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