Part Two: Elan School: The Worst 'Troubled Teen' Facility | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

[@harkonen1000000]

Child rights were introduced into US legal system via a late 19th century precedent where a child abuse case was argued on the basis that animal rights exist, and that no human can have less rights than animals. No laws specifically outlawing abuse targeted against children by their parents existed at the time.

[@MrGksarathy]

That's a pretty depressing reason for child rights to exist, but good on that jurisprudence?

[@brennenderopa]

What I also read is that kids were sent to Elan because of addiction but as soon as they got out, their addiction problems multiplied because they used drugs to cope with the trauma.

[@ZeldaQueen64]

Parents have the sovereign right to do whatever they want to their child, unless that involves providing gender-affirming care for trans kids. Funny, that.

[@catsnorkelshawaii9191]

Or letting them listen to a drag queen in a princess costume read them fairy tales.

[@aviendha1154]

Yeah children should have so many more rights.

[@tiraXpyrrha]

You are 1000% within your right to beat your kids nearly to death without legal punishment. But if you give your kids gender-affirming care, the state takes you kids and you go to prison. Wtf?

[@BongoSeason]

The only rights my kid have are going RIGHT to the mines(which they yearn for)

[@DJWeissman]

Conservatives love to subjugate children and abuse them, and then turn around and claim that trans people are pedophile groomers.

[@VayaKahvi]

There was a book I had read back in high school, I had stumbled on it in the library and read it like three times over the weekend, Away is a Strange Place to Be, which involved some kids being kidnapped to become slave labor to get a space station ready for people to move in. I remember thinking it was a little out there, including the part of rich parents setting up the kidnapping of their son to send him someplace to learn some life lessons. Now I realize reality can be and is *a lot* worse.

[@klutterkicker]

I did read an article about the school where a police officer claimed the Elan school was a sacred cow and that if he started asking questions about it they told him he would "disappear like Jimmy Hoffa." On the other hand there was a lieutenant who kept a file on everything he discovered in relation to school escapees and it was sanctioned by the Sheriff, but nothing became of it and the file died when he retired from the force. Also interesting the officer who dropped that boy off at the diner claimed the runaways were seldom reported officially and usually captured by school organized posses. Clearly there was either straight up corruption in the police or massive political pressure against investigating the school and its runaways.

[@munchkingod6]

I mean… most police departments are rampantly corrupt and functionally a legalized mafia. The shocking thing is that there were multiple cops who did the right thing in any capacity with regards to the program.

[@davepeters4955]

Not an Elan school, but there was an "alternative school" near me when I was a kid. I knew a few folks who went to it. There's a podcast series on it named Camp Hell: Anneewakee if you're interested in that sort of thing. The abuse seems to be built into the system.

[@crossroadswanderer]

I read Joe vs. Elan School a little while back. It's a horrifying, heartbreaking read that ruins any remaining faith you might have had in institutions to self-correct. This show is kind of the same, so it makes sense you guys talked about it. It feels weird to thank you for bringing it to a wider audience, but pretty much everything you guys talk about still has some relevance today, even if the specific actors are no longer relevant. People should understand what the troubled teen industry is. You're doing important work.

[@J3nJ3nl0llip0p]

Totally agree, and quite eloquent! ❤🎉

[@THEHAR0LD]

A kid escaped the school from hell to become a hermit's apprentice? If not for all the abuse that's almost whimsical.

[@convenientEstelle]

I just learned about a hermit living in the woods of Maine, is that something more common than I realized?

[@theundergroundlairofthesqu9261]

@@convenientEstelle Hard to know! They're hermits! That hermit was known, in a way, because he gathered his food by breaking into vacation homes.

[@theMMAdhatter]

In the same vein, a fantastic book about a similar reform school (Dozier in FL; also closed in 2011) is _The Nickel Boys_ by Colson Whitehead. I read it in conjunction with _Joe vs. Elan School_ and basically spent the next month in a depressive funk.

[@haltorn2611]

Robert Evans is my real life Spider Jerusalem

[@TheNotoriousBTG]

51:10 I really want to believe that hermit was Christopher Knight (the North Pond Hermit), though he never mentioned it to the biographer.

[@professorhazard]

Speaking of a school that regularly endangers its children, when are you going to do a BTB for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters

[@rothloaf1980]

Where is the Zoom Lady on catalytic converter theft?

[@MrGksarathy]

Our Holy XL smiles upon this blessed act, even if her flock are amongst its victims.

[@rothloaf1980]

@@MrGksarathy hahahah

[@Jakeurb8ty82]

...and like the VW emission scandal you know this isn't the only one.

[@J3nJ3nl0llip0p]

I went to one of the residential places in the 90s. It wasn't THIS BAD, but shit went down. The Therapeutic Community model is awful;mostly staffed by graduates. You know, people with zero training outside of the school...? Phoenix House's model has graduates of the adult program as counselors for the youth residents, many still on probation. On both sides. Couldn't POSSIBLY go awry.

[@beantoes9627]

Other than the worst of the physical abuse, the rest went on regularly in my family's household.

[@Secret_Takodachi]

13:26 .... This literally sounds like a nightmarish "real" version of a family guy sketch. 🤮 kinda hate my brain for immediately coming up with that point of comparison.

[@OsirisLord]

One of my favorite cartoons is about a weird girl who doesn't fit in at school who is sent by her mom to one of these camps but shenanigans happens and instead she goes to a Hell like alternative dimension filled with demons and has a better time.

[@theundergroundlairofthesqu9261]

In Joe vs. Elan, he mentions talking to Elan grads who wound up in real prisons as adults and said prisons were easier. They at least had time for themselves, to read or think, or go to classes that were actually useful. And time to think.

[@OsirisLord]

@@theundergroundlairofthesqu9261 Is there a better indictment of the Elan school than Elan school graduates going to prison?

[@klutterkicker]

I skimmed through the graphic novel you mention here and I notice he changes Joe Ricci's name and at one point imagines a conversation that he couldn't hear between a police officer and the school's goons, I'm just wondering is everything else in the comic direct fact from the creator's life or is it fictionalized based on different student's experiences?

[@janthran]

iirc those other things are mostly stuff he heard from other former victims of the school after but i don't remember for sure

[@theundergroundlairofthesqu9261]

He did say that he was estimating how the conversation went, based on the body language he could see. "Cirri" is revealed as Ricci towards the end of the book.

[@J3nJ3nl0llip0p]

Proud to be view #666!!!!!!! Ave!

[@jessaminehaak8253]

I'll be honest, with the ominous way that Robert kept saying *"The Ring"* I was expecting something much worse than that lmfao. Not that it isn't terrible but I guess it's a testament to how reality will never live up to imagination.

[@VooshSpokesman]

Love from a Xanderhal and Vaush fan!

[@OnnieKoski]

Can’t imagine life outside of the system that abused you… capitalism!

[@realwinterbro]

oh huh. first.