:09:31,645 [Mary] He'd make you feel like dirt. 1202 01:09:31,689 --> 01:09:35,867 [Daniel] He was very concerned about his own image, 1203 01:09:37,260 --> 01:09:39,392 and his importance. 1204 01:09:39,436 --> 01:09:41,525 If you threatened his power, 1205 01:09:42,352 --> 01:09:46,965 he could be quite unfair with the retaliation. 1206 01:09:47,008 --> 01:09:51,665 If he wants to act like a criminal, he'll be treated like a criminal. 1207 01:09:51,709 --> 01:09:53,754 It's that basic. 1208 01:09:53,798 --> 01:09:58,585 I had no really dealings of him, then a few times he ran the general meetings. 1209 01:09:58,629 --> 01:10:01,893 And when he ran the general meeting, they stomped the shit out of you. 1210 01:10:01,936 --> 01:10:03,764 You got the worst of the worst. 1211 01:10:03,808 --> 01:10:06,245 [reporter] Duck in a Raincoat is packed with personal accounts 1212 01:10:06,289 --> 01:10:08,769 of brutality and intimidation at Elan, 1213 01:10:08,813 --> 01:10:12,469 Ricci's drug treatment center for young people in Poland Spring. 1214 01:10:12,512 --> 01:10:17,822 But in 1971, state investigation found no evidence to support such claims. 1215 01:10:17,865 --> 01:10:20,259 [interviewer] If Joe is so bad and so dirty, 1216 01:10:20,303 --> 01:10:23,697 why hasn't anybody been able to make anything stick to him? 1217 01:10:23,741 --> 01:10:26,134 Because he's very good at what he does. 1218 01:10:26,178 --> 01:10:30,791 [reporter] What he does according to Curley is cover his tracks and dupe the media. 1219 01:10:30,835 --> 01:10:34,360 He has money, which certainly makes people credible in the United States of America, 1220 01:10:34,404 --> 01:10:36,101 but how he made that money, 1221 01:10:36,144 --> 01:10:38,538 is some of the things that are questioned in this book. 1222 01:10:38,582 --> 01:10:42,063 [Maia] It sounds like the founder of Elan was a sociopath, 1223 01:10:42,107 --> 01:10:48,113 and there's evidence that sociopaths rise in these places very easily. 1224 01:10:48,809 --> 01:10:53,292 There was a study done of using the Synanon kind of method on sociopaths, 1225 01:10:53,336 --> 01:10:55,642 and they found that it made them worse 1226 01:10:55,686 --> 01:10:58,210 because basically it told them that hurting people, 1227 01:10:58,254 --> 01:11:00,299 which they enjoy doing, is good. 1228 01:11:00,343 --> 01:11:03,607 So it basically trained people to be better sociopaths, 1229 01:11:03,650 --> 01:11:07,306 which is kind of scary when you think about the kids that are sent to these places. 1230 01:11:07,350 --> 01:11:11,571 And Elan was definitely among the worst that I have heard of. 1231 01:11:11,615 --> 01:11:16,010 I think the difference is the level of violence. 1232 01:11:16,054 --> 01:11:18,491 Elan explicitly used the ring. 1233 01:11:18,535 --> 01:11:24,367 We have the ring, which everybody misinterprets. 1234 01:11:24,410 --> 01:11:27,326 It's not a boxing ring, it's a ring of human people. 1235 01:11:28,196 --> 01:11:33,637 [Peter] Elan's boxing ring was used as a last resort therapeutic tool. 1236 01:11:33,680 --> 01:11:37,380 I once heard a staff member refer to it as an exercise in futility. 1237 01:11:37,423 --> 01:11:40,992 Pretty much to prove that violence will get you nowhere. 1238 01:11:41,035 --> 01:11:44,604 The ring was used for bullies. 1239 01:11:44,648 --> 01:11:48,347 If you went in the ring, it's because you physically threatened somebody. 1240 01:11:48,391 --> 01:11:51,350 Any kind of violent action resulted in the ring. 1241 01:11:51,394 --> 01:11:54,179 It occurs within a general meeting. 1242 01:11:54,222 --> 01:11:57,922 They have, let's say 10 students, 1243 01:11:58,488 --> 01:12:02,100 15 students form a circle. 1244 01:12:02,143 --> 01:12:05,233 You would literally form a human circle around someone. 1245 01:12:05,277 --> 01:12:07,627 And the bully is introduced as what he is. 1246 01:12:07,671 --> 01:12:09,455 In this corner is the bully 1247 01:12:09,499 --> 01:12:12,284 who's trying to turn this facility into a detention center. 1248 01:12:12,328 --> 01:12:16,723 I got put in the boxing ring a number of times. 1249 01:12:16,767 --> 01:12:20,901 I was in the ring for the good, fighting the perpetrator. 1250 01:12:20,945 --> 01:12:23,991 [Joseph] And in this corner is the house champion 1251 01:12:24,035 --> 01:12:26,124 who's going to show him why it can't be done. 1252 01:12:26,167 --> 01:12:30,476 They would put you in the boxing ring with somebody who was sure to kick your ass. 1253 01:12:30,520 --> 01:12:32,435 You're supposed to be fighting for the house. 1254 01:12:32,478 --> 01:12:35,481 Truth, justice, the Elan way. 1255 01:12:35,525 --> 01:12:39,616 You put a pair of gloves on, and the other person put a pair of gloves on. 1256 01:12:39,659 --> 01:12:41,487 The director goes ding. 1257 01:12:41,531 --> 01:12:43,010 [Doug] And may the best man win. 1258 01:12:43,620 --> 01:12:45,273 And you never won. 1259 01:12:45,317 --> 01:12:46,971 [Joseph] We never allowed the bully to win. 1260 01:12:47,014 --> 01:12:48,799 [man] You might win one or two rounds. 1261 01:12:48,842 --> 01:12:51,671 No, I didn't even try. I just went down like this. 1262 01:12:51,715 --> 01:12:54,674 You might beat this person, you might beat that person, 1263 01:12:54,718 --> 01:12:56,502 but they keep coming, they keep coming. 1264 01:12:56,546 --> 01:12:58,199 They keep sending a fresh person. 1265 01:12:58,243 --> 01:13:01,420 And when that person got tired, they would send somebody else in. 1266 01:13:01,464 --> 01:13:03,857 You were boxing with six, seven fresh people. 1267 01:13:03,901 --> 01:13:07,034 [Mary] So if you actually fought, you'd really get beat up. 1268 01:13:07,078 --> 01:13:09,863 It was sort of you could say a kill situation. 1269 01:13:11,125 --> 01:13:14,390 Violence is ultimately futile in the real world. 1270 01:13:14,433 --> 01:13:18,655 Even if you do win a fight, there's always someone bigger than you. 1271 01:13:18,698 --> 01:13:21,309 There's always a cop there to arrest you for assault. 1272 01:13:21,353 --> 01:13:25,444 No good is really going to come of being violent. 1273 01:13:25,488 --> 01:13:27,925 [Julie] I'd always heard before I'd seen one 1274 01:13:27,968 --> 01:13:33,321 that the only people who get rings are those who actually are violent and lash out at others. 1275 01:13:33,365 --> 01:13:35,976 But I saw people get rings 1276 01:13:36,020 --> 01:13:41,591 who did nothing other than sit in the corner and refuse to respond. 1277 01:13:41,634 --> 01:13:47,510 And they used the ring almost as if to try to shock them into responding, 1278 01:13:47,553 --> 01:13:48,728 to wake them up. 1279 01:13:48,772 --> 01:13:50,600 [Liz] I was an expediter, 1280 01:13:50,643 --> 01:13:54,604 and I was stationed at the kitchen door POing the shot downs 1281 01:13:54,647 --> 01:13:57,433 who were washing dishes and scrubbing the floor. 1282 01:13:57,476 --> 01:14:01,132 And one resident put on his coat to take the garbage out, 1283 01:14:01,175 --> 01:14:06,267 and I forgot he went out there and shut the door behind him, and he ran away. 1284 01:14:06,311 --> 01:14:08,531 So I was shot down for that. 1285 01:14:08,574 --> 01:14:14,058 And for me, I felt terribly guilty 1286 01:14:14,754 --> 01:14:17,453 because if I had been doing my job, 1287 01:14:18,236 --> 01:14:24,068 he wouldn't have run away and come back and be brutalized, 1288 01:14:24,111 --> 01:14:26,026 be brutalized. 1289 01:14:26,070 --> 01:14:28,420 -[man] Who is this? -[man] This is Michael Skakel. 1290 01:14:28,464 --> 01:14:32,511 [man] Do you want anyone at Elan to know you were related to the Kennedys? 1291 01:14:33,077 --> 01:14:34,513 Absolutely not. 1292 01:14:34,557 --> 01:14:36,428 They gave him a general meeting. 1293 01:14:36,472 --> 01:14:40,476 He was being confronted as to whether he murdered some girl, 1294 01:14:40,519 --> 01:14:42,695 and he kept saying, "No, no, no." 1295 01:14:42,739 --> 01:14:46,482 He was put in the ring, they broke his nose, 1296 01:14:46,525 --> 01:14:48,788 and he kept saying, "No, no, no," 1297 01:14:48,832 --> 01:14:52,400 and then would get beat again until he submitted 1298 01:14:52,444 --> 01:14:56,100 and said he didn't know if he had done it or not. 1299 01:14:59,059 --> 01:15:00,887 [Daniel] Just to say this first. 1300 01:15:00,931 --> 01:15:04,151 So much stuff 1301 01:15:05,413 --> 01:15:09,200 that you could never imagine, 1302 01:15:10,201 --> 01:15:12,508 that you couldn't line it up in your brain, 1303 01:15:13,726 --> 01:15:16,773 happened so fast. 1304 01:15:16,816 --> 01:15:19,297 [man] Everybody was genuinely scared 1305 01:15:20,298 --> 01:15:24,215 of what the next 10 minutes would bring. 1306 01:15:24,258 --> 01:15:28,262 [man] You know from the electric sauce to the rings to the spanking to the GMs 1307 01:15:28,306 --> 01:15:30,917 where they're slamming you against the wall and then the haircuts. 1308 01:15:30,961 --> 01:15:34,530 [man] And you never knew who it was going to happen to. It could be you. 1309 01:15:34,573 --> 01:15:36,967 [Liz] And it was going to happen to you. 1310 01:15:37,010 --> 01:15:39,404 There was no way to prevent it. 1311 01:15:39,447 --> 01:15:41,449 You could be as good as possible, 1312 01:15:41,493 --> 01:15:45,453 and then they would deal with you for being a goody two shoes. 1313 01:15:45,497 --> 01:15:49,022 Just constant violence is the way I look back on it. 1314 01:15:49,066 --> 01:15:51,198 General fucking meeting! 1315 01:15:51,242 --> 01:15:55,725 You can't get no lower than watching a person, snot's coming out of their nose. 1316 01:15:55,768 --> 01:15:57,553 Stand right there! 1317 01:15:57,596 --> 01:15:59,772 People were yelled at right out in the open, right where they stood. 1318 01:15:59,816 --> 01:16:00,991 They're throwing up. 1319 01:16:01,034 --> 01:16:03,863 70% of my time I was being yelled at. 1320 01:16:03,907 --> 01:16:05,604 They pissed and shitted on themselves. 1321 01:16:05,648 --> 01:16:07,824 You were basically therapeutically killed. 1322 01:16:07,867 --> 01:16:11,262 -They're bleeding from the mouth. -It was a fucking nightmare. 1323 01:16:11,305 --> 01:16:13,177 [Doug] Then you take the person, 1324 01:16:13,220 --> 01:16:17,094 they throw all that stinking nasty ass electric sauce on them. 1325 01:16:17,137 --> 01:16:20,097 [woman] They put cigarette butts in it, leftover food. 1326 01:16:20,140 --> 01:16:22,621 [Daniel] God, I watched people going to the toilet one time 1327 01:16:22,665 --> 01:16:24,057 to pull out water from the toilet. 1328 01:16:24,101 --> 01:16:25,885 [Doug] They roll him around in there. 1329 01:16:25,929 --> 01:16:27,495 They would dump my food on me. 1330 01:16:27,539 --> 01:16:28,714 Pick the person up. 1331 01:16:28,758 --> 01:16:29,933 Thrown at me. 1332 01:16:29,976 --> 01:16:31,804 Slam them up against the wall. 1333 01:16:31,848 --> 01:16:33,632 Throw somebody against one wall. 1334 01:16:33,676 --> 01:16:35,155 [Jeff] And they would kick your ass. 1335 01:16:35,199 --> 01:16:37,114 [Mary] Run over and slam them against this wall. 1336 01:16:37,157 --> 01:16:38,811 Pshhht! Blood everywhere. 1337 01:16:38,855 --> 01:16:40,900 [Mary] All the while screaming at them. 1338 01:16:40,944 --> 01:16:45,688 And the only sound that you could hear was the person screaming for his life. 1339 01:16:45,731 --> 01:16:47,298 [screaming] 1340 01:16:47,341 --> 01:16:49,082 I mean, so fucking noisy. 1341 01:16:49,126 --> 01:16:50,127 It's insanity. 1342 01:16:50,170 --> 01:16:51,911 [Doug] Everybody runs up there. 1343 01:16:51,955 --> 01:16:53,652 [Jaela] Screaming, swear at you. 1344 01:16:53,696 --> 01:16:57,090 I'm 16 years old, I have to deal with fucking mental patients. 1345 01:16:57,134 --> 01:16:59,353 Breaking light bulbs and cutting themselves. 1346 01:16:59,397 --> 01:17:02,226 [Alec] Kids drinking fucking bleach to get fucked up so they can get out of here. 1347 01:17:02,269 --> 01:17:04,924 -Students can't escape here. -[Peter] They would break you down. 1348 01:17:04,968 --> 01:17:07,666 [Doug] Throw you back in that same shit all over again. 1349 01:17:07,710 --> 01:17:10,016 [Peter] You would sit in the corner. Stand in the corner. 1350 01:17:10,060 --> 01:17:12,279 Your clothes rip off. 1351 01:17:12,323 --> 01:17:14,107 [Peter] And they'll have general meetings where you'll get spit on every day. 1352 01:17:14,151 --> 01:17:15,718 Slam you against the wall. 1353 01:17:15,761 --> 01:17:18,982 Now if that is robbing him of his dignity. 1354 01:17:19,025 --> 01:17:22,202 -[Peter] And that's all you would do. -And robbing him of his freedom. 1355 01:17:22,246 --> 01:17:25,553 -[Peter] And repeated a couple of times. -Then yes I'm guilty of it. 1356 01:17:25,597 --> 01:17:29,166 -You give. -I'm going to hurt anybody you want me to. 1357 01:17:29,209 --> 01:17:31,864 -[talking at the same time] -You stop. 1358 01:17:31,908 --> 01:17:34,171 [screaming] 1359 01:17:34,214 --> 01:17:35,912 [interviewer] You still think it's worth it? 1360 01:17:39,785 --> 01:17:43,702 There was some real life bullshit and turmoil. 1361 01:17:43,746 --> 01:17:47,184 There's no way that, that can get sugarcoated at all. 1362 01:17:47,750 --> 01:17:49,316 It wasn't every day. 1363 01:17:50,491 --> 01:17:54,191 It was like three quarters of the fucking existence, 1364 01:17:54,234 --> 01:17:56,672 there was outrageousness 1365 01:17:58,021 --> 01:18:02,765 and 15-year-olds should not be hog-tying and zip-tying 17-year-old kids. 1366 01:18:02,808 --> 01:18:04,331 Anybody could know that. 1367 01:18:04,375 --> 01:18:08,335 Dominic should not have had to break two people's arms 1368 01:18:08,379 --> 01:18:09,989 to get attention, you know what I mean? 1369 01:18:10,033 --> 01:18:12,644 Like throwing chairs into walls and shit. 1370 01:18:12,688 --> 01:18:16,387 And if you are a normal person with enough self-control, 1371 01:18:16,430 --> 01:18:17,997 I remember one thing I always did. 1372 01:18:18,041 --> 01:18:20,478 I was like, "I will not act out, I will not do that, 1373 01:18:20,521 --> 01:18:23,133 because as bad as this sucks, and as bad as it is whatever." 1374 01:18:23,176 --> 01:18:26,527 I was like, "These kids are just doing their fucking job 1375 01:18:26,571 --> 01:18:28,268 because they want to get out of here." 1376 01:18:33,926 --> 01:18:37,800 [Todd] When I was making this film, a lot of people asked me did Elan help me? 1377 01:18:39,018 --> 01:18:40,933 And I don't really have an answer to that question. 1378 01:18:42,065 --> 01:18:43,893 Maybe it did, I don't know. 1379 01:18:44,458 --> 01:18:46,634 Maybe that's why I'm sitting in front of this camera. 1380 01:18:46,678 --> 01:18:51,161 What I do know though is that amongst all the day-to-day chaos, 1381 01:18:51,204 --> 01:18:53,641 and the day-to-day grind, 1382 01:18:53,685 --> 01:18:57,558 there were some truly caring people there that really just wanted to see the best for us. 1383 01:18:58,908 --> 01:19:00,779 [woman] I thought you were a shy kid, 1384 01:19:00,823 --> 01:19:05,784 and I thought that you are willing... 1385 01:19:05,828 --> 01:19:08,352 you expect the world to change around you. 1386 01:19:10,223 --> 01:19:13,531 And you really didn't like anything. 1387 01:19:14,793 --> 01:19:16,708 You weren't into anything, you just sat. 1388 01:19:16,752 --> 01:19:18,928 And you really didn't like yourself, 1389 01:19:18,971 --> 01:19:23,236 and I think that you were so lonely 1390 01:19:23,280 --> 01:19:26,326 that you probably would have committed suicide if you didn't get some help. 1391 01:19:27,197 --> 01:19:29,895 I was lonely, I was depressed. 1392 01:19:30,722 --> 01:19:33,899 I was drinking a bottle of cough syrup probably every day to get high. 1393 01:19:34,508 --> 01:19:37,033 I didn't really want to be in reality, 1394 01:19:38,512 --> 01:19:40,863 because reality was that my parents were getting divorced. 1395 01:19:40,906 --> 01:19:43,691 College was on its way, life was changing a lot 1396 01:19:43,735 --> 01:19:46,607 and I didn't really want to deal with all that. 1397 01:19:47,260 --> 01:19:51,743 I didn't grow up in a situation where my parents put responsibility on me. 1398 01:19:51,787 --> 01:19:55,573 And in a way Elan taught me a lot of the things I didn't let my parents teach me. 1399 01:19:55,616 --> 01:19:58,663 Self-discipline, honesty, integrity, 1400 01:19:58,706 --> 01:20:00,665 getting in touch with your feelings. 1401 01:20:00,708 --> 01:20:02,536 I always just blocked them out. 1402 01:20:04,669 --> 01:20:07,759 But I thought that you're nice, and I thought that, "We'll figure something out. 1403 01:20:07,803 --> 01:20:10,718 We'll find something that he enjoys, and we'll build on that." 1404 01:20:11,981 --> 01:20:14,200 What'd you think of me? 1405 01:20:14,244 --> 01:20:16,594 I thought she was kidding when she said her name was Missy E, 1406 01:20:16,637 --> 01:20:20,163 I thought she was making a joke about Missy Elliott, but she was really funny. 1407 01:20:20,859 --> 01:20:23,079 I thought I would like her, and I did. 1408 01:20:23,122 --> 01:20:26,996 What did George Bush get on his SATs? Drool. 1409 01:20:29,346 --> 01:20:34,220 I was honest and funny, and I was straightforward. I call it like I see it. 1410 01:20:34,264 --> 01:20:35,874 [Missy] Where are you going, Ben? 1411 01:20:35,918 --> 01:20:39,182 [man] The bathroom's always a mess, [inaudible]. All right? 1412 01:20:39,225 --> 01:20:41,837 [Missy] Did you hear me ask you a question, Ben? 1413 01:20:41,880 --> 01:20:44,013 -Huh? -[Missy] Did you hear me ask you a question? 1414 01:20:44,056 --> 01:20:48,582 Yeah. I said [inaudible]. 1415 01:20:48,626 --> 01:20:49,888 [Missy] What'd you ask me? 1416 01:20:51,498 --> 01:20:53,065 Do you have to use the bathroom, is that what you said? 1417 01:20:53,631 --> 01:20:54,675 Then find a seat. 1418 01:20:54,719 --> 01:20:56,547 Why don't you grab your [inaudible]? 1419 01:20:56,590 --> 01:21:00,507 I'm not really afraid. That's why I'm doing this interview. 1420 01:21:00,551 --> 01:21:02,683 I really am not afraid. 1421 01:21:02,727 --> 01:21:04,947 I do care, that's why I stayed there for 20 years. 1422 01:21:04,990 --> 01:21:07,601 I was invested, and I would bring it, 1423 01:21:08,341 --> 01:21:10,387 and I would bring individual attention. 1424 01:21:10,430 --> 01:21:14,957 I paid attention. My technique is if you talked to me, then I listened. 1425 01:21:15,000 --> 01:21:17,481 If you bother to write something, I read it. 1426 01:21:17,524 --> 01:21:20,788 And then if I found something that we had in common, 1427 01:21:20,832 --> 01:21:26,098 I would sit there and bring it up so we could relate. 1428 01:21:27,012 --> 01:21:31,321 And then maybe develop some trust at some point. 1429 01:21:31,364 --> 01:21:35,542 Whether it would be you tell me one of your biggest secrets 1430 01:21:35,586 --> 01:21:37,457 that you never want to tell anybody. 1431 01:21:37,501 --> 01:21:40,069 [man] Were you ever able to confront your dad about what he did? 1432 01:21:41,026 --> 01:21:44,377 [Gillian] At the end when they realized that my mom had caught on, 1433 01:21:44,421 --> 01:21:46,597 that I'd already graduated high school, 1434 01:21:46,640 --> 01:21:49,905 and that I wasn't supposed to be there anymore, she was going to pull me out. 1435 01:21:49,948 --> 01:21:54,561 And that's when I was like, listen, this is going to be my last chance to speak to him 1436 01:21:54,605 --> 01:21:58,348 with people here to help me out if this doesn't go well. 1437 01:21:59,044 --> 01:22:03,831 And so they gave me the phone call and Missy came with me. 1438 01:22:03,875 --> 01:22:06,922 I called him, he's from Chile, and I called him there. 1439 01:22:06,965 --> 01:22:08,967 I just asked him why. 1440 01:22:09,011 --> 01:22:12,449 I just asked him why he lied about me 1441 01:22:12,492 --> 01:22:16,018 because he told my mother that I was a drug addict and I was a liar, 1442 01:22:16,061 --> 01:22:17,715 and that I was just making things up. 1443 01:22:18,890 --> 01:22:22,198 He was just like, "Why would you say that about me? 1444 01:22:22,241 --> 01:22:26,680 You know how much I love you. Why would I R-A-P-E-D you?" 1445 01:22:26,724 --> 01:22:30,728 He wouldn't say it out loud, he would just spell it out, it was very strange. 1446 01:22:31,511 --> 01:22:35,254 And he just pretended to be innocent like he always did. 1447 01:22:35,298 --> 01:22:37,996 At that point I just realized, I was like, 1448 01:22:38,040 --> 01:22:41,521 "Listen, have a good life." And I just hung up, and I've never spoken to him or seen him since. 1449 01:22:42,218 --> 01:22:44,481 [man] How does that feel? 1450 01:22:44,524 --> 01:22:48,876 Great. That I was able to walk out of there not bawling my eyes out like he had hurt me. 1451 01:22:48,920 --> 01:22:51,618 It was over and I felt better about it. 1452 01:22:53,490 --> 01:22:55,709 [Missy] I enjoyed some of the stuff there that went on. 1453 01:22:55,753 --> 01:23:00,149 As far as rings and general meetings, they were never fun, you know what I'm saying? 1454 01:23:00,192 --> 01:23:06,111 But I think putting things in labels like wrong, right, good and bad is unfair. 1455 01:23:06,155 --> 01:23:10,376 Yeah, the ring was wrong, but I was always out [inaudible] a group. 1456 01:23:10,420 --> 01:23:14,685 Some of the people, all those people [inaudible] for how horrible, 1457 01:23:14,728 --> 01:23:18,732 they got to release a lot of pain too in those rooms, 1458 01:23:18,776 --> 01:23:21,822 with a trusted group dealing with really private issues. 1459 01:23:21,866 --> 01:23:23,781 That's something many kids never got to do, 1460 01:23:23,824 --> 01:23:25,826 and many people will never get to do. 1461 01:23:25,870 --> 01:23:29,178 And so I think that some of it was so brilliant it was ridiculous. 1462 01:23:29,221 --> 01:23:33,791 My first director didn't believe in the ring, spanking, costumed. 1463 01:23:33,834 --> 01:23:37,142 His thing was if it got to a point, 1464 01:23:37,186 --> 01:23:40,493 he brought you up to his office, he sat you down. 1465 01:23:40,537 --> 01:23:42,278 You could talk for an hour, 1466 01:23:42,974 --> 01:23:45,498 or you could go into his office at seven o'clock at night, 1467 01:23:45,542 --> 01:23:47,848 not get out of there until seven o'clock in the morning. 1468 01:23:47,892 --> 01:23:49,415 [man] So he talked to you. 1469 01:23:49,459 --> 01:23:52,070 Oh, Mr. Friedman talked to you, but you wanted to listen. 1470 01:23:52,940 --> 01:23:54,986 About two weeks before I left 1471 01:23:55,030 --> 01:23:59,077 I was in a special group with my sister who was in Elan VII, 1472 01:23:59,121 --> 01:24:03,734 and my sister told me that she thought I'd be successful in the outside world. 1473 01:24:03,777 --> 01:24:05,518 And I said, "Well, successful how? 1474 01:24:05,562 --> 01:24:08,608 Go through a hard time maybe smoke some pot and come out of it?" 1475 01:24:08,652 --> 01:24:13,396 And I got asked by Kate Hawkins, the social worker there, "Is that an option?" 1476 01:24:13,439 --> 01:24:15,702 And I didn't say anything. 1477 01:24:15,746 --> 01:24:18,444 So clearly it was an option for me to go out there and smoke a little pot and come out of it. 1478 01:24:18,488 --> 01:24:21,752 And she said to me, "Pete, you better not pick up a joint out there. 1479 01:24:21,795 --> 01:24:23,971 Some people can handle it, you can't. 1480 01:24:24,015 --> 01:24:27,236 I'd like to also remind you that alcoholism is a progressive disease, 1481 01:24:27,279 --> 01:24:28,759 you pick up where you left off." 1482 01:24:30,674 --> 01:24:33,981 Now, I hadn't heard that since AA meetings about three years earlier. 1483 01:24:34,634 --> 01:24:37,115 So when I heard that it just brought me back, and I was like, 1484 01:24:37,159 --> 01:24:39,726 "Okay, that option's off the table." 1485 01:24:39,770 --> 01:24:41,902 And I've been sober since the day I left. 1486 01:24:41,946 --> 01:24:44,079 God willing all of 21 years in October. 1487 01:24:45,384 --> 01:24:49,562 A diploma in recognition of the growth that she's achieved-- 1488 01:24:49,606 --> 01:24:51,260 [Todd] There's no doubt that Elan had a role 1489 01:24:51,303 --> 01:24:53,566 in changing a lot of people's lives for the better. 1490 01:24:53,610 --> 01:24:55,481 It would be unfair for me to say it didn't. 1491 01:24:56,134 --> 01:24:59,137 But in the end, when you look at the bigger picture, 1492 01:24:59,920 --> 01:25:02,662 the damage that Elan caused far outweighs the good. 1493 01:25:03,489 --> 01:25:07,319 [man] Elan claims its graduates are now leading happy productive lives. 1494 01:25:07,363 --> 01:25:11,062 That they're staying in school, going to college and working. 1495 01:25:11,106 --> 01:25:16,111 The drug use is way down, and criminal involvement cut by more than half. 1496 01:25:16,154 --> 01:25:21,638 It claims that two thirds of all its former residents are now leading productive lives. 1497 01:25:21,681 --> 01:25:24,771 That figure has not been scientifically verified. 1498 01:25:24,815 --> 01:25:28,514 But parents of some former residents dispute these claims. 1499 01:25:28,558 --> 01:25:32,257 When Rhode Island parents complained, the state investigated, 1500 01:25:32,301 --> 01:25:36,740 and found that of a 117 former Elan residents from that state, 1501 01:25:36,783 --> 01:25:38,785 70 had been arrested, 1502 01:25:38,829 --> 01:25:42,615 and that one is serving a life sentence for murder in South Carolina. 1503 01:25:43,529 --> 01:25:47,185 [Maia] There is absolutely no evidence that this does anything other 1504 01:25:47,229 --> 01:25:50,580 than produce post-traumatic stress disorder, depression 1505 01:25:50,623 --> 01:25:53,887 and in some cases a brief period of compliance. 1506 01:25:53,931 --> 01:25:57,064 A lot of people will tell you it worked for me. 1507 01:25:57,108 --> 01:26:00,720 I can't say that 12-step program saved my life 1508 01:26:00,764 --> 01:26:05,638 because that's what happened to help when I ended up getting into recovery. 1509 01:26:05,682 --> 01:26:10,948 I mean I can say that, but the reality is that I don't know that. 1510 01:26:10,991 --> 01:26:13,211 That's an anecdote. 1511 01:26:13,255 --> 01:26:16,823 And even if it's my anecdote and I believe it very strongly, it's still an anecdote. 1512 01:26:16,867 --> 01:26:21,088 And if we're going to say that addiction and mental illnesses are diseases, 1513 01:26:21,132 --> 01:26:23,961 then we have to have medical standards of evidence. 1514 01:26:24,004 --> 01:26:26,659 And by the medical standards of evidence, 1515 01:26:26,703 --> 01:26:30,968 there is no data that suggests that this helps people, 1516 01:26:31,011 --> 01:26:36,365 and there are lots of things suggesting that it does [inaudible] them. 1517 01:26:36,408 --> 01:26:40,891 [Alec] I got out right when my class was graduating. 1518 01:26:40,934 --> 01:26:43,807 So, it was like being a rock star for a month, because you're out, 1519 01:26:43,850 --> 01:26:46,418 you hit every grad party, and you got out of like... 1520 01:26:46,462 --> 01:26:49,421 People were like, "We thought you were dead, we thought you were in jail, 1521 01:26:49,465 --> 01:26:53,556 we thought you were whatever." Like this incredible high for a month-and-a-half 1522 01:26:53,599 --> 01:26:56,820 and then it's just like boom. 1523 01:26:56,863 --> 01:27:01,390 Because then you've got to start to figure out how to do things like an adult, 1524 01:27:01,433 --> 01:27:04,784 or what the real world is, and everything like that. 1525 01:27:04,828 --> 01:27:07,265 And then you get up there and I'm like, "Oh fuck, dude, 1526 01:27:07,309 --> 01:27:09,136 I don't have a clue what the fuck I'm doing." 1527 01:27:09,180 --> 01:27:10,921 I didn't know what I was doing with anything. 1528 01:27:10,964 --> 01:27:14,185 I started going to school, I didn't know a God damn thing. 1529 01:27:14,794 --> 01:27:16,666 I didn't know a God damn thing. 1530 01:27:16,709 --> 01:27:18,972 I didn't know how to fucking sit in a real class, real homework, 1531 01:27:19,016 --> 01:27:22,367 real work, real everything. I don't have a fucking clue dude, I didn't care. 1532 01:27:22,411 --> 01:27:26,763 Started seeing one of my best friends when I came home from childhood, 1533 01:27:26,806 --> 01:27:28,721 he was all fucked up when I got back. 1534 01:27:28,765 --> 01:27:32,159 He was down with oxys, and I remember I never understood it 1535 01:27:32,203 --> 01:27:34,771 because I never did anything other than really drink or smoke, 1536 01:27:34,814 --> 01:27:37,730 so I didn't understand what shit was. And he was just like-- 1537 01:27:37,774 --> 01:27:39,254 [man] Why don't you try it? 1538 01:27:39,297 --> 01:27:43,954 Did that and then I've been on like an off and on like... 1539 01:27:43,997 --> 01:27:47,784 Five years, I've been on an off and on five-year drug bender. 1540 01:27:48,393 --> 01:27:50,700 I'm at rock right now. 1541 01:27:50,743 --> 01:27:51,657 I'm at rock. 1542 01:27:52,354 --> 01:27:54,312 You got me at a great time. 1543 01:27:56,096 --> 01:27:59,012 I went basically from Elan to college, 1544 01:27:59,709 --> 01:28:05,541 which was totally fucked up for me because I had no social skills. 1545 01:28:05,584 --> 01:28:08,544 The education was minimal, 1546 01:28:08,587 --> 01:28:12,461 and basically when I went to school all I wanted to do 1547 01:28:12,504 --> 01:28:15,377 was do everything that I wasn't allowed to do at Elan. 1548 01:28:15,420 --> 01:28:20,817 I partied, I sold drugs, I did drugs and went to concerts. 1549 01:28:20,860 --> 01:28:25,125 And I did everything that I felt I lost out on when I was a teenager, 1550 01:28:25,169 --> 01:28:29,216 I made up for like tenfold when I left Elan. 1551 01:28:29,260 --> 01:28:32,263 And then I got into heroin and I loved it. 1552 01:28:32,307 --> 01:28:34,613 I ended up doing it for like 20 years. 1553 01:28:34,657 --> 01:28:38,008 It was like the love affair, just started, 1554 01:28:38,051 --> 01:28:42,012 and it was like an every day, every time I could get it thing. 1555 01:28:42,055 --> 01:28:45,668 And then that started me off stripping because I realized how easy the money was. 1556 01:28:45,711 --> 01:28:48,584 So that's what I did for 10 years probably. 1557 01:28:48,627 --> 01:28:52,370 And I felt guilty about things I was doing, 1558 01:28:53,632 --> 01:28:57,375 but the fact that I felt guilty about it didn't stop me from doing them. 1559 01:28:57,419 --> 01:28:59,290 It just made me more miserable. 1560 01:28:59,334 --> 01:29:01,336 It just made me want to get high more, 1561 01:29:01,379 --> 01:29:04,382 and made me want to do whatever I could do to get away 1562 01:29:04,426 --> 01:29:08,952 from the way that I was made to feel about myself while I was there. 1563 01:29:08,995 --> 01:29:11,128 Because I was really made to feel like I was 1564 01:29:11,171 --> 01:29:13,739 the biggest piece of shit on the face of the Earth, 1565 01:29:13,783 --> 01:29:16,307 and I was always just going to be good for nothing. 1566 01:29:16,351 --> 01:29:21,268 And that was really what Elan instilled about me to myself. 1567 01:29:23,923 --> 01:29:26,404 [Peter] I was into some very dangerous stuff, 1568 01:29:26,448 --> 01:29:31,931 and there's a distinct possibility that if I didn't go to Elan I could have died. 1569 01:29:32,541 --> 01:29:36,719 There's also the possibility that I could have straightened myself out, I don't know. 1570 01:29:36,762 --> 01:29:40,462 But the way that Elan 1571 01:29:40,505 --> 01:29:43,290 had taught me how to live my life 1572 01:29:44,074 --> 01:29:45,162 worked. 1573 01:29:47,033 --> 01:29:51,995 I didn't act off my feelings, I didn't get my feelings get to me. 1574 01:29:52,038 --> 01:29:56,695 I went to college, I met my wife, I had a family. 1575 01:29:57,566 --> 01:30:01,265 But all of a sudden, I got to be about 33 years old, 1576 01:30:01,787 --> 01:30:05,487 which was maybe 15 years after I had left Elan, 1577 01:30:05,530 --> 01:30:09,012 and all of a sudden I found myself I couldn't deal with anything. 1578 01:30:11,014 --> 01:30:13,886 Something had changed inside me 1579 01:30:13,930 --> 01:30:18,282 that my feelings totally overtook me. 1580 01:30:18,325 --> 01:30:21,938 I had missed my childhood, 1581 01:30:22,939 --> 01:30:27,465 and that bothered me because I knew I could never get it back. 1582 01:30:27,509 --> 01:30:31,121 By the time I was 36 I was 1583 01:30:32,122 --> 01:30:34,733 shooting 25 bags a day of heroin. 1584 01:30:36,822 --> 01:30:39,956 [Liz] I think Elan really fucked up my life. 1585 01:30:39,999 --> 01:30:45,091 I hear the negative screaming at me in my head frequently, 1586 01:30:45,135 --> 01:30:49,618 and especially when I'm down or I'm feeling insecure about... 1587 01:30:49,661 --> 01:30:55,493 instead of giving myself a pep talk, those voices come in my head. 1588 01:30:55,537 --> 01:30:59,497 I can't say what would have happened had I not gone there, 1589 01:30:59,541 --> 01:31:05,416 and maybe I have a little bit of mental illness besides. 1590 01:31:05,460 --> 01:31:08,027 I think that's why most people end up there. 1591 01:31:08,071 --> 01:31:13,206 They're acting out in some way, but it really fucked me up. 1592 01:31:13,250 --> 01:31:17,036 [Maia] One of the reasons that Elan 1593 01:31:17,080 --> 01:31:21,040 and these emotional growth boarding school kind of places 1594 01:31:21,084 --> 01:31:26,611 caught on with parents is a lot of parents wanted to avoid psychiatric labels, 1595 01:31:26,655 --> 01:31:28,744 and wanted to avoid medications. 1596 01:31:28,787 --> 01:31:31,877 And so, they kind of figured, 1597 01:31:31,921 --> 01:31:34,924 if I send my kid to a place for bad kids, 1598 01:31:34,967 --> 01:31:37,927 it's better than sending them to a place for sick kids. 1599 01:31:37,970 --> 01:31:42,061 And they didn't realize how weird that actually is. 1600 01:31:42,105 --> 01:31:46,065 These places sort of show that there's still an enormous stigma 1601 01:31:46,109 --> 01:31:48,415 on mental illness and addiction, 1602 01:31:48,459 --> 01:31:51,375 and we see teenagers 1603 01:31:51,418 --> 01:31:54,639 as diseased just for being teenagers. 1604 01:31:54,683 --> 01:31:57,860 [Mary] After Elan I was sent to Perkins School for the Blind, 1605 01:31:57,903 --> 01:32:03,561 which to me felt exactly like leaving hell and going up to heaven. 1606 01:32:03,605 --> 01:32:06,216 I have a condition known as coloboma . 1607 01:32:06,259 --> 01:32:11,264 My retinas and my irises didn't form all the way at birth, 1608 01:32:12,048 --> 01:32:17,053 so I'm at the line between legally blind and visually impaired. 1609 01:32:17,880 --> 01:32:22,972 Not only was the campus so beautiful like I'd never seen before, 1610 01:32:23,015 --> 01:32:27,019 but the attitude there among people was so much different. 1611 01:32:27,063 --> 01:32:29,935 People were more patient and understanding, 1612 01:32:29,979 --> 01:32:32,416 you didn't have people screaming at each other. 1613 01:32:33,025 --> 01:32:38,335 See, I was already messed up when I went to Elan, so Elan messed me up further. 1614 01:32:38,378 --> 01:32:41,556 I felt bad enough about myself as it was, 1615 01:32:41,599 --> 01:32:44,515 but they made me feel even worse about myself. 1616 01:32:45,211 --> 01:32:48,084 I left there feeling like this big. 1617 01:32:48,127 --> 01:32:50,521 I've been in counseling for years. 1618 01:32:50,565 --> 01:32:52,915 I go to the Providence Mental Health Center. 1619 01:32:53,698 --> 01:32:58,616 I still draw pictures of people that I like, and I make dolls of them. 1620 01:32:58,660 --> 01:33:01,227 I was born with a vivid imagination. 1621 01:33:02,315 --> 01:33:03,665 It does help me. 1622 01:33:04,709 --> 01:33:07,843 They were trying to take away my fantasy world 1623 01:33:07,886 --> 01:33:10,106 and everything connected with it, 1624 01:33:10,149 --> 01:33:14,110 but they didn't have anything better to offer me, so why would I have given it up? 1625 01:33:16,025 --> 01:33:19,376 When I left Elan, I did not leave on good terms. 1626 01:33:19,419 --> 01:33:22,684 My parents would not allow me to come home because I didn't graduate, 1627 01:33:22,727 --> 01:33:28,124 and I was hitchhiking around, went to some Dead shows, 1628 01:33:28,167 --> 01:33:30,430 but I was homeless for a couple years. 1629 01:33:30,474 --> 01:33:35,435 Actually just recently I had access to my psychiatrist's recommendation 1630 01:33:35,479 --> 01:33:36,741 to send me to Elan, 1631 01:33:36,785 --> 01:33:39,265 and the recommendation specifically stated 1632 01:33:39,309 --> 01:33:44,967 that I needed a warm psychotherapeutic environment that was structured, 1633 01:33:45,010 --> 01:33:50,668 and that anything outside of those would probably lead to me killing myself. 1634 01:33:50,712 --> 01:33:53,366 I didn't have a great life, 1635 01:33:53,410 --> 01:33:56,021 I was sexually abused, I was physically abused. 1636 01:33:56,065 --> 01:34:00,460 I actually was recently diagnosed with PTSD. 1637 01:34:00,504 --> 01:34:04,508 I suffer from severe anxiety, I have night terrors, 1638 01:34:04,551 --> 01:34:06,728 and most of the time 1639 01:34:06,771 --> 01:34:10,732 I'm dreaming about Elan. 1640 01:34:10,775 --> 01:34:14,431 My husband wakes me up a lot saying that I was screaming, 1641 01:34:14,474 --> 01:34:20,219 and I truly think that if it wasn't for my husband's patience 1642 01:34:20,263 --> 01:34:22,134 and love and understanding 1643 01:34:22,178 --> 01:34:26,704 that I really think that doctor's report probably would be true. 1644 01:34:26,748 --> 01:34:28,880 I probably would have killed myself by now. 1645 01:34:34,625 --> 01:34:36,758 [Jaela] I'm intelligent enough 1646 01:34:36,801 --> 01:34:39,848 and I've seen enough in the world to know that once you go to a needle, 1647 01:34:39,891 --> 01:34:41,458 the only thing after that is death. 1648 01:34:43,721 --> 01:34:46,724 So I'm sitting there and I've got my bags lined up, and I'm ready to do my ritual. 1649 01:34:47,420 --> 01:34:51,468 Because it's very ritualistic to prepare your stuff and get everything set up. 1650 01:34:51,511 --> 01:34:54,819 The process is almost part of the whole addiction, 1651 01:34:54,863 --> 01:34:58,127 but I'm thinking to myself 1652 01:34:58,823 --> 01:35:00,651 kid, you know better than this. 1653 01:35:00,695 --> 01:35:03,306 I threw away so many opportunities, 1654 01:35:03,349 --> 01:35:07,832 a college education, a chance to start over. 1655 01:35:07,876 --> 01:35:13,882 I didn't know how to handle being social in a normal functional way, 1656 01:35:13,925 --> 01:35:17,189 because all I knew about being social was what I'd learned through Elan. 1657 01:35:17,233 --> 01:35:19,801 So I struggle, my cousin takes care of me 1658 01:35:19,844 --> 01:35:22,717 because I can't even go to the grocery store 1659 01:35:22,760 --> 01:35:27,330 without worrying about being caught in a loud place 1660 01:35:27,373 --> 01:35:32,291 or in a situation that I'm around a lot of people. 1661 01:35:32,335 --> 01:35:34,424 My first instinct is to shrink down. 1662 01:35:34,467 --> 01:35:37,819 I never had panic, I never had anxiety before Elan. 1663 01:35:37,862 --> 01:35:41,474 I didn't understand what a panic attack was until I got there, 1664 01:35:42,127 --> 01:35:44,303 and now I still have them 20 years later. 1665 01:35:44,347 --> 01:35:46,741 But I know for a fact 1666 01:35:46,784 --> 01:35:51,571 when I'm down shooting up the syringe full of brown shit 1667 01:35:52,181 --> 01:35:54,836 that I'm going to feel real nice. 1668 01:35:58,622 --> 01:36:02,800 [Dave] When I escaped Elan, I did it third time successful. 1669 01:36:02,844 --> 01:36:06,108 They let me out into the house, they made me go scrub a dumpster, 1670 01:36:07,370 --> 01:36:10,765 and I popped out of the dumpster and ran like hell. 1671 01:36:11,635 --> 01:36:16,118 So I went into the woods where I met a guy named Sticks, 1672 01:36:16,161 --> 01:36:19,948 who was an old shell-shocked Vietnam veteran. 1673 01:36:19,991 --> 01:36:24,343 And he lived out in the woods, and everything he made was built out of sticks and stones. 1674 01:36:24,387 --> 01:36:26,737 I guess that's how he got his name Sticks. 1675 01:36:26,781 --> 01:36:29,653 Anyway, he taught me the art of living outside. 1676 01:36:29,696 --> 01:36:35,572 So I got pretty good at it, and for a little over a year-and-a-half, two years, 1677 01:36:35,615 --> 01:36:38,749 something like that, I never came out of the woods. 1678 01:36:38,793 --> 01:36:40,882 I just lived in the woods all that time. 1679 01:36:40,925 --> 01:36:44,320 And I guess it turned out to be a good thing because all that, 1680 01:36:44,363 --> 01:36:47,366 I ended up really learning the art of survival. 1681 01:36:47,410 --> 01:36:52,415 And now that's what I do up north is I teach wilderness survival. 1682 01:36:53,068 --> 01:36:56,549 So to me it was quite the learning experience, 1683 01:36:56,593 --> 01:36:58,421 and I've learned many things since then 1684 01:36:58,464 --> 01:37:00,771 because I've just constantly been on the run. 1685 01:37:00,815 --> 01:37:03,861 Elan being the last place I ran from. 1686 01:37:05,863 --> 01:37:11,434 [Jeff] One of the times I was on the run, we stole this kid's mother's car. 1687 01:37:11,477 --> 01:37:14,132 When I came back the sheriff's in the house saying, 1688 01:37:14,176 --> 01:37:19,529 "You're fucking leaving, and there you go straight to jail." 1689 01:37:19,572 --> 01:37:23,663 And ended up being sentenced to two years, which sucked, 1690 01:37:23,707 --> 01:37:28,755 but I learned my lesson that I wasn't doing that again. 1691 01:37:28,799 --> 01:37:32,803 Because as a juvenile I did all kinds of stupid retarded ridiculous shit. 1692 01:37:34,109 --> 01:37:38,504 Once they put me in jail I realized that I liked to go to the refrigerator 1693 01:37:38,548 --> 01:37:40,289 and get a coke when I want. 1694 01:37:41,551 --> 01:37:44,467 I liked pussy, there was no pussy in jail, 1695 01:37:44,510 --> 01:37:46,382 and then nobody's chasing me anymore. 1696 01:37:46,425 --> 01:37:49,951 Now I'm 18, nobody's trying to tell me what to do. 1697 01:37:49,994 --> 01:37:55,043 So once people stopped trying to tell me what to do, I didn't have anywhere to go, 1698 01:37:55,086 --> 01:37:56,827 it was on me. 1699 01:37:56,871 --> 01:38:00,787 So once they stopped chasing, I didn't have to run anymore. 1700 01:38:02,702 --> 01:38:05,967 I was there to be punished, I was there to do five years. 1701 01:38:06,010 --> 01:38:08,621 When my five years was up I was gone. 1702 01:38:08,665 --> 01:38:12,277 Elan didn't hurt me with words and things like that. 1703 01:38:12,321 --> 01:38:15,933 Those have no bearing on my life, 1704 01:38:15,977 --> 01:38:18,936 because as far as I was concerned I had no home. 1705 01:38:18,980 --> 01:38:22,113 I was already being abused, I was already in the street. 1706 01:38:22,157 --> 01:38:25,334 You wasn't hurting me because I couldn't make a phone call, 1707 01:38:25,377 --> 01:38:27,118 I had nobody to call. 1708 01:38:27,162 --> 01:38:30,600 It didn't hurt me because Christmas I didn't get no present. 1709 01:38:30,643 --> 01:38:32,689 I had nobody to give me a present anyway. 1710 01:38:32,732 --> 01:38:36,780 I had no one to say Merry Christmas to anyways. 1711 01:38:36,823 --> 01:38:42,090 So it didn't hurt me along those lines, it caught me other ways. 1712 01:38:42,133 --> 01:38:44,353 It caught me because I got no education. 1713 01:38:44,396 --> 01:38:46,964 I didn't learn anything along those lines. 1714 01:38:47,008 --> 01:38:50,837 It didn't prepare me for the day when I turned 18 1715 01:38:50,881 --> 01:38:54,102 and they sent me to music schoolup in New York. 1716 01:38:55,407 --> 01:38:58,236 I was in a school, I couldn't read the books. 1717 01:38:59,629 --> 01:39:01,152 What was I going to do? 1718 01:39:01,196 --> 01:39:05,156 I started drinking, I got arrested a couple times. 1719 01:39:05,200 --> 01:39:07,506 They sent me to [inaudible], 1720 01:39:07,550 --> 01:39:11,684 but the next thing you know I started committing assault, I started robbing people. 1721 01:39:11,728 --> 01:39:14,557 You do what you have to do to make it. 1722 01:39:14,600 --> 01:39:17,647 My stomach growled, I see somebody walk down the street, 1723 01:39:17,690 --> 01:39:19,779 you do what you've got to do, that's dinner. 1724 01:39:20,389 --> 01:39:23,696 It's nothing to be proud of or anything like that, 1725 01:39:23,740 --> 01:39:29,006 a grown ass man has to rob somebody just to eat. 1726 01:39:29,659 --> 01:39:31,269 But that's what I did. 1727 01:39:34,403 --> 01:39:35,970 [Missy] I'm glad I worked at Elan. 1728 01:39:37,058 --> 01:39:38,581 I'm glad I met you all. 1729 01:39:38,624 --> 01:39:43,673 It's like you were my children, but I'm not happy with... 1730 01:39:43,716 --> 01:39:45,718 I'm sad that other people didn't get 1731 01:39:45,762 --> 01:39:48,547 what everybody else could have gotten and whatever else. 1732 01:39:48,591 --> 01:39:52,290 And I'm sad if they felt like they were abused or whatever else, for them. 1733 01:39:52,334 --> 01:39:55,772 But I'm still going to go to sleep tonight. 1734 01:39:59,297 --> 01:40:01,996 [Maia] I can't remember exactly how I found out about Elan. 1735 01:40:02,039 --> 01:40:06,130 I probably read an article about the Michael Skakel case. 1736 01:40:06,174 --> 01:40:09,525 [man] Throughout the '80s and '90s Elan had gone through many changes. 1737 01:40:09,568 --> 01:40:11,657 Due to ongoing pressure from social services 1738 01:40:11,701 --> 01:40:13,877 and modern age views on mental health treatment, 1739 01:40:13,920 --> 01:40:17,446 many of the humiliation tactics such as costumes and spankings were dropped. 1740 01:40:17,489 --> 01:40:20,057 By 2001, Elan no longer used the ring. 1741 01:40:20,101 --> 01:40:22,929 However, it really wasn't until the Michael Skakel trial 1742 01:40:22,973 --> 01:40:25,280 that Elan's violent past came back to haunt it. 1743 01:40:25,323 --> 01:40:29,023 [Maia] I got to do an op-ed for theNew York Times a few years ago, 1744 01:40:29,066 --> 01:40:32,374 and I called up the New York State Department of Education 1745 01:40:32,417 --> 01:40:37,205 and was horrified to discover that they were sending some learning disabled kids to Elan. 1746 01:40:37,248 --> 01:40:39,598 The state went in and did an investigation, 1747 01:40:39,642 --> 01:40:42,688 and that's when New York said, "We're not sending any more kids." 1748 01:40:42,732 --> 01:40:45,822 What was interesting about that was Maine 1749 01:40:45,865 --> 01:40:49,478 had been doing investigations for years and never finding anything. 1750 01:40:49,521 --> 01:40:54,439 New York in its first investigation found kids restraining other kids, 1751 01:40:54,483 --> 01:40:57,573 sleep deprivation, attack therapy, they found all kinds of bad stuff. 1752 01:40:57,616 --> 01:41:02,447 Why? Because Maine always announced when it was coming in advance, 1753 01:41:02,491 --> 01:41:04,101 and New York just went in. 1754 01:41:04,145 --> 01:41:08,584 And I think it's pathetic that the State of Main for decades 1755 01:41:08,627 --> 01:41:13,980 announced when it was going to investigate a place that was known to be abusing children. 1756 01:41:14,024 --> 01:41:16,548 [man] However, in the end there was a greater force 1757 01:41:16,592 --> 01:41:18,942 that brought about the end of Elan's 40-year reign. 1758 01:41:18,985 --> 01:41:21,597 [Peter] Elan wasn't closed because of laws 1759 01:41:21,640 --> 01:41:25,992 or because it broke any specific state regulation 1760 01:41:26,036 --> 01:41:28,299 or violated any codes. 1761 01:41:28,343 --> 01:41:31,128 They were closed because they were hit in the wallet. 1762 01:41:31,172 --> 01:41:33,130 The internet closed Elan down. 1763 01:41:34,436 --> 01:41:36,568 [man] In the beginning I was like I'll just be me, 1764 01:41:36,612 --> 01:41:40,137 but people started coming out of nowhere 1765 01:41:40,181 --> 01:41:43,401 and sending me death threats. 1766 01:41:43,445 --> 01:41:46,491 These people may just have a vendetta against, 1767 01:41:46,535 --> 01:41:50,452 "Oh, that's the guy who closed it? That's the guy who made us go bankrupt?" 1768 01:41:51,279 --> 01:41:54,151 So when I started my crusade against Elan, 1769 01:41:54,195 --> 01:41:58,155 it was maybe 10 years after I got out, and I just thought, 1770 01:41:58,199 --> 01:42:00,157 "I'll just make a blog about it." 1771 01:42:00,201 --> 01:42:04,161 But at the time that really wasn't enough. 1772 01:42:04,205 --> 01:42:05,945 I went on this website my friend showed me. 1773 01:42:05,989 --> 01:42:08,209 He said, "Check out this website, it's called Reddit." 1774 01:42:08,252 --> 01:42:12,126 And I made a post, and I already had a long bullet point list. 1775 01:42:12,169 --> 01:42:18,088 I was very excited, I hit submit, and let me tell you it went totally viral. 1776 01:42:18,132 --> 01:42:21,744 It had 5000 upvotes, it was on front page. 1777 01:42:21,787 --> 01:42:23,920 It had thousands of comments. 1778 01:42:23,963 --> 01:42:27,097 Maybe 10-15,000 comments. 1779 01:42:27,141 --> 01:42:32,537 I can also remember very vividly the first comments, and it was some guy who wrote, 1780 01:42:32,581 --> 01:42:36,193 "You know, I didn't believe this when I first read it, 1781 01:42:36,237 --> 01:42:40,545 but then I went on Google and I typed in the Elan School, 1782 01:42:40,589 --> 01:42:45,071 and I can't believe what I'm reading." That was it. 1783 01:42:45,115 --> 01:42:47,552 Once this Reddit community got a hold of it, 1784 01:42:47,596 --> 01:42:52,601 which is like hundreds of thousands of people, it just spread like a virus. 1785 01:42:52,644 --> 01:42:54,646 It went all over the internet. 1786 01:42:54,690 --> 01:42:58,694 We had all said to each other on many, many occasions as residents in the house. 1787 01:42:58,737 --> 01:43:01,914 If we could all get together and make somebody listen to us. 1788 01:43:01,958 --> 01:43:04,003 But we didn't have social networking, 1789 01:43:04,047 --> 01:43:06,528 we didn't have emails, 1790 01:43:06,571 --> 01:43:09,966 we didn't have the internet, we didn't have all these things. 1791 01:43:10,009 --> 01:43:11,620 [Liz] But now with the internet 1792 01:43:11,663 --> 01:43:16,233 and parents who are considering sending their kids there, 1793 01:43:16,277 --> 01:43:19,758 they're going online and googling Elan 1794 01:43:19,802 --> 01:43:24,720 and seeing all these former residents who have nothing good to say about it, 1795 01:43:24,763 --> 01:43:28,985 or most of them don't have anything good to say about the place. 1796 01:43:29,028 --> 01:43:32,945 And that was it. That was it for Elan, and a lot of other alumni helped me. 1797 01:43:32,989 --> 01:43:35,470 [Jaela] People insisted on being heard, 1798 01:43:35,513 --> 01:43:40,431 and people wanted their story told, and people wanted a sense of justice. 1799 01:43:40,475 --> 01:43:42,912 So in effect we shut them down. 1800 01:43:42,955 --> 01:43:45,610 But again, I wish I had happened years sooner. 1801 01:43:51,834 --> 01:43:54,793 [man] So looking back, would you have left Elan when you had the chance? 1802 01:43:54,837 --> 01:43:55,881 Oh yeah. 1803 01:43:55,925 --> 01:43:56,752 Yeah. 1804 01:43:57,622 --> 01:43:58,493 Yeah, I would have. 1805 01:44:00,408 --> 01:44:04,063 Yeah, with what I know now, yeah I would have ran as far as I could. 1806 01:44:05,239 --> 01:44:10,983 [Peter] The people who have been to Elan have been through a very personal war. 1807 01:44:11,027 --> 01:44:16,467 They by and large are truly some of the boldest individuals you will ever meet. 1808 01:44:16,511 --> 01:44:20,558 Going through hell and getting spat back out will definitely teach you some shit. 1809 01:44:22,517 --> 01:44:25,998 The way I look at it anything that doesn't fucking kill you makes you stronger. 1810 01:44:26,042 --> 01:44:28,740 You know, as the name you have now, The Last Stop, 1811 01:44:28,784 --> 01:44:32,875 minus jail, it really kind of was the last stop for me. 1812 01:44:32,918 --> 01:44:34,790 I mean, they wanted to force change. 1813 01:44:36,182 --> 01:44:38,097 Sometimes change isn't easy. 1814 01:44:38,141 --> 01:44:41,144 And to this day 1815 01:44:41,187 --> 01:44:44,278 I believe Elan was the best and worst thing that happened to me. 1816 01:44:45,191 --> 01:44:47,716 [Mary] This is a book that I published. 1817 01:44:47,759 --> 01:44:50,632 It did help me a lot writing about all of the things that happened, 1818 01:44:51,415 --> 01:44:56,115 getting it off my chest, and I designed the picture for the front cover. 1819 01:44:56,159 --> 01:45:00,424 It's like an institutional setting with me sitting there daydreaming 1820 01:45:00,468 --> 01:45:02,992 about a man who I wish was my father. 1821 01:45:03,035 --> 01:45:07,039 That was the way I sometimes was amid the chaos. 1822 01:45:07,083 --> 01:45:10,216 Sitting there with the sketchbook and the crayons. 1823 01:45:11,305 --> 01:45:14,873 And then on other occasions I was a part of the chaos. 1824 01:45:15,526 --> 01:45:17,659 I grew up, I wanted to be a thug, 1825 01:45:17,702 --> 01:45:21,053 I wanted to be a gangster because that's all I knew. 1826 01:45:21,097 --> 01:45:26,494 But then I might watch TV, I watched the Hallmark channel, want to cry. 1827 01:45:26,537 --> 01:45:28,713 Be like, "Wow, this is the perfect family. 1828 01:45:28,757 --> 01:45:31,847 What the fuck happened to me? I wish I had that." 1829 01:45:33,196 --> 01:45:34,719 But it's not going to happen. 1830 01:45:34,763 --> 01:45:38,462 I've definitely spoken to my family about Elan. 1831 01:45:39,855 --> 01:45:42,248 On a smaller scale though with my family 1832 01:45:42,292 --> 01:45:46,644 because a lot of them wouldn't understand exactly why I got sent there to begin with. 1833 01:45:46,688 --> 01:45:49,734 They don't know about my father and the stuff that he had done to me, 1834 01:45:49,778 --> 01:45:52,607 so they wouldn't really get why it all happened. 1835 01:45:52,650 --> 01:45:56,524 But with my friends I feel very open about talking about everything with Elan, 1836 01:45:56,567 --> 01:45:58,308 because we have something to talk about, 1837 01:45:58,352 --> 01:46:01,006 we can all relate on such specific things. 1838 01:46:01,050 --> 01:46:05,837 It's fun and it's funny, but I would say the relationship that I formed with Jessica, 1839 01:46:05,881 --> 01:46:09,885 I would say the same as some of the best friends I've had since childhood. 1840 01:46:09,928 --> 01:46:11,800 [Dave] I still think about Elan. 1841 01:46:13,279 --> 01:46:16,805 I think about the friends I had there, if they're still around or not. 1842 01:46:16,848 --> 01:46:18,372 I know most of them ain't. 1843 01:46:18,415 --> 01:46:21,462 It kills me because I know that there's other kids. 1844 01:46:24,465 --> 01:46:29,644 I just know there's other kids that left out of there and felt the same way I did, 1845 01:46:33,212 --> 01:46:36,259 and they didn't get a chance to find out what I know now. 1846 01:46:37,391 --> 01:46:42,483 I don't know why I was spared, I don't know why I'm still alive today. 1847 01:46:42,526 --> 01:46:45,311 By all means, I should not even be sitting here. 1848 01:46:47,052 --> 01:46:50,316 I just know so many kids killed themselves 1849 01:46:50,360 --> 01:46:53,668 and died of overdoses. 1850 01:46:53,711 --> 01:46:57,498 And I don't care, we have problems, but we were kids, 1851 01:46:57,541 --> 01:47:00,370 you know what I mean? And they took everything. 1852 01:47:00,414 --> 01:47:02,416 They took everything away from you. 1853 01:47:03,678 --> 01:47:08,117 The people at Elan VI, I would like to say I'm sorry 1854 01:47:08,900 --> 01:47:10,467 if I hurt them. 1855 01:47:10,511 --> 01:47:12,643 I was doing what I was told. 1856 01:47:12,687 --> 01:47:15,820 I was doing what I felt I had to do to get out of there. 1857 01:47:15,864 --> 01:47:18,910 It was not a personal thing against them. 1858 01:47:18,954 --> 01:47:21,652 If I hurt somebody, I'm sorry, 1859 01:47:21,696 --> 01:47:26,570 and I hope that they can find it in their heart to forgive me. 1860 01:47:38,843 --> 01:47:42,586 [Maia] Well, I'm hoping that there will not be any more troubled teen industry. 1861 01:47:42,630 --> 01:47:46,242 There's always been this sort of thread since Sparta 1862 01:47:46,285 --> 01:47:50,333 where we can make tough people by putting them through tough things. 1863 01:47:50,376 --> 01:47:52,857 But that doesn't mean that we should traumatize people. 1864 01:47:52,901 --> 01:47:57,949 [Missy] I think that everybody wants to be heard, especially teenagers, 1865 01:47:57,993 --> 01:47:59,560 but they also need to hear. 1866 01:47:59,603 --> 01:48:01,300 [man] Anything else you'd like to say? 1867 01:48:02,345 --> 01:48:04,695 That's probably all I'd have to say about that.