School Staff Very Good At Producing Young Men With Authority Issues

I just recently discovered that one of my dorm mates was gunned downed by police officers. Roger was a big guy from Houston Texas with a big heart and a very mild disposition. After I had left he got into some issues with staff and was sent to Mountain View, which in the final days of boys inhabiting the schools the boys who pissed off staff were housed at Hackberry.

Apparently Roger had escaped from Coffield unit and made it to Colorado where he was murdered, in what appears to me from the video, cold blood by local authorities. I’m certainly not condoning the acts Roger committed that took him from nice 15 year old kid seeking help from the state school in 1976 into this escaped mad man of 1988. However this graphic video highlights how incredibly well our old school was at turning relatively nice kids who came there in need of help into people who have issues with authority and in many cases are not fit to live in polite society. I don’t think any of us former students would be surprised how many of our school mates went on to prison or were murdered by authority’s. I say murdered because many graduates of gssb and tyc in general really never had a chance indifferent of the crimes they went on to commit. It was foolish for people in our home counties to think those monsters in gatesville could help a kid and the same holds true today for our state’s juvenile agency.

RIP Roger, when I knew you, you were a decent human being. A real shame what happened to all involved. It’s my opinion tyc is indirectly responsible for the mayhem in this video.

Some Thing’s Change But The Attitude of Staff Towards Inmates Remain The Same.

Much of our old school has become known as the Crain unit and even though some things change much of what is etched in our memories remain the same. Many of you who were there during the Morales v Turman lawsuit remember how troubled the staff was about being told they couldn’t beat state boys anymore. Well the thugs of gatesville got a reprieve when the boys were moved out and the state had tdc move in the ladies. A widely held suspicion was due to fear of developers digging up bodies of boys in unmarked graves. However the generational curse placed upon that backwoods town for its abuse of children was all set to continue on for the towns indigenous species through the abuse of the female inmates. After all people in a town whose existence was based on the blood of children, need a steady crop of helpless human beings to abuse to feel better about themselves in their own miserable lives. So the legacy of gatesville continues from the abuse of children and orphans to ladies and widows.

I remember the plumbing being an issue in the 70’s and today the ladies have to go to a “shower house” at the schools like Terrace. The old woodshop has been turned into a visitors area and they wrapped a fence around the schools. The buildings built in the 50’s and 60’s were of poor quality constructions and the place seems very dilapidated today. If it weren’t for the fear of what might be dug up around that place and the need to provide victims for the indigenous I’m sure our states leaders would like the horror story of our old sate school to be bulldozed away.

Gas for round trip to visit inmate at Christina Crain Unit $25.00
Quarters for vending machine to feed starved inmate $20.00
Lunch on the way home (Not in gatesville) $10.00
Look of sheer terror on various CO’s face when inquiring about a former state boy reunion to be held in town. Priceless!

So what’s in a name change???

The state of Texas must feel that when an agency goes rouge it can simply change its name to protect the states perpetrators. Texas legislators have made it a practice to change the name of the state youth corrections agency when the public is made aware of what really goes on behind their walls, and how far up the chain of command this knowledge is known. According to this link,

In 1919 the 36th Legislature created the Texas State Board of Control (Senate Bill 147, Regular Session). The legislation directed the Board of Control to take over management of the state juvenile training school, abolishing the Board of Trustees. The school was renamed the Gatesville State School for Boys in 1939. In 1949, the State Youth Development Council (later named the Texas Youth Council) took over management of the school (House Bill 705, 51st Legislature, Regular Session).

Well State Boys with this latest tyc scandal the agency will have yet another name change. The previously known Texas Youth counsel, formally known as the Texas Youth commission will be known on 12/01/2011 as the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. 120+ years of state sponsored child abuse and covered till the next big public scandal, uh I mean “name change”.

In 1971 a class-action lawsuit was brought against the Texas Youth Council on behalf of juvenile defenders (Morales vs. Turman). This led to sweeping changes in the Texas juvenile justice system. The presiding federal judge, Judge William Wayne Justice, ordered the closing of the state schools at Gatesville (boys) and Gainesville (girls). The Gatesville State School for Boys closed in 1979. The Texas Youth Commission (Texas Youth Council was renamed the Texas Youth Commission in 1983) today manages several facilities throughout the state for juvenile offenders.

And many of you comment about the times leading up to this classic law suit that changed the name from the Texas Youth counsel to the Texas Youth commission.

 

The Little Boys

In the 1880 the Texas state prison had an interesting problem, what to do with the convicts to sick, lame or old to work in the convict leasing farms. Prison officials figured they could make as much per convict with state run farms then lease farms. They did, $500.00 per convict verse $175.00 per convict lease annually. So good was the profit in 1877 Texas Legislators agreed to purchase more land for state run farms and one of the first purchases was outside of Gatesville. The surveyor reported back to Austin; it’s a most beautiful valley suitable for raising cotton and food crops and the town is eager to supply workers. August 30 1887 a story in the Dallas Morning News “Gatesville Triumph, Reformatory for vicious boys to open”. Right from the start the reform school was stigmatized with vicious boys who will provide free farm labor for the state and surrounding farms. A far cry from what the Victorian reformers had in mind.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatesville_State_School
After 90 years of scandal the doors finely shut on Gatesville’s house of pain and the facility was turned over to the Texas Department of Corrections. Today TDCJ houses female offenders in our old schools and among the well known stories that are told; the spirits of the little boys who are still there.
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/mediasvc/connections/SeptOct2005/features3_v13no1.html
So common is the talk of the essence of former inmates of that place, the Little Boys, that while visiting a female offender, she turned to the guard walking by, and referred to me as one of the little boys. The look on the guards face and her response said it all. The guard responded, we all know how rough it was for you, it appears you are doing all right?” There I was, in the converted bunk room of dorm 10 at Mountain View, a living member of a legacy etched in the prison lore of Christina Crain Unit, a member of Gatesville’s Little Boys.

Hilltop Dorms and Live Oak Dorm

Found these photos on the web and had to share. Im sure it will bring back memorys for some. May it be healing.












I remember having to go clean these empty old dorms. The cages that were on the third floor of that one building not shown. I cant remember if there were 2 dorms or 4 per building.











I think this is looking out from the the Dairy barn up the Hill. My last summer at Gatesville I spent removing the stalls from that barn to be sold for scrap money.









This apears to be taken with back to the river not the hiway. The chow hall is to the left and behind is a dorm. This is from the days of racial segregation where the caption reads Harris Hall Dusky populace Gatesville State School for Boys. I took Upholstery Shop in that old Live Oak dorm.

The Man

Hey, hay check out the man
He will do it to you
If you aint got no stand.

Hey, hay check out the man
He’ll kick your ass
If he get the chance.

The man have no regrets
The man have no sorrows
If he don’t get you today
He will get you tomorrow.

By a State Boy who testified in federal Court against the state of Texas for beating children.

Anti Gay sign in Gatesville Texas

Shortly after my trip through the prison economic based community of Gatesville Texas I saw this recent picture of this billboard on main street. The article had plenty of commentary regarding how backwards the thinking is in this prison built town and just as many arguments for the message it sends. But what struck me as significant is how that thinking effected us during those impressionable times in our lives while at the reform school. In this age of tolerance towards lifestyles that are different from our own how much closed mindedness did we acquire under that influence.
We shunned homosexuals who were placed in separate dorms just like we shunned other races. Many who have left notes on this blog talk about times when the segregation of races was in place and the slow desegregation. I was there when we all slept, ate, schooled, and worked in the same facility. However dropping a race was a serious offence. You didn’t go to the cloths room and ask for black shoe polish. I’m curious how much of that culture from back then effects how we relate to homosexuals as well as other races today. I sometimes wonder about some of those kids who passionately hated white people if they are still like that. And what about this kid who was on my dorm for a short time who could write his name on the glass using a bar of soap tucked in his butt checks. We thought it great entertainment until he was moved to the punk dorm.
As human beings we’re tribal by nature. Studies have shown that desegregating lock ups have increased organized gangs. But in a country that forces societal swirl in a state like Texas how much influence did the thinking of a backwoods town like Gatesville have on shaping our young impressionable minds.
I don’t think I would want any of my current gay or non white friends to know how I would have treated them while I was in Gatesville. Borrowing a line from Clint Eastwood’s movie Unforgiven “I aint like that no more”. Or am I?