That was the very first thought I had when I saw her walking towards the room I was in with the inmates; the kids in Juvenile Hall, the gangbangers, the throw-away children that the parents didn’t want, the children that had nowhere else to go.
She actually had the little nurses’s cap on her head and a smile on her face as she held the tray of medications in front of her. I just happen to be leaning against the door jam as she approached. Some basic instinct in me caused me to stop her by putting my leg up against the other side of the door and stopping her.
She didn’t see me do it and slammed into my leg and bounced back. My anger and hatred was immediate and primal.
These weren’t my children but I wanted to protect them as if they were.
I knew she was bringing in psych drugs to knock the kids out for the evening. They wanted them passive, docile, quiet, and therefore easier to control. They were being given psychotropic drugs in order to make their jobs easier.
It’s easier to knock someone over the head and knock them out than sit down and talk to them. Easier and much more profitable. The quieter they are, the easier it is to fill the cells and line your pockets with your paycheck. It’s easier to house and herd people like cattle and keep them quiet than it is to help them be better people and reach their full potential.
I wanted them alive, smart, sassy, and learning how to take responsibility for themselves and the actions that landed them in jail…oh excuse me….I mean Juvenile Hall because God forbid we should call it what it really is.
Jail.
I was so angry she was there before we were done with them. I was livid that she decided to trot her pompous ass into the room where we were before it was time.
“I’ve got 3 more minutes with them, so you can just back off!” I said as she gathered her composure after slamming into my leg. It hurt when she did it, but I hadn’t flinched.
She snorted and I could see her think about trying to push my leg down but she decided to wait.
She smiled sweetly, leaned over my leg to look around the room and then walked away and sat down next to the door in an old metal folding chair. I felt myself smirk as her girth caused the chair to make a horrible squeak as if it wasn’t going to be able to hold her.
She was not there to give the kids vitamins; she was not there to care for them and help them be happier and healthier; she was there to drug them and keep them silent and perhaps suicidal. That really pissed me off more. She was drugging children with the full consent and direction of the law. The fact that she seemed to get off on it only made my anger and rage hotter and burn longer. In fact, it’s never gone out.
When I read about the epidemic of foster children being drugged, I feel my heart start pounding. Beautiful and creative minds are being destroyed before they have a chance to fully develop. Children who have found themselves away from their homes and families, are being given 5 times the amount of psychiatric drugs then children who are not in foster care.
Nothing like the big wigs profiting off the misery of children and creating future customers.
I know people are upset about the conditions children are being kept at the border; I am too, but where is the outrage for what is being done to the kids who are also helpless and being victimized in Juvenile Hall and foster care?
Medicaid pays over 6 billion dollars for psychiatric drugs for foster children. We are funding it. My taxes are padding the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Yes, my blood boils.
50 years ago, they strapped children down but because that bothered people, Juvenile Hall now uses drugs and covers it up with the justification that they are mentally ill. The leather restraints have been replaced by chemical restraints.
Bull shit! They aren’t mentally ill; they are lost, abused, unloved, and thrown away. Drugging them rather than working with them while they are incarcerated is almost a guarantee that not only will they be back after they are released, they are sure to turn to drugs to “handle” their lives rather than confront it head on.
We have set ourselves up for failure and it’s working.
idisagreecompletely 