When the punishment becomes too severe

Eric Perez broke the law. The law dictates that he should go into custody for his parole violation. He had been smoking an illegal kind of tobacco.

But the punishment for smoking marijuana is not death, but death was what he got.

He was denied medical attention for hours when he complained of pain and by the time the staff intervened it was too late to save him.

The question is now whether the authorities are able to cover this story up. After the terrible video of a boy dying in a boot camp a new legislation has been put into place. Now the public can be denied knowledge of what is going on inside prisons, boarding schools or boot camps.

While Eric Perez was an offender he ws also a citizens with some kind of potential if he at some time would deal with his addiction and it is important to know that every drug user has this potential at some point in their life when they are ready. You cannot force a drug user to change his or her life, but you can offer them to come back for help when they are ready.

But Eric Perez was not given the opportunity to reach out for help when he was ready. He was denied life instead and for that someone now has to pay. It is the only option if you want to call a society civil.

Source:
Grand jury to probe teen’s death in Palm Beach County juvenile lockup (by Carol Marbin Miller, The Miami Herald, August 2, 2011

CEDU - a legacy

CEDU existed from sometime around 1967 or 1968 to 2005. CEDU spanned almost 4 decades and the lessons learned continue to exist even today despite denial from various schools and programs. It wasn't happy lessons nor was they based on facts and research.


Above: Part 1 of the CEDU documentary by Liam Scheff

It was basically a scaled-up Stanford prison experiment. At a time even a serial killer had unlimited access to one of the isolated campus's and so far there are records of 3 teenagers who disappeared never to be heard from.

Each kid had a unique experience. Sometime praised the old saying which goes: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Some continued to live their life covered with the shadows of what they lived through while they were sent to CEDU.

CEDU was basically research into the unknown. They started out without knowing anything about the needs of teenagers. Over the time they accepted that some children needed medication. They accepted illness in general but they never learned what they were in the market for: To heal the problems children struggle with during their upbringing.

Now where CEDU has been closed for several years adults are starting to reflect about the missing years where they should have been discovering life instead of being held back in what was basically a B. F. Skinner box. There is now a documentary about CEDU in the market. A number of schools founded on the same principles have found themselves targeted by the authorities when it became too obvious that the so-called treatment hurt more people than it helped.

It is difficult to say whether we ever will learn the truth about what went on to the full extend. There are still many secrets to be revealed.

There are however one lesson to learn from CEDU. When it existed it seemed to hold the solution for many parents who face what many express as teenage rebellion. As it is with many thing which is considered to be too good to be true it was the case.

Whenever we hear of some who seem to hold the answers to basic things in life we must learn to distrust the happy messages and demand facts and proof.

There must never be a CEDU again.