Involve Your Voice of Experience

Today’s Texas Youth Council/Commission is a great example of mischievous legislation that’s resulted in poor management practices and useless programs designed to further destroy a child’s chances at a life outside of state supervision. All the while decreasing public safety and feeding a booming prison industry. Since Morales vs Turman ordered closing the Gatesville State School for Boys this mischievous legislation has attempted to forces tyc to be something it can’t possibly ever achieve. Today’s tyc only stands to fool the public tax payers of this state, that it’s a rehab with resocialization programs that have the capability to civilize the worst of the worst juvenile delinquents in the state of Texas.

The abusive correctional culture that Morales vs Turman attempted to eradicate was just simply redistributed to other facilities around the state. Some say it was a ploy by government officials to turn our old reform school over to the feared Texas Department of Corrections to keep people from nosing around the buried atrocity’s perpetrated by those who ran the old reform school. I suppose one could base this thinking on the premises that no one dare jack with tdc. Look what happened to Bonnie and Clyde. While others may see our Legislators each session continue to look for ways to criminalize freedoms in order to feed its citizenry into the booming prison business. Today’s tyc with its de-socializing programs keeps a continuous feed of bad seeds into our communities that corrupts even more citizenry who are fed into the booming prison business. We have become a society who has found that incarcerating it citizens is good business.

During the discovery phases of Morales vs Turman state boys and girls as well as many state employees put their life in jeopardy to testify, only to have legislators build up the monster tyc is today. The child abuse in today’s tyc is worst than before Morales vs turman. Bruises heal but programs implemented that result in mental anguish and the continuance of breeding hopelessness can last a lifetime while its effect on the general public is devastating.

Somehow the public needs to be made aware of what our elected officials are doing, the effects of over criminalizing our freedoms, piling more bureaucracy in its building of our state’s juvenile in-justice system, the effects it has on the children, their parents, the people of this great state of Texas. We state boys are a powerful force, we shut down the most notorious reform school in the history of juvenile justice. If we can survive Gatesville we can do anything. Join me and others for a state boy reunion in Gatesville and we can start to figure a way to bring public awareness to this crucial issue our society faces. Join the mailing list oldschool@ironguardiansnt.org for upcoming information.

Its long over due for a State Boy reunion

I have spoken with Dodi at the Chateau Ville in Gatesville and they are willing to provide accommodations for a fee, off course. Dodi was a matron at Riverside School, her husband worked at Hackberry School. She is also on the board of the local museum where there is exhibits of the old reform school. I suppose that's fitting since much of that area was built from slave labor provided by the reform school.

I know this may sound crazy and any one of us who spent any amount of time in that horrible place knows the last thing we would want to do is go back there. Some of the discussions on the class mates site has been said to be therapeutic. It may be just that therapeutic as well as a hell of a good party. A celebration of freedom.

On another note the State Boy reunion will help bring awareness to the atrocities that have been perpetrated on us and continue to be perpetrated on the unfortunate children who find themselves in tyc today. Those of us who have gone on to become productive citizens could really make a difference in what's going on with tyc today. It could help push legislation for better treatment programs in today's juvenile justice system. There is a history professor who is doing a book on the history of the Juvenile justice system in Texas as well as others who would be there to hear stories. A bunch of us former State Boys getting together in Gatesville Texas, the seed of the juvenile justice system in Texas, could bring such an awareness.

Please respond back to me oldschool@IronGuardiansNT.org and let me know how you can help with putting this thing together. At the very least let me know when a good week end would be for you to attend in the month of July or August of this year. Also keep a watch on the Gatesville State School for Boys blog.