A Child's Story

This is my email to a support group during my family's ordeal with Antrim County's Family Court.

Operation Awareness: Havenwyck Hospital program for youth sexual deviance

In this article posted to operationawareness.com a mother writes about her ten year old son who was sent to Havenwyck Hospital in Michigan State to undergo involuntary treatment for sexual abuse and sexual deviance. This information is substantiated by the PSI website maintained for the hospital itself: http://www.psysolutions.com/facilities/havenwyck/impulse.html

Havenwyck’s Impulse Disorder Program is a 26-bed licensed and secured residential program specifically designed for children and adolescents ages 11-17, with emotional and/or behavioral sex offending symptoms, which require them to be in a secure 24-hour supervised therapeutic sex offending setting.

Children and adolescents in the Impulse Disorder Program have been unable to function successfully at home, in school and in their social relationships. They are accepted into the program to develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their families, their sex offending problems; and to develop more healthy and adaptive behaviors. The youngsters attend Havenwyck’s state approved on-ground school.

The unique design of the residential program provides the most current “state-of-the-art” sex offender treatment techniques including; cognitive restructuring, relapse prevention, and covert desensitization therapies, as well as other innovative approaches.

Our objectives are to:

ñ Provide sex offender treatment resulting in freedom from sexual deviant behaviors

ñ Examine and modify patterns of deviant sexual arousal

ñ Develop victim empathy and remorse for their actions

ñ Develop an understanding of sexual offending as a mood-altering behavior

ñ Establish more positive anger management techniques

ñ Develop more social relationships skills

ñ Assist the families in being vehicles for change

ñ Discharge the individual to the least restrictive environment or home as soon as possible

The program facilitates a multi-disciplinary intensive sex offender treatment program which includes individual, group, psychopharmacology, family and activity therapies; as well as a variety of multi-disciplinary and substance abuse groups.

Eligibility Requirements

ñ Children & Adolescents 11-17 years of age

ñ Displaying sexually deviant behaviors

ñ Sex offending behavior is beyond the scope of outpatient treatment

ñ Adjudicated or non-adjudicated requiring a secure locked unit

http://www.operationawareness.com/about_1_child.html

FROM VICTIM TO PERPETRATOR TO VICTIM

WHY PREVENTION AND REAL TREATMENT SHOULD BE AMERICA’S FIRST PRIORITY TO STOP THE CYCLE AND END ABUSE.

This is an e-mail we received from a Mother living in Michigan. Only their names have been changed to protect their identities. Their story is a classic example of why the system is failing us all.

I’m writing to you regarding a situation involving my now 14 year old son, Ben. He was sexually abused at a young age and I had voluntarily placed him in treatment at age four because he was emotionally impaired as a result.

He also spent nine years in special education due to this impairment. This went well until his treatment was sabotaged by the CPS. This is important because the CPS built a case against my child over several years following this treatment.

Ben apparently was acting out sexually in the community and it was reported to the CPS.

Rather than notify me, Ben was repeatedly pulled from class and interrogated by the CPS. Since Ben was the one accused of wrongdoing, shouldn’t there have been a parent or attorney present?

In 2003 Ben touched his cousin through her underwear and threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Ben was barely 10 and my niece was 11. We didn’t find out about it until January 2004 and immediately sought counseling for Ben.

The juvenile justice/ CPS worker and the prosecutor told us that in order for the court to pay for the treatment, Ben would have to plead guilty to Second Degree CSC. They assured us that Ben’s record would be expunged when he turned 18 if he successfully completed treatment and stayed out of trouble. They also told us that it wasn’t necessary for Ben to have an attorney - we could have one - but it would only drag it out even longer.

Ben’s fingerprints, mug shot and DNA were taken.

As soon as Ben pled guilty, he was locked up in juvenile detention for four months before being sent to Havenwyck Psychiatric Hospital in Auburn Hills for 17 more months.

Havenwyck is a private hospital owned by Psychiatric Solutions Inc.

Medicaid wouldn’t pay for this treatment so Antrim County DHS, Probate Court and Community mental health picked up the tab. They made me pay child support and billed me weekly.

Ben was threatened by the juvenile justice worker that if he didn’t hurry up and finish treatment he would be sent to juvenile detention. She then felt the need to share with Ben that she used to be employed by Wackenhut and while working there, a group of boys dragged another boy into a room and sodomized him until his rectum fell out and he bled to death.

Treatment at Havenwyck involves torture and experimental behavior modification techniques.

Covert Taping - Ben was made to write a healthy script and a deviant script. These he read aloud into a tape recorder. When he became aroused, he had to break open an ammonia capsule and inhale deeply. Staff members listened to these tapes to make sure that he choked. That meant that he was doing it properly. Ben suffered horrible nosebleeds for months after he came home.

Plethysmographs - This is a test where the older boys were taken out of the facility. A ring with sensors is placed over the boys penis and they are shown sexually graphic material. Ben was too young to do this, but went out of the facility with two other boys and a staff member to act as chaperone.

This was necessary because a staff member named Mr. Ari was accused by a gay black boy of engaging in oral and anal sex with him in the bathroom of the facility where they do the plethysmographs.

This happened before Ben got to Havenwyck, yet Ben met Mr. Ari. That was because he was still working on the unit. He was transferred to another unit and eventually let go, but as far as Ben knows this was never investigated by the state.

Most of the boys in Havenwyck are wards of the state. Since Medicaid won’t pay for this, who is paying who?

Ben successfully completed treatment in January 2004. He was home for nine days when the juvenile justice worker called to inform me that Ben had to register as a sex offender by the next day or he’d be in trouble.

This was the first time we were informed that Ben would have to do this. Otherwise we would have had an attorney and never would have agreed to their deal.

We complied and tried to get on with our lives. There was never any documentation regarding the rules that Ben is supposed to follow.

The day that Florida Governor Jeb Bush deemed ammonia capsules to be torture, Ben was released from his strict probation without a hearing. The court order said nothing about him having to register quarterly for the rest of his life.

We have been trying to pick up the pieces and go on.

However on May 17, 2007 the state police showed up at our home and “apprehended” Ben for failing to register quarterly since he came home more than a year earlier.

The state trooper was confused by all of this and believed me when I told him that that was the first that I’d heard that Ben had to register. I have no documentation from Antrim County regarding the rules Ben is supposed to follow.

According to the paperwork the trooper showed me, Ben’s DNA isn’t on file. Antrim County took a cheek swab, so where is my child’s DNA?

There was also confusion as to why my son was sentenced so harshly.The only thing the trooper could think of was the fact that my niece was under the age of 13. She was 11 and Ben was 10 at the time of the incident.

The trooper then proceeded to take Ben’s palm prints on the trunk of his car in front of everyone. We live by the school and there was much traffic that day. He also went over the radio with Ben’s name, our address and failure to register CSC. Great .Even though Ben is only 14, he seems to have forfeited his right to privacy.

The trooper said he was going to write and fax his report to Antrim County that day because he wanted to clear up the confusion about the matter.

I waited for several weeks for Antrim County to contact me. We only had until July 15 to get him registered. When I didn’t hear from them, I called the trooper. He said that he specifically attached a memo for them to contact me as soon as possible.

He called Antrim County and they told him that prosecutor Mark Fett was going to look into this and would call me. He did, and I tried to ask him questions as to how and why this happened and how we were supposed to comply if we aren’t told what to do. He also told me that Antrim County decided not to press charges.

I asked about appealing my son’s conviction and he informed me that I would have to hire my own attorney. Unfortunately I can’t afford one.

Because I questioned this matter, Mr. Fett got very angry with me and he screamed at me, “I’m telling you now-Register your kid!” He then slammed the phone down in my ear.

I wanted Ben to be charged because we then could have had an attorney look at his case.

From what I have been able to figure out, Ben is subject to the Adam Walsh Act of 2007.

Since he committed his offense in 2003 at age 10, I don’t understand how this can possibly pertain to him. My father is a convicted sex offender, yet he doesn’t have to register because his crime was committed before there was a sex offender registry.

I feel that the CPS was building a case against Ben for years since his past behavior was a deciding factor in the decision to prosecute rather than help the kid.

My main questions are as follows :

1. Havenwyck was the only facility that would even take Ben because he was so young (barely 11) . Why was he sent there, especially since it is experimental? Ben’s therapist made reference to Pavlov’s dogs in open court and stated that the program had been in existence for less than 10 years.

2. Since the California Court of Appeals ruled last year that plethysmographs are “Orwellian” in nature, why are they using them on children who are wards of the state?

3. Why was Ben questioned repeatedly by the CPS without a parent or lawyer present while an elementary school student, then charged with a crime at a later date?

4. Is it legal to use ammonia capsules on children?

5. Why did the judge allow us to proceed without an attorney when there was going to be lifelong repercussions? It’s not fair that my child’s life is ruined because I made a bad decision.

Time is running out for us. We only have three years to file suit in Michigan and its already been more than 2 years. Are there any attorneys willing to take cases if the state is involved?

Ben never recieved the help he needed for being a victim of sexual abuse. Instead he was treated like some kind of monster and had his life ruined by people who should be helping kids.

Special thanks to “W” for allowing us to share her story. Unfortunately, their story is one that gets repeated over and over again in this country. When parents try and do the right thing and get their children help they find out that their’s and their child’s life is forever turned upside down and the child NEVER gets the help he or she needs. So, the cycle continues and many lives needlessly get destroyed in the process.

operationawareness.com 2008