Archive for September 2010
Enraged, Estranged, Restraining Order, Released (same-day without bond), 4 kids (and wife) Dead, 5th injured, plus 2 orphans. All within one year.
If you get ONE thing from this article and my blogging it, think twice before obtaining a restraining order. i really do suspect that the people who issue them get a per-capita reimbursement (say, if it’s a nonprofit encouraging the woman to get one), or who knows who else, for issuing one, to justify the existence of this charade. Of course, if a single restraining order would open a window wide enough and long enough (before the batterers’ intervention/supervised visitation/fatherhood-marriage-promotion shared-parenting people get in there) to actually REMOVE one’s ass, and children, and relocate — that’d probably be better. Of course, you might get, as a mother, thrown in jail for depriving children of access to their obsessive, threatening, stalking, jealous, death-threatening (and in this case, “clubbing,” as in alcohol and/or entertainment…) father. Pick one of several unpleasant choices for your individual situation…
(This article says “enraged” man also shot himself {to die? Or for emotional appeal post-murder?} but doesn’t detail whether he survived or was arrested THIS time, without ability to post bail, now that 5 people have died, and a 15-year old was critically injured).
I’m going to risk the wrath of AP and post (with credits) the entire article. I believe this is within copyright limits (see link on my blog to this), and moreover, I believe it MIGHT if heeded save another step-family mom wipeout. Particularly if one of the family members believes a restraining order means anything practically, which it doesn’t.
Let me rephrase that — a restraining order does mean SOMETHING practically (case in point). They piss off the person the restraint was placed on. We should call them (in addition to “certifiably insane”) “inciting orders.” The police then release this person after previous violence, and often a picture-perfect point-for-point match of every item on the typical “lethality risk assessment” check sheet. Perhaps THIS is how DCFS & foster care gets kids?? ??
I’m going to post the whole article ONCE, without interrupting or marking it up (like I usually do) with room for reader response afterwards. There’s a brief “What the ….” followed by blank lines, to put in the emotional expletives I hope will accompany the reading.
Then, a little more time for critical assessment — what did you notice (in the reporting, in the incident?) after which I will point out (besides the language of the report), an area of increasing concern for me, in these “it Bleeds, it Leads” headlines, as well as other of my own possible reading between the lines.
(1) – UNCUT article
Enraged man kills estranged wife,* 4 stepchildren,
self
OK,
“What the _ _ _ _? God D _ _ _! _ _
_!” 36-yr old mother of 7 children loses 4 of them, and her life, despite efforts to save it?
How did this happen? Why did this happen? Is someone responsible besides the father?
Who writes these headlines!?
Do they have a tumbler, one word per card, kind of like the lotto, and when the police blotter says XX people dead, a loose assortment of the verbs, adjectives, and a predictable assortment of posthumous/after-death commentary.
- Enraged MAN, estranged WIFE.
Why not Man & Woman? But since it’s obviously about (another) domestic violence family wipeout, it should really be “Husband and Wife.” Even enraged, the word “man” encompasses more than “wife” which is a function in a relationship. Minor as it seems, I object to this phrase. How does it go at the wedding? “I now pronounce you husband and wife?” or “I now pronounce you MAN and wife.” If the latter, I recommend calling the wedding off.
-
ENRAGED/RAMPAGE :
Who writes these headlines? This man wasn’t “enraged” — he was a man of his word. He said he was going to put her in the morgue and her family would cry. He did, and I’m sure they did, too — what’s left of them…This was a rampage, as to its effect, but not necessarily as to the man’s mood, or emotions, being worse than normal — normal seems to include death threats, assaults, property damage with weapons that COULD kill (knives), although guns later did, and in general off-the-chart behavior, probably even for that neighborhood where shots were not uncommon.
Don’t you DARE pull “Marriage Promotion” out of this one. She was married, and very possibly need (5 children, one per year, approximately) required help?? Want to guess whether the first Daddy(s) paid child support enough for them to survive? #2, these were married! The children did NOT wake up in a “fatherless” home (if you count stepfathers, plus the two young ones). Now 3/7ths of them they will — I hope at least not with THAT father.
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ESTRANGED:
This is the LEAST relevant adjective to describe a woman, other than it typically precedes “dead,” so it at least warns the reader. “Terrorized” was more like it. He was the “Strange”one, from what I can tell.
The article says she repeatedly took him back “hoping things would get better.” While I believe her taking him back was more a factor of need (see list of children) and probable threats about what would happen if she left him, (see “jealous/obsessive/stalking, etc.) than her neighbor’s assessment of her mental state. Either that, or she was numbed/terrorized into “hoping” as few other alternatives seemed around. I say this as a mother (we are all still alive, last I heard at least of the Dad) who didn’t leave until guns and knives came into real serious play… And one needs a way to leave in order to do so…
So no, she wasn’t estranged — not until the final restraining order. They had irreconciliable differences, right? He wanted and threatened to kill her. She begged to differ. “Estranged” makes it sound like he holds the central ground, and she was “estranged” from him. (see above: she was a wife and mother. No work life?? Even at 36 yrs old?)
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DISPUTE
The horror that unfolded around 2 a.m. Monday was the culmination of a lengthy dispute that came to a head Dec. 20, when Whyte-Dell said her husband came after her with a knife, slashed her tires and scratched an “X” into the concrete driveway.
“dis·pute/disˈpyo͞ot/
Noun: A disagreement, argument, or debate.
Verb: Argue about (something); discuss heatedly: “I disputed the charge on the bill”; “he taught and disputed with local poets”.” (DICTIONARY.com)
dispute – definition of dispute by the Free Online Dictionary …
v. dis·put·ed, dis·put·ing, dis·putes. v.tr. 1. To argue about; debate. 2. To question the truth or validity of; doubt: Her friends disputed her intentions. …
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dispute – Cached – Similarto engage in argument : debate; especially : to argue irritably or with irritating persistence. transitive verb. 1. a : to make the subject of disputation …
Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution
Mediating the Litigated Case
Irvine, California (thru Pepperdine Univ. School of Law)
January 20-22 and February 3-5, 2011Six day training program.
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cf., “. As increasing numbers of courts are requiring parties to mediate in order to accommodate an overburdened legal system, there is a growing demand for professionals who, in addition to being able to evaluate a case, can also facilitate negotiations between adversarial parties to reach innovative solutions. Now lawyers and other established professionals can use their expertise to break into a new area of practice with tremendous possibilities. The Mediating the Litigated Case program offers a unique opportunity to learn about the mediation process in a format geared specifically toward civil litigation cases.
Reallocating Children for Profit — Then, and Now
My heart is weary with awareness of the RICO, fraud, lying, and slick promises that at one time was probably a decent U.S. Government. Perhaps… I may need to back out of blogging for a while — do your own homework. That’s the only kind you’ll believe anyhow, right
I also am a mother missing my daughters, and too aware of the risks of re-claiming them. The dialogue among the professionals “fixing” the (supposed — as opposed to actual) problems has become, essentially, the problem. Notice, I didn’t say “dialogues” — (plural).
This doesn’t necessarily mean that sincere workers are going to have fangs and drool.
Please forgive this post. If it doesn’t look right tomorrow, I may retract it. HOWEVER, we just have an Australian mother that fled, was caught in part with help from Interpol, associations of firemen, and a dramatic bicycle ride — AND a family court taking a side in the matter, thus training people to report anyone that looks or behaves remotely “inappropriate” (as determined by the status quo). Independence — particularly in women — IS being bred out of the majority of the world’s population. Some of the most culpable in this are Scandinavian/European, I think.
The professionals want us to learn to identify dangerous abusers, child molesters, etc. (oh yes, and any other “bigot.”)
None of these, hear tell, includes people on the grants circuit, the social service institutes funded by foundations, or grants, or . . .. in Congress, the courts, or law enforcement. In fact we have a sense, somehow, that being a “civil servant” indicates “innately virtuous.” It doesn’t. Neither are we taught to suspect that anyone on the public payroll is a psychopath (or criminal). Unless a few are caught, tarred & feathered on TV, so as to imply these were the eccentrics, and not the routine who got careless, or someone who stepped on the wrong toes at the wrong time.
Above all, the responsibility of the average citizen is to NOT trust his or her own judgment about right or wrong as compared with any printed standard (say, U.S.Code, State Codes, etc.) and act on that integrity. All hell could break loose if thought broke loose. THINKING — or thinking one can think (or has permission to) is a clear sign of mental illness, and being at risk to harming onesself or someone else [as opposed to, say, competition with the status quo].
The Internet is a great place to look up terms like “Thought Police” oro “Prison Planet.” I’ll go with the former, from a Brit relocated to America. He (or she?) doesn’t miss the sense of being spied on…. (you mean it’s WORSE there??)
Faster computer processors than mine may miss the “google–analytics” noticing and tracking what i read, searched, and clicked through to…as an indicator of what I thought, and might be later SOLD. Or, TOLD. ALWAYS remember that primary applications in the world as we know it now, are military in application, however else they are sold.
SIGNS OF THE TIMES: THOUGHT POLICE!
There are many things I miss about England since I moved to America three years ago. I miss the English food, the English countryside and my English friends.
But there is one thing that I do not miss about England. I do not miss the sense of constantly being watched. I do not miss that gnawing suspicion that my private life is in fact public.
The year before I moved to America, an official report compiled on behalf of the then information commissioner Richard Thomas, revealed that the British people were more spied upon by their political leaders than any other population in the free world.
The surveillance experts and academics who compiled the report pointed out that through the growing network of databases, surveillance systems and security cameras, the average Brit now has his movements tracked, habits profiled and photograph taken up to 300 times a day. Since then, it has only gotten worse, with 2009 being the worst year for civil liberty since the days of the Viking invasions, as this compendium of stories indicates.
And that was before news hit that Britain’s Labour government created a staggering 4,300 new crimes since taking power. (I have mentioned some of the more silly of these rules HERE.)
Living in England was becoming rather like living in the Soviet Union under communism, with lawmakers cultivating what Guardian columnist Henry Porter described as “a we-know-where-you-live edge to the message, a sense that this government is dividing the nation into suspects and informers.” I just read in the news today that the British government is considering offering bribes to people for spying on their neighbors.
I can say from personal experience that Mr. Porter’s words ring true. The year before I moved to America, a social worker visited us to investigate because there had been an anonymous complaint about our parenting. The complaint, we were told, was that our children were not dressed warmly enough when playing outside. [All metabolisms are the same theory…] Social services also had to investigate us because an anonymous informant reported that our children were being too noisy when playing outside. [I knew of a case in America, a single father, where his children were too QUIET. He was smart, and didn’t lose his children…]
So, use some judgment, be circumspect when strangers are propounding WHOM to be afraid of and WHOM to trust. I have come to understand there is usually an inverse relationship to the urgency of the hunt and the reality fo the danger. Especially when women with small children are being hunted down and turned in.
The fact is, the most dangerous time for a woman leaving abuse is when she approaches a family law courtroom. It may look safer than staying home, taking ongoing violence and abuse you at least know where it’s coming from. This world is not a nice place for “vulnerable.” It’s a “marketplace” for vulnerables in society.
Otherwise, apart from this net, she might actually get free, with kids. And yes, I DO know women can be violent and abusive — but man of these include second partners, i.e., he is “playing” them against each other. Overall, women’s contributions (i.e., giving birth, nursing, AND being smart enough to run businesses too) have to be artificially handicapped. A mother defending a child can be a formidable force, and this is known. Just look at the animal kingdom, for example, Bears, or Elephants.
OK —
When you think of “sold into slavery,” do you think of a particular skin color?
Well think again. I am, quite honestly, very disturbed by things I wish I didn’t see, well-organized too.
Elected officials have definitely sold us down the river for profit, and this hurts children the most, I’d have to say.
The woman in Wisconsin (Wacko in Wisconsin) committed the “crime” of being bankrupted in a divorce and leaving the state for safety. Powerful and connected individuals worked on her daughter, got a foot in the door, and got the girl. I still don’t know where that mother is. BOY does that hit close to home.
Groups in Australia, UK, and America (and elsewhere) are fighting each other, when what they should be fighting is totalitarian society. In the process of staving off intrusive CPS, you MEN need to fork it over and allow mothers to say NO to being beaten in the home, or we will NOT stand beside you against anything.
You people (USA) who fork over your taxes, we who are dependent on “social services” (which mortgage our young and our souls to others) (and don’t come through anyhow) — YOU need to start audits, demand accountability, request FOIA, and stop expecting the district attorneys and police to stop crime — and the schools to educate your children too, folks. Take some responsibility, so those of us who HAVE, can get away with the sin of independence.
I really do believe that our country has not yet taken into account that it didn’t stop slavery, just repeatedly shifted it around. I came to this conclusion by investigating the organizations (and agencies) that have p_ _ _ _ ed me off by simply draining years of my life I would otherwise have spent productively in my own communities and obeying their laws. Some of which are detailed in “What Decade Were These Stories.”
So, how about “What Century?”
More later — maybe. Visit “http://thesociologycenter.com/slavetrade.html” and upload (or download) some of the documentation. Compare with “Are You An Acceptable Person” by Charles Pragnell.
The author (website person) appears to be from ARKANSAS. Wait til you see the post at the end…
BELOW THIS ARTICLE IS WHERE I GOT IT FROM:
Historian reveals tragedy of Swiss child trade

Slave labour, beatings, sexual abuse, fear and isolation were the norm for thousands of “Verdingkinder”, or “discarded children”, who were given away or sold as cheap labour until the 1950s.
Historian Marco Leuenberger told swissinfo that the time has come for reappraisal of this dark episode.
Leuenberger was ten years old when his father first told him of his childhood as a discarded child. Also aged ten, his father had to endure the daily grind of getting up at 5am and working until late into the night.
Inspired by his father and thousands of children like him, Leuenberger in 1991 embarked on a huge research project to explore this dark chapter in Switzerland’s history.
The discarded children were usually orphans, illegitimate or came from the poorest families and they were either given away or sold to farmers.
“Most of these children were used as cheap labour, exploited physically or even sexually abused,” Leuenberger concludes in his study.
Leuenberger and other historians are calling for a nationwide research project to be carried out into the trade in “Verdingkinder”, while many of these former child labourers are still alive.
swissinfo: Were children given away or sold throughout Switzerland?
Marco Leuenberger: Yes, especially in German-speaking Switzerland in the Protestant cantons, though also in Catholic areas. It also happened in [French-speaking] canton Vaud. It is also known that children from [Italian-speaking] canton Ticino were sent to work as chimney sweeps in northern Italy.
swissinfo: How many of these ‘Verdingkinder’ were there?
M.L.: For years, the trade involved more than 10,000 children [every year]. But it’s very difficult to come up with an estimate because there is no evidence available prior to 1820. There were also lots of children who were traded without the knowledge of the local authorities.
swissinfo: How did Swiss authorities manage this child trade?
M.L.: Poor families were forced to register with their local authority every year. It was then decided whether all the family members were [adequately] provided for. Authorities in the 19th century had the right to separate the poorest families.
There were no criteria that [farmers] had to fulfil to receive a “Verdingkind”. They only had to prove that they needed more cheap workers.
swissinfo: Why did the authorities turn a blind eye to the abuses committed against these children?
M.L.: There was a different perspective at the time. Today we speak about children’s rights and children’s right to education. But those kinds of considerations didn’t figure in the 1800s. Lots of children had to work. Poverty was a huge problem at the time.
And even though there were critics of the system even back then, these were voices in the wilderness.
swissinfo: Did these children suffer physically from the work they had to do?
M.L.: That was often the case. They were often given too little to eat [which stunted their growth].
There were also emotional scars. Lots of these discarded children couldn’t cope with adult life. Statistics show that many of them turned to crime.
swissinfo: And these children were also often sexually abused?
M.L.: I found dozens of cases of sexual abuse in court files, most of which never became public. The problem was usually solved by moving the child to another place.
The people who committed these acts were sometimes fined, but never imprisoned.
swissinfo: Did some rejected children complain or rebel?
M.L.: Some tried to, but they usually didn’t find anyone willing to listen.
swissinfo: Children were auctioned off in some places as late as the 1930s. How were these auctions allowed to happen in “free” Switzerland?
M.L.: It’s not possible to explain that. And an explanation wasn’t required at the time
==========
FOR CONSIDERATION:
- SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE SWISS CHILD SLAVE TRADE FROM 1850 TO 1950 AND THE CURRENT UNITED STATES CHILD SLAVE TRADE ALSO EXECUTED THROUGH THE PURPORTED CHILD PROTECTION SYSTEM
The recently disclosed Swiss child slave trade (Verdingkinder Scandal) that operated behind a facade of family welfare and child protection from about 1850 to 1950 is identical to the current child slave trade that has developed in the United States child protection system. The Swiss and United States child slave trade systems have the following social processes in common:
- Poor required to register with the Government. (US Public Assistance, Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare and numerous other special programs.)
- Once registered with the Government, Parents were subjected to ongoing monitoring to determine if “the best interest of the child” was served by removing the child from the home and placing the child in the Verdingkinder system.
- Children who aged out of the system were not intellectually and emotionally prepared for adult life, especially marital relationships.
- Decisions about the “best interest of the child” were made by Government employees using subjective criteria.
- Children auctioned off or distributed under government sanction. (US Child Protection Agencies post pictures of children held for adoption on the internet and foster parents are enticed with additional household income generated by foster children.)
- Children physically abused, starved, and malnourished by State and foster custodians.
- Children sexually abused by State and foster custodians.
- Children murdered by State and foster custodians.
- Children economically exploited. (In the Swiss system by the middlemen, farmers and businesses using the child labor; In the US system by State employees who wrongfully seize children for federal funds to meet the agency payroll, by psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers filing fraudulent insurance claims and crime victim therapy service provider claims for nonexistent or fictitious child crime victims, and by attorneys, prosecutors, child abuse investigators, juvenile court judges, and civil court judges who exploit false child abuse allegation to sustain their income, power or prestige.)
- Criminal activity was concealed with the absence of records, falsified records and incomplete records.
- Government agencies paid fees and subsidies to State and foster custodians who physically abused, murdered, sexually abused and economically exploited children.
- Law enforcement agencies ignored or covered up criminal acts against children by State and foster custodians.
- When prosecutions did occur for crimes against Verdingkinder, the punishment was minor compared to the crime.
- The operation intended to benefit poor families and children became an organized criminal enterprise economically, physically, and sexually exploiting children.
- Government officials and media not directly involved in the criminal activity refused to believe that a child slave trade could have developed in a civilized nation like Switzerland.
- The economic exploitation of children in the Swiss system did not end until a cheaper means of farm production than child slave labor was found.
- The Swiss child slave trade also expanded and operated outside of Government control. (The private purchasing and sale of children in the US is conducted by private child brokers and child adoption attorneys.)
SWISS VERDINGKINDER SCANDAL ARTICLES
“No one could help me escape” By Kim Wilsher (Filed: 14/03/2004)
“Historian reveals tragedy of Swiss child trade,” February 29, 2004.
MONEY LAUNDERING — CAUGHT!
To promote Governance with Respect Ethics Accountability and Transparency (GREAT)
ARKANSAS
Corruption Information by Individual States in USA.
AR: Arkansas
FORMER STATE SENATOR GETS 46 MONTHS IN JAIL FOR FRAUD Mike Todd, former Dem. state senator, was sentenced to a term of 46 months after being convicted of money laundering and mail fraud in which he illegally profited from a state program meant to aid children in custody disputes. He was amongst ten people indicted in the scandal in 1999 and pleaded for a lesser sentence, though the sentence was the minimum under federal guidelines. In another case, Nick Wilson, former state senator, was sentenced to 70 months for bilking state programs of nearly $2 million. (AOL News (AP), Mar. 24, 2001, summary by Marg Reynolds).
Former state senator, Mike Todd, was convicted of money laundering and mail fraud and faces up to 30 years in prison and $2.5 million in fines. Former senator, Steve Bell, was found innocent of the same charges. Former state senator, Nick Wilson, was convicted of tax evasion and is presently serving a 70-month sentence. Todd and Bell, together with six others who struck plea deals, intended to divide $3 million in grants. Todd and Bell were accused of pilfering a program providing legal assistance to children in custody cases. (AP, Nov. 16, 2000, summary by Marg Reynolds).
SECOND EX-ARKANSAS SENATOR CONVICTED OF CORRUPTION. Former state Sen. Mike Todd of Arkansas was found guilty of money laundering and mail fraud for a scheme to illegally profit from a state program created to help children in custody disputes. He faces up to 30 years in prison and $2.5 million in fines. Todd’s co-defendant, former Sen. Steve Bell, was found by the jury to be innocent of the same charges. (Associated Press, 16 Nov 2000, summary by Debbie Uy).
AR: Arkansas: ten people including two state senators, etc. indicted on racketeering, mail fraud and money laundering charges.
(NYT, April 28, 1999, p. A18).
Back to USA with links to other States.
Back to Institute for Ethics and Economic Policy corruption information exchange home page. Remember our Disclaimer.
Last Update on June 28, 2003
(THESE apparently were just a few that got caught….)
Wacko in Wisconsin — and no, I’m NOT talking about the Parents/Litigants (published 9/15/2010, updated 7/21/2017)
Nowadays (posts published = about 715 as of summer 2017), this is how I identify posts:
Types of updates: When you see quotes within solid borders (boxed), quotes with different background colors, the borders on the post itself, or comments with dates signed: “…//LGH 2017 (LGH= “Let’s Get Honest,” i.e., me). Also the added section in light-green showing several images for some of the links (I didn’t do screenprints, let alone annotated screenprints in 2010. In general, I’m trying to better distinguish actual quotes from my commentary on them, through formatting. Wordpress doesn’t naturally enable this, so each time you see it, I’m plowing through html “gibberish” for the specific codes, and tweaking them by “div” or “blockquote” or “span” or “Table.” This takes considerable time… For image display, the “WYSIWYG” (What You See is What You Get” function is imperfect, so there’s a lot of back and forth (edit, preview, adjust, preview again, etc.) on the layout.
There may be a more efficient way to do all this, but until then, and still being basically a self-taught amateur for blogging technology, and more to the point, still just one person (focused more on content than format), that’s how it works.)… I spent some time on this post also checking for and, where possible, replacing broken links. ….. some quotation / commentary notations towards the bottom are “best guess” where I no longer had valid links.
Why bother updating older posts? — Well, the other part of this one just got five more comments, so that’s why. The other reason is the types of people that are visiting the post, based on (html-based visitor ID software) some of the organization names. In 2016 and 2017 I’ve been hard-hitting at higher levels of organized networks (nonprofit and governmental as coordinated) on on following the money, and showing how to, also giving people again, permission to question any or all of the “experts” in any category, but with the platform and basis for doing so being objective, and on “operations” level. So, although they aren’t commenting much, visitors show up from various universities (incl. Harvard), or levels of government (esp. from California, where I live and on which blogs tend to focus), and overseas (London School of Economics at least a few times, Legislative Offices, President’s Offices at UC, and so forth). Sometimes these visitors seem to match what was being posted, sometimes, not.
And other times, I have to admit, it’s just to avoid humiliation in retrospect at the formatting/condition of the earlier posting.
There was a “Part 2” on this theme published 10/1/2010:
Picking up the narrative at Oct. 1, 2010…
I dare you to make some sense of this one: Actually, by now, there are about 4 cases below: Walkers (they squeaked in, in my intro), Archibalds, Stearns (thrown in for illustration), Katz, and that one’s a doozie. ALL of them are…What’s UP in Wisconsin?
Among the “parents” involved are <>the “Bodway” family who managed to get a daughter away from a mother after divorce, being nonrelatives; <>a mother who is caught, and on probation and medication for stealing her own daughters (and drugs and a gun involved– the drugs were antidepressants for her, and the gun, not fired, was for her safety, she said), and I’m going to presume that PROBABLY <>that prominent WI D.A. who was prosecuting a DV case and trying to make it (sexting was involved) with a woman half his age, while prosecuting her boyfriend for attempting to strangle her while still married (but divorcing) probably was a parent too.
SO . .
If you still think life as normal exists somewhere within our courts, then this blogger (who I suspect is the woman in question) will sound like a nutcase. And it’s easy to discredit someone whose allegations sound like a nutcase –unless one has spent some time looking up the court dockets, which I did here.
THE WALKER CASE IS A WALKING CASE OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST– PARTIAL:, here.
Here Come Da Psychologists & Mediators. . . To help return Mr. Thompson’s “wife” to her right mind. Or, she could do the jail thing, instead.
How many psychologists can you count in this case? Or was it Psychiatrists? And when are the rest of you on the sidelines going to get angry about this “insane” practice?
Where is the “leading Australian psychiatrist’s report” [apparently court-ordered diagnosis??] that gave this poor, distraught Dad rights and public sympathy, and a high profile that no MOTHER got who’s had her kids legally kidnapped through the courts, or illegally by the father(s). I instead of the nation(s) hunting THEM down with psychiatry, Internet, and Interpol, they simply let it slide.
When did the press become lackeys of this system and why aren’t they REPEATEDLY (like me) pointing out that something’s wrong when a woman has been judged publically, but indicted privately.
(see my last post).
Where’s his first wife? Did they have kids? If you are there, please say something!
In this report, as well as in the photo of the foursome I posted yesterday, Mr. Thompson refers to her as his “wife.” Yet indicators are — first of all, dude, she doesn’t want to live with you! Second, we read “wife” and “former wife.” The word only means “ownership.” In the current global culture, this word has become meaningless, and was most certainly exploited.
Kidnap mother may escape jail in new deal
Paola Totaro, Amsterdam
September 12, 2010
The mother of abducted boy Andrew Thompson – under arrest in Amsterdam and facing a prison term in Australia – could be offered a “get out of jail free” card, under a new system to resolve international custody battles.
A new form of cross-border mediation, tested in the Netherlands, will provide Melinda Stratton with a last-ditch chance to avoid criminal charges – and help parent her little boy – if she can co-operate and come to a binding, workable agreement is accepted by his father, Ken Thompson.
[sentence grammar off, but its intent is clear — to bring her to her knees under threat. This same practice is used in the United States towards (a) domestic violence offenders and (b) child support deadbeat Dads, to downgrade the meaning of criminal activity, typically towards women. Mediation works when there is actually a balance of power, genuine acceptable options, and TWO willing participants willing to work it out. This is nothing of the sort. It’s “threat therapy.”]
This system, thrashed out over two days under intense specialist mediation with a team of counsellors and lawyers, must be agreed to by both parents – and becomes a legally binding order in both the Netherlands and Australia.
Mr Thompson, met a team of psychologists in Amsterdam yesterday and drove to The Hague to meet the legal expert on the Hague conventions who is to manage the complex legal processes needed to return the six-year-old to his father.
It is now likely that he will need to remain in the Netherlands for at least three months as custodial orders from Australia are translated into Dutch and given effect in the local courts. These will allow the legal handover of Andrew while extradition proceedings against his mother unfold. Ms Stratton faces criminal charges and up to 13 years in prison in Australia if she refuses to participate in cross-border mediation system.
This could even result in the boy remaining in the Netherlands with his father as the legal processes unfold there while his mother is extradited to Australia to face charges.
Mr Thompson said yesterday he understood an agreement could be enforced very quickly – perhaps within a fortnight – if there was co-operation between the two parents to come to a resolution in the interests of the child.
Ms. Stratton/Thompson could not have said MORE plainly, and by her actions demonstrated, that there are serious allegations against Mr. Thompson. The public and press are NOT told what these are, but a person of reasonable intelligence might deduce that this woman does not appear to be hard up for another partner, should she wish one, or for supporting herself independently. Perhaps her psychological “problem” is called Mother Able to Decide — meaning per se “M.A.D.” IF allegations are true, best interest of child is no contact or only supervised contact with the father. IF they are false, best interest of child might then be co-parenting.
He has yet to see his child but insists that he bears no malice towards his wife and, while deeply anguished by the events of the past 2ÌÌ [???] years, simply wants to “be a dad to Andrew, to be in his life to love him and to give him back the human rights that were taken away from him“.
Wait a minute. His wife? [My ex went through this also, repeatedly calling me his wife, while living with someone else and arguing with authorities for his right to disobey standing court orders.]
Please. Everyone consider the current U.S. President (among others) who was raised by his mother. Also, Fatherhood Expert Ronald Mincy, Ph.D., apparently ditto. Did you notice the “Ph.D.”??? Perhaps mothers can do all right, if the word were still acceptable to use in public apart from the words “paranoid” and “facing criminal charges.”
Mr Thompson, visibly relieved after his day with lawyers and psychologists, said he believed Andrew’s was the first case worldwide in which the internet had been used successfully to track down an abducted child.
It’s time for our society to start considering their collective responsibility for allowing the courts to become psychology-normative, and administering threat-therapy instead of justice. If this continues, someday it might be YOUR turn for reasoned civil disobedience (which this case sounds like, to me, and the “wife” states it was). And then who will speak up for you?
Europeans are sometimes just too obedient, as if this solves problems. You know what other population was characterized that way? Rwandans.
“We did it on a shoestring and so many fantastic people have helped me. I lived on less than 50 euro a day for the past four months – and I found my son.
He lived on 50 euros a day for 4 months, and got a lot of public support, empathy, publicity, and eventually, they did the work for him, turning in this mother. A conference of mayors of major U.S. cities has concluded that domestic violence is a major source of homelessness. I know women whose wages are being garnished below survival level, whose disability benefits — the disability being related to serious injury by the father — are being garnished (below living level) and from this position, they advocate for contact with their children, and no charges any more serious than disobeying (without kidnapping) a court order probably as arbitrary as the mysterious one surrounding this case. Welcome to OUR world, Mr. Thompson — poverty in pursuit of justice, and our children. The difference being, when was the last time an abducting father was called “paranoid” and hunted down like an animal? Or jailed, when caught
“OK, my legal fees are horrendous … overdraft on overdraft on overdraft, and I don’t even want to think about my mobile telephone bill. But I could not give up. Ever. A young guy with the fire services built the FindAndrew website for me – and he had never done this before. I had the most amazing people helping me if I was in trouble with electronic banking or a lost card. I had emails, thousands of them, in support. I’ve got people around the world who saw my plight and felt something. I can’t thank them all enough.
He should thank the U.S. IRS, whose progressive income tax policy made it possible to accumulate astounding amounts of $$ for use by the likes of Wade Horn, “National Fatherhood Initiative,” Fathering Courts, Fatherhood.gov, and a complex web of federal grants promoting marriage — at any cost — throughout the land. This makes possible — when combined with astounding wealth from tax-exempt foundations — to restructure society. He should thank Presidents (in approximate order) Bush, Clinton and Obama for making sure this never stops, and also the Conciliation Law / AFCC folks in Southern California who learned early on how to defraud even the IRS with a judges’ slush fund and developed organization-morphing techniques to avoid accountability and cover up collaboration and conflicts of interests, from which we eventually got a worldwide ogranization to promote the viewpoints of pedophile and incest-friendly gentlemen as Richard Gardner and Warren Farrell (quite the psychologist these days).
He should thank his lucky stars, or if he subscribes to one of the three Abrahamic religions, he should thank whoever put the book of Esther into the canon, where a Gentile Queen told the king “No!” when asked to come forth and strut her stuff halfway through what was likely a drunken banquet. Some accounts say, she’d have had to disrobe. She indeed DID say “No!” (as the story goes) and so was replaced. The search went throughout the land for more submissive, nubile young women, who knew their place in life, lest ALL men might need to experience the horror of a wife saying “no!” and changing society.
What grateful Mr. Thompson with his team of psychologists and psychiatrists doesn’t seem to empathize with, or appreciate, is the position he put his “wife” (or former wife) and THEIR son in when he called in a court psychiatrist to counter the serious allegations that we aren’t allowed to know about. If he wanted a more docile wife, he shouldn’t have picked a tri-lingual MBA.
I hope, I really hope that my wife will co-operate and that we can find a way for Andrew. I will stay here for as long as it takes and until Andrew is ready to move on. I have an EU passport and no visa issues … It will take time to reintroduce the relationship. It has to be carefully managed.”
It is understood that the little boy now both speaks Dutch and has lived under a different surname.
Psychologists have made clear that the reintroduction must be slow and carefully supervised as it is not known what the little boy has been told during the years of avoiding authorities.
Mr Thompson, a former NSW deputy fire chief, cycled 6500 kilometres across Europe to raise awareness of international child abductions and to distribute bumper stickers with Andrew’s face and promote his website to try and find his boy.
An alert Dutch woman checked her suspicions about the little boy and his mother on the internet and Googled “missing children” and “Australia” and discovering he had been kidnapped. It was her decision to contact Dutch police that traced him and led to the arrest of his mother.
The Bitch. Does she know anything at all about this field? Did she forget about Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Does she know what happens when women lose their children in similar situations? It’s rare we get them back. Did she forget the Holocaust, and the label “Juden”??
(If I were able to put my case details on this blog, you might understand the sentiment.)
Take Heed — the press is owned, for the most part. I found only ONE press (as opposed to blogs, which are many) stating that this mother might have had a legitimate reason for fleeing. The Internet WAS developed originally as part of a military technology; now we see some of its real purposes — nowhere to hide. Citizens (GLOBAL citizens) must be trained how to think, act, and report on each other, and call in the authorities — lawyers, psychologists, and of course police. Remember the Gulag. You’re in it.
IF laws were enforced equally, with similar amount of effort as Mr. Thompson put in, I wouldn’t be so “vociferous” (mouthy) for the other possible interpretation of this case.
EVERY United States citizen ought to examine some of the fatherhood sites, and the federal grants system, and start demanding accountability. Sleep less. You can do it! Get religion out of government; and part of government is education. Learn to barter, and minimize taxes all round. I seriously considered (as to education) a requirement that all parents, without exception, should educate their OWN offspring up to a certain level (far above what the government currently requires them to) and the public schools should be shut down, so that adults and children can develop normal relationships with each other. If the neighborhoods retained some vitality, then, perhaps — just perhaps — people might KNOW each other well enough to stick up for an abused wife, or child — and stop dreaming that someone else they pay, funded from a distant centralized government, might be doing the job without indoctrination about what is the “appropriate” psychological norm.
Which brings me to this page by Charles Pragnell, whom I quoted yesterday, on this same case:
Are you an `Appropriate’ person?
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ByCharles Pragnell January 04, 2007
The last decade has seen an insidious drive by the British government to turn the country into a totalitarian regime marked by the unwarranted and unnecessary intrusion and interference in family life by agents and employees of the State. This has been done under a perverse pretext of protecting children and a belief system within governmental departments that children need protecting from their parents and that the State can raise children better than parents or at least they can transfer large numbers of children to the care of the “approved” substitute parents as part of a latter-day social engineering experiment.
Britain is not becoming what politicians term, a Nanny State and the concept of welfare services being a `Safety Net’ no longer applies. It is much more sinister than that. A Nanny State is driven by a benign altruism whilst the present changes are being driven by an insidious and malignant ideology reminiscent in some respects of the Stalinist regime in Russia. “We know what is best for you all” is the mantra of the faceless bureaucrats inside the respective government departments to which can be added, “but it will be painful for some of you who will not or cannot change to fit in with our Utopian dream!”
The ill-defined boundaries of what is `appropriate’ and what is `Inappropriate’ behaviour of members of the general population, are now being constantly driven back by psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, doctors and nurses and all of those other professionals involved in child protection work. They in turn are driven more by the alluring seduction of fame and status within the profession for creating a new theory of child abuse, rather than a compassionate concern for the safety and welfare of children. A successful adopted theory of child abuse can rapidly lead to demigod status as has been seen on several occasions albeit some of those demigods careers and reputations now lie in ruins as the country begins to awake to their deceptions.
He is writing her about parents (plurall) vs. child protective services. It’s a blend, when the situation comes to divorce, though. In any conflict, whatsoever, here comes the STATE, and in their trail, are psychologists.
Let me explain, a little, how this “EVERY CHILD NEEDS BOTH PARENTS, REGARDLESS …” works out, already, in cultures where divorces is a crime, as is adultery. And European, Australian, Western, “developed” countries need to accept and openly acknowledge that their present-day psychologists are NOT too far a cry from this:
This mother, an Egyptian Coptic Christian, wished she had listened to her daughter. Now it’s too late:
Among Egypt’s Christians, few question Church ruleALEXANDRIA, Egypt — When Irini Ibrahim, a young Coptic Christian woman, floated the idea of divorce from a husband she said was abusing her, her parents immediately opposed it, reminding her of the Biblical vow, “What God has joined together let no man put asunder.”
So the 25-year-old Ibrahim entered “reconciliation sessions” with her husband Rizk Kands, moderated by a priest. In April, the priest anointed Ibrahim and Kands with sacred oil, pronouncing their union healed.
Hours later, Ibrahim’s battered body was found in an Alexandria hotel room the couple had booked for a sort of second honeymoon. Kands, an Egyptian who also holds U.S. citizenship, fled to the United States, charged by an Alexandria prosecutor of strangling his wife after slamming her against the wall and toilet. Kands’ trial opens Sept. 21. He will be tried in absentia.
The case sparked shock and grief among Egypt’s Coptic Christians. But it did not bring much soul-searching over the Coptic Orthodox Church’s almost total ban on divorce. The ban makes divorce such a taboo among Christians that no matter how bad or unbearable the marriage, ending it is unthinkable in the face of the social shame.
Alternately, in Egypt, one could be part of the Muslim majority, and as a woman, one of several wives, and sharia law integrated with the law of the land:
But the “Western” “liberalized” way, no matter the religion, is to use psychologists, psychiatrists, and just hunt her down, and make a public, press scandal of it. This is called separation of church and state (in the US, a thing of the past) lest these newfangled concepts get a toehold, and infect other women with thinking that there is a safe place somewhere to raise a child safely.
Mr. Thompson, I”m sorry, but your story lacks credibility. Congratulations for your persistence, but don’t expect me to believe you really believed she was paranoid. You haven’t accepted that she left you, as witnessed by continually calling her your wife. and an “in” with the press does NOT substitute for facts, or shouldn’t, in the public eye.
Sincerely,
A mother who was labeled “paranoid” on several levels, and ignored when I told authorities the father was going to abduct, as well as after he did.
Fathers have religion AND government behind them. Mothers are not even close, yet. And we don’t start all those wars, either.
Society’s Reasons to hunt down, strangle, flog and/or shoot/stone mothers:
Let’s remember, sometimes female judges, psychiatrists, reporters and relatives participate in the hunt:
(#3: Taliban shoot pregnant widow, police report said:
The Taliban publicly flogged and then executed a pregnant Afghan widow by shooting her three times in the head for alleged adultery, police said
Bibi Sanubar, 35, was kept in captivity for three days before she was shot dead in a public trial on Sunday by a local Taliban commander in the Qadis district of the rural western province Badghis.
The Taliban accused Sanubar of having an “illicit affair” that left her pregnant. She was first punished with 200 lashes in public before being shot, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Mohammad Sayeedi told AFP on Monday.
“She was shot in the head in public while she was still pregnant,” Sayeedi said.
The execution is a grim reminder of the Taliban’s harsh six-year rule from 1996 to 2001 in Afghanistan. The radical Islamists staged public stonings or lashings of those found to have committed adultery or sex outside marriage.
(#2: An Afghan man strangled a mother with her veil, she was becoming “too Australian”
AN Afghan man strangled his wife with her veil after complaining she was “becoming Australian”, a jury has heard.
Mother of five Marzieh Rahimi, who was said to be trying to escape a violent arranged marriage, was killed in front of her baby and toddler.
Soltan Ahmad Azizi, 45, has pleaded not guilty to her murder at their Hampton Park home in November 2007.
The Supreme Court heard yesterday that Ms Rahimi, 33, had told social workers her husband had branded her a slave with no rights.
Prosecutor Peter Rose, SC, told the jury Ms Rahimi had complained her husband punched her and said her only purpose was to have babies and raise children.
Ms Rahimi, who spoke little English and communicated through an interpreter, had told a family violence officer and a health worker that she wanted to leave the marriage, but that she felt powerless, unsupported and fearful
n his opening address, Mr Rose told jurors that when Mr Azizi learned she’d talked to outsiders he told her she was shaming him and must stop.”I’ll kill you because I can’t carry the shame,” he allegedly said when she spoke of separation or divorce.
The jury heard that about a week before his wife’s death, Mr Azizi complained to his sister-in-law that she was “becoming Australian and had changed her religion”.
The cousins wed in an arranged marriage and came to Australia as refugees in 2005. Their eldest children were aged 11, nine and six.
Mr Azizi told police he didn’t plan to kill Ms Rahimi. He said he punched her, then “choked her with her veil”; he then rang 000, telling the operator, “I killed my wife … come see. You come. My kids are only little.”
Police found Ms Rahimi on the floor with her baby, three months, and toddler, 22 months, nearby.
“I’m ready for the handcuffs,” he allegedly told them.
Defence lawyer Stratton Langslow urged the jury to consider whether Ms Rahimi’s claims of domestic violence were prompted by post-natal depression
[HE ADMITTED killing his wife, but did he MEAN to? is the defense, apparently]
#1A. Melinda Stratton, MBA — she was “paranoid“
Missing Australian boy Andrew Thompson found after three years
- From: news.com.au
- September 09, 2010

HAPPIER TIMES: Ken Thompson with his wife Melina and son Andrew.**
Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied
**This is not a picture of two parents with THEIR son (note: she didn’t change her last name, so I didn’t say “Mr. & Mrs. Thompson and their…”). This is not a picture of a son, Andrew with HIS parents Ken Thompson and Melina/Melinda Stratton. This a picture of a man, and HIS (2nd) wife and HIS son. Her role is to give birth, smile, and have a photo caption giving ownership of her to him.
AN Australian boy who went missing almost three years ago has been found in Northern Europe, bringing an end to his father’s desperate search. [And to his mother’s desperate attempt to not be found]
Andrew Thompson was abducted in 2008 by his mother Melinda Stratton after she was diagnosed with a mental disorder. [next article shows a different CAUSAL relationship..]
Ms Stratton began showing the first signs of mental illness in 2006 according to Mr Thompson.
The symptoms were subtle at first, but they progressed, manifesting themselves in paranoia and false beliefs about various people, including Mr Thompson.
“I didn’t realise it at the time, but it started slowly and just escalated, it was terrible,” Mr Thompson said previously.
By December 2007, his wife had been diagnosed by one of Australia’s leading psychiatrists as having a paranoia disorder, and left their family home on January 1.
Under what circumstances? (such as a custody battle, and the father or his attorney, probably called that leading psychiatrist (WHO? Do we get to know? No hyperlink?) in. Or she was showing signs of discontent. Or, there were allegations of . . … …).
By the way, having false beliefs about various people could easily be applied by any religious (or political, or cultural, for that matter) group to members of another. To settle THOSE matters of false belief, however, psychiatrists in this context are not really authorized.
I’ve been at this a while, and pick up on news language. Also, FYI, women and men tend to think differently, have different perspectives and sometimes notice different things. Paranoia MAY be in the eye of the beholder, but if a leading psychiatrist said so — and of course this psychiatrist has no gender bias, and there is no conflict of interest, etc. — then paranoid she must be. About WHAT nothing specific: “false beliefs about various people, including Mr. Thompson.” OK, we’ll have to take that one on faith– this article is after all about him: his search, his emotions, his relief, his account (plus one quote from a friend) and his son, found again.
The drama of his quitting his job and bicycling through Europe is told in this article:
He has cycled through over half a dozen countries in his desperate mission to find his missing son.
A family Friend, Robin Bowles,** told the Sydney Morning Herald, “Ken’s ecstatic, emotional, relieved, overjoyed and still in a total state of shock,” Ms Bowles said.
In such cases, family friends tend to have to take sides. I’d say Robin Bowles was more like Mr. Thompson’s friend. Ms. Stratton’s emotional state was not recounted. Well, she’s paranoid, so her emotional state is not newsworthy.
“It is no secret there were fears for both Melinda’s and Andrew’s safety and the longer time went on, the fear grew deeper within Ken that maybe he’d never see his son again. He wants to see him. He can’t wait a moment longer.”
I can understand that fear. I know it, too.
And of course escalating fears that your wife is mentally ill, to the point of calling in a leading psychiatrist to diagnose one’s wife, doesn’t qualify as paranoia on the part of the husband. Was she cutting herself? Was she threatening suicide? Threatening anything? Neglecting a child? Showing up at work disheveled, or not at all? What, exactly were those symptoms?
Not mentioned in this story — it’ll show up in the next — there WAS a debate of custody, and family court was involved, or about to be. INTERESTING OMISSIONS for such a dramatic rescue.
Mr Thomson has spent every day of the last three and a half months cycling through Europe, looking for his son in a heroic search effort.
WELL, his tenacity, his publicity and cycling (and the fact that the Interpol system helped him) paid off, and he has his son, now. Now, the other side of the story. Well, the part of it that the papers were allowed to print:
#1B. Melinda Stratton — she was “defiant“
Defiant: mother tells why she took her son and ran
- From: The Australian
- February 02, 2009
Note: this 2009 story carries several links to the found boy. The one above carries no links to why she ran, from her account.
“Melinda Stratton is a woman on the run. In April last year (2008), she fled Australia with her four-year-old son, Andrew, to avoid a custody hearing in Family Court.
Maybe she was paranoid about the nice Family Court..
Ms Stratton – a professional woman from Sydney’s northern suburbs, who has an MBA, speaks French and German, and has lived and worked abroad – has so far managed to dodge the authorities, but yesterday emerged from seclusion to tell her side of the story.
A 10-page letter – the first contact between Ms Stratton and anyone outside her immediate family since last April – was provided to The Australian with no identifying marks. …
Ms Stratton says she had no choice other than to flee Australia, because she had lost faith in the Family Court.
She says the balance of the court – once firmly in favour of granting custody to mothers – had tipped dramatically towards fathers. The Howard government’s regime of “shared parenting” had given power to fathers at the expense of mothers.
“I have lost all faith in any form of justice coming out of Australia,” Ms Stratton says.
“By remaining silent, however, I ensure that they (the Family Court) can continue to treat other mothers and children this way.“
I spent $30,000 on court proceedings. I have been told I will receive harsh penalties as ‘punishment’ for leaving from the Family Court.
“I am in my 40s. My son is only four. His welfare and future are my priority.
“The decision to break all contact with my family and friends, leave my job and our home was not taken lightly.
“I also understand that the Family Court could take my son away from me and give Ken full custody of him, again as punishment.
OK, let’s review the chaotic, surreal, disordered, selfish, thinking of a paranoid mother, who chose to get a 10-page letter to The Australian, and managed to do so without any identifying marks.
She appears to be educated, and was likely working — having spent already $30,000 on court hearings. (That’s a lot in any country). She is concerned for his son’s welfare, but ALSO for other mothers and children being mistreated by the same system. She has ordered her priorities and exhibited empathy for strangers. She, too, (not just her husband) left her job — and home — and family and friends, something he didn’t sacrifice in this.). She also understands the consequences of disobeying a court order, and once she left, knows that failing to STAY gone will mean full custody to the Dad as punishment. . . . . . She also relates a historical shift in the courts to a shift in government. That sounds like someone that’s aware of her surroundings, on several levels, reasons, weighs, and chooses. She has not specified WHAT about her son’s welfare she is concerned about, nor can she:
Ms Stratton has made more serious allegations against Mr Thompson but The Australian is constrained by law from publishing them. She made the allegations in December 2007, left the family home in January last year, and the country in April.
Well, the truth or falsehood of those allegations sure seems to be keey in the case. If true, she fled to prevent harm. If false, she’s paranoid and should be hunted down and locked up. You be the judge. Of course, you don’t have all the facts. Oh well…
You know, different degrees suggest different character traits or strengths. Sounds to me, being an MBA, she assessed the dynamics of the situation, made a strategic decision (although an illegal one) and acted swiftly. That’s a leadership quality. I’m not advocating felony behavior, but she just related her thinking. It does not sound like she is attempting to dodge child support or other criminal accusations against her, other than a belated being diagnosed paranoid by a man she was planning to leave. Judging by the ages, she probably was on her first, not second marriage; he was on his second marriage. Maybe there’s a reason , similar, between both divorces, though of course I wasn’t there. No mention of other children…
The battle between Ms Stratton and Mr Thompson for access to Andrew is complex and bitter.
?? Sounds fairly typical. She alleges something serious and relating to her son’s welfare. He retaliates “you’re paranoid” and gets a leading Australian psychiatrist to diagnose her. That’s as old as Freud. Or Dr. Phyllis Chesler’s “Women and Madness.” A very long time ago, slaves running away was diagnosed as a mental disorder, too. What’s complex is, it went international, and apparently she had enough resources to move fast.
She says he suffers from depression and anxiety. He says he suffered from “mild anxiety” when his first marriage ended 20 years ago.
Well, he’s a fireman, right? That can be challenging. Serious depression is one among several homicide indicators. Bitter is normal in contested divorces. Complex, well, how complex is that?
“It was nothing more than mild anxiety,” he says.
“It was a very difficult time, but it was also a very long time ago.”
I don’t see his age listed, but would say, a bit older, unless he had a VERY short marriage 20 yearsa ago. Also not shown is how long these two were married.
When he launched his campaign to find Andrew, Mr Thompson said that his former wife had a “mental condition”. On his blogs, he says she is “paranoid” and that she may harm Andrew rather than return him to Sydney.
Sorry, buddy, I don’t think the statistc bear out on that one. Dads are the more deadly in this context, than biomoms. Show me the headlines if they aren’t:
When did they divorce? The 2010 shows a happy family photo of all 4 and doesn’t mention “former.”
Ms Stratton says she has “no mental problems whatsoever”.
Mr Thompson strenuously denies his wife’s claims, saying she “made all kinds of allegations … the psychologists have said there is no reason to even investigate them“.
WHICH psychologists is key. . IF abuse happened, long-term consequences can be severe:
What are the possible long-term effects of child sexual abuse?
If child sexual abuse is not effectively treated, long-term symptoms may persist into adulthood. These may include:
- PTSD and/or anxiety
- Sexual anxiety and disorders
- Poor body image and low self-esteem
- The use of unhealthy behaviors, such as alcohol abuse, drug abuse, self-mutilation, or bingeing and purging, to help mask painful emotions related to the abuse
If you were abused as a child and suffer from any of these symptoms, it may help you to get help from a mental-health professional who has expertise in working with people who have been sexually abused.
AND, from a *.uk site, “The Royal College of Psychiatrists,” talking about, if it’s by a close caretaker, how it can be hard to detect:</spa
It can be hard to detect long-standing abuse by an adult the child is close to. It is often very difficult for the child to tell anyone about it, as the abuser may have threatened to hurt them if they tell anybody. A child may not say anything because they think it is their fault, that no one will believe them or that they will be teased or punished. The child may even love the abusing adult, they want the abuse to stop, but they don’t want the adult to go to prison or for the family to break up.
If you suspect that a child is being abused, you may be able to help them to talk about it. Your local Social Services Child Protection Adviser will be able to offer more detailed advice.Where can I get help?
First and foremost, the child must be protected from further abuse. Social Services will need to be involved to find out:
- what has happened
- if it is likely to happen again
- what steps are needed to protect the child
Ms Stratton says the court psychologist is biased against mothers. She points to papers presented by Family Court practitioners in which they say that mothers can make up allegations of abuse and that children can be manipulated by their mothers to say they have been abused.
The identity of the psychologist is protected by the Family Law Act (1975).
Well, guess we’ll never know, at least for a while:
HERE’s a Supportive U.S. post (2009, before she was caught) from RandiJames.com, citing a press release from an Australian site:
Melinda Stratton and other Mothers on the Run
I fully support the following from Anonymums:
Press Release
RE: Melinda Stratton and other Mothers on the RunAs a spokesperson for Anonymums, we understand that the Family Court does not investigate child protection matters and during the proceedings if there is no history of child protection involvement, there are no investigations that are likely to ensure the protection of children involved in proceedings. The matters of Arthur Freeman, Robert Farquharson and Jayson Dalton are just a handful of reported cases that reveals the amounting negligence that the Family Court has in regards to children’s rights. The laws particularly the Shared parenting bill based on United States joint custody laws, prioritize parent’s rights above children’s rights. Children don’t have a say and are often punished by the court if they speak out against child abuse often portrayed as “alienated children”. We are aware that these measures are in violation of human rights and until the court adequately provides protection for child abuse victims and domestic violence victims, we fully support the plights of protective mothers who are often alone in gathering the evidence and ignored by the court. We believe Melinda Stratton based on her extraordinary lengths, the statements that support Melinda’s mothering concerns towards her child that despite the law that is against a higher law(human rights), she is doing the best she can for the child. We believe that the system is incorrect and abusive towards both the mother and the child by barring her from vital services to provide for the child(Article 14) and hunting her down like an animal. It is the system itself that is at fault for failing to protect children and women in the first place regardless of the institution or reason. There are more protections for murderers and pedophiles than there are for these children. We recommend that instead of Melinda coming forward to be jailed and barred from seeing her child that the system endeavors to investigate further into these allegations instead of laying the sole burden upon the mother. We recommend that the order that seeks her out be withdrawn until the system can adequately provide proper protections for Children. Until this takes place, we support the mother in obtaining alternative safety measures.
Related Posts :
asylum for domestic violence survivors
Finding a lost boy should be an occasion for joy, but this was not necessarily the result that anyone wanted: not Ken Thompson, not his estranged wife Melinda, and certainly not their six-year-old boy Andrew. Since Melinda Stratton disappeared 2½ years ago and [father Ken] Thompson began a campaign to find her, the South Australian child protection expert Professor Freda Briggs has spoken to both parents about Andrew’s abduction, and how it might end.
Thompson, a former NSW deputy fire chief who has spent the entire time searching for his son, had assured her he did not want a climax involving foreign police, child protection officers and sudden, possibly violent, intervention.
As for Stratton, ”she rang me from Frankfurt and didn’t know anything about the Hague Convention and my advice to her was ‘come back because if you are caught the effect on your child will be devastating’,” Briggs said. ”But she obviously ignored me.‘
In the past 48 hours, since a Dutch school principal noticed Andrew’s expired passport and reported it to police, Briggs has watched as the case unravelled in the dreaded fashion, with all parties powerless to prevent it.
{{??? In any scenario whatsoever, including things so severe as floods, earthquakes, or oil spills, there is power, and an opposing power somewhere historically, and in the present moment. RARELY are “all parties” powerless, and almost never “equally” powerless. }}
Andrew’s mother is now arrested and he is with foster carers who may not even speak his language. ”If it follows the usual pattern, he will be sent back here accompanied by strangers without a stopover. Previous children [in this situation] have reportedly cried all the way home. He will probably be placed in foster care here until the judge makes a decision about where he will live,” Briggs said.
Briggs believes that Andrew may never have been abducted if the Family Court did not have a history of declaring mothers to be ”mad or bad” when they made serious allegations against fathers.
It happens, she says, ”to the extent that solicitors now advise mothers not to mention abuse in the court because of the risk they will [lose contact] or at best have occasional contact that is supervised’‘.
Sounds like they took a cue from the US courts:
Charles Pragnell, from the National Council for Children Post Separation, said the Family Court lacks the expertise to investigate serious allegations.
”In our experience with many hundreds of similar cases, psychiatrists and psychologists merely label the mother as borderline personality disorder without conducting a professional assessment as they are required to do under their professional standards of practice,” he said.
Being IN this field and speaking out about fellow-professionals takes courage. He says, they lack expertise and may be right. I can’t speak for other countries, but if you kow this blog, I say, they lack the MOTIVATION to do so, in part because a series of grants called Access/Visitation aimed at fathers gives them a nice motivation to make MORE time with the Dads. We believe, based on an anecdotal AND policy, that the family courts not only do, but are designed, to make sure that child abusers and molesters do NOT lose contact with their target children. The mental health professionals come in to validate this policy, because this field is a LOT more nebulous than criminal law, and has fewer protections, and less “due process” requirements.
”It is absolutely certain that if Melinda and Andrew are forced to return to Australia they will not receive justice in the Family Courts which operate according to the provisions of the Family Law Act 2006, which Family Courts interpret as giving inalienable paramountcy to the rights of fathers and little regard is given to the needs, wishes, and rights of children.”
That was a MAN speaking, not a woman…
Coral Slattery, of the Family Law Reform Association, said Australian and international laws do too little to prevent children being whisked away, which amounts to a severe form of child abuse.
The Hague Convention is little comfort for those who do not know where their child is, she said. Even if found in a Hague Convention country, abducters go before foreign courts first, which can refuse to send a child back to their ”habitual residence” or can do so only after years and thousands of dollars in legal and travel costs.
Let’s Get Honest commentary on the condition of this post:
3 is a Taliban situation, 2 is an Afghan in Australia situation, and #1 is how Aussie/Europeans like to persecute women perceived as uppity, immoral, or protesting something.
They represent, in order, #3 Taliban – Sharia, and no government intervention acknowledging. CONFLICT between this mentality, and #2 a Western Culture that starts to at least SAY, violence against women is wrong, and stop beating on your wife.
And #1 is how Caucasians do it. They can’t in this culture come out and admit, they basically side with examples 1 & 2, but can’t pull it off. In this culture, one engages “mental health professionals” and labels, which then allows the hunt down, incarcerate, and separate child from mother.
Examples 3 & 2 came to my attention from the same on-line press that reported the Thompson/Stratton case. I wish to cover them, but have already lost significant work on this post, through my own dysfunctional CPU and internet access, which results from my own having been stuck in this system for so long, affecting obviously income and resources.
For example, an organization at the bottom, NCCPS is fascinating (and my first awareness of it). I posted its list of experts and an excerpt from an article. At the top, I also had more commentary.
ALL of this was lost on the attempt to safe the wordpress document towards the end of my day (no internet at home). Formatting errors (multiple quotes) remain.
Other losses of research happened on a recent Arizona/Bahrain post, and to be honest, some day the processor works, other days it does not.
I AM posting this information, in moral support of Ms. Stratton because, based on the one (only) positive article about her, placed in the proper context of family courts overall, globally — I believe she is telling the truth.
Moreover, the religious domination from Islam is being imitated within fundamentalist/evangelical “dominionist” type Christianity in the U.S. I have personally experienced this, and know a LOT about how it behaves in practice, versus theory.
The sharia stoning DOES replicate the same standards (although not so vicious in execution, I think) in Old Testament Bible, i.e., Israel in the wilderness. A feminist book has referred to these mentalities as “nomad priest/warrior” tribes, as opposed to the more peaceful (?) agricultural ones.
The author indeed has a point.
In the New Testament, John 4, an account of Jesus Christ actually saving a woman (allegedly!) “caught” in the act of adultery, again — no male participant present and accounted for; it may even have been one of the accusers. She may have been raped, or set up, we don’t know. Jesus was caught “between a rock and a hard place” like many court professionals are today, if they are ethical — if He protested the law, he came out against what he declared himself to be the fulfilment of. If He didn’t say SOMETHING, the woman would die.
The answer was, “He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone,” and by this method, the situation was diffused.
The Westernized “family courts” TODAY are a version of the individual-discretion religious courts of these countries where religion and politics mix, if they are indeed distinguishable. I have experience with both, years of it, and no longer participate in “church” circles — they are morally erosive for women, MOST of them, and blow-off human rights issues. Helping homeless or poor, often created by these issues no longer counts for me. One reason I can say it no longer counts is I’ve done my homework on the grants and organizations (see this blog, and be assured that’s not the whole content of research), enough to get a PRETTY good sense of how they operate, the basic premises, and many of the interrelationships.
Concerned readers should look up the organization listed at the bottom, “National Council for Children Post Separation” and read the site. Much as I love to provide links and excerpts myself, using Google, hitting “Search” and reading are not exactly highly technical skills, and I suspect many readers have faster computers than I do. I simply continue the habit, and try to retain what I’ve read, comparing it with anecdotal, networked, but most of all, experienced reality in these systems (religion, courts, local culture).
GET OVER the “I don’t know — she says that, he says that” and take a position on the issue — or lose (US citizens!) what remains of your civil rights, and liberties, if those indeed existed in the past half-century or so.
And when international marriages (and economy) are involved, we have to DEAL with the issue of Sharia law influencing Christian Theocracy (cf. “Tea Party”) claiming to represent the “founding fathers” when it doesn’t. Which I know because, again, I’ve done some homework. There are different strands within “Christianity” as there are within Islam. I cannot speak for Judaism as experientially; but I do know that the offshoot/now mainstream religions perceive themselves as heroes and protecting the “good” values of past centuries, failing to distinguish the impact on their own lives, and husbands, wives, children, relatives, friends, and colleagues.
(the Gulag, cont’d.) Politics,Policies,Prisons : The Business of Detention (Case study)
I’ll be honest. I am VERY concerned about how far down the Road to Serfdom we already are.
Why spend all that energy on human rights, civil rights, legal rights, due process, when who one is dealing with is a calculating policymaker/investor (the door rotates in and out of private and public sectors) who knows a good — business- deal when he (or occasionally, she) sees one?
I found “Corrections Corporation of America” and the Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) connection. I retain a lot of information upstairs, even though words may come out crossed occasionally. I notice anomalies. Or just things that interest me. When I looked at the richest Congresspersons roll, long ago, and the Obamas came out 10th (probably 2008), counting assets, and spouses assets as well — Mr. Alexanders interest in a huge work-site Child Care provider made an impression (see comment to most recent post). OK, so why would someone so interested in child care also be interested in prisons?
The topic of lockup relates to family court matters because violation of law, or contempts, or crimes, obviously could lead there. My research process is real simple. I google, read, and pay attention. It’s not rocket science.
I recognize good reporting when I see it. (A few awards doesn’t hurt either). Too bad more court reform people wouldn’t form the investigative journalism, FOIA, and looking at the Financials habit that these Columbia University journalism grads did:

Washington, D.C. – CCA plays the game of politics like a pro. After all forty percent of its revenue comes from federal contracts.
The company backs key politicians who support an immigration crackdown, and has intensified its lobbying in order to influence those still on the fence. For good measure, it hires former prison and immigration officials to coordinate its federal relations.

(from interactive graph on site, slide 3 of 4). Notice, graph source is from “opensecrets.org”, another good resource.
“The rest of CCA’s political giving went directly to lawmakers who determine detention funding through their positions on the appropriations committee in the House and Senate. In 2008, the committees approved a $2.3 billion budget for ICE detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, including funds for an additional 4,870 new beds. More than half the senators backed by CCA’s PAC are on the appropriations committee, and four of them are on the subcommittee on Homeland Security.”
Maybe some mothers and fathers who want Family Court Reform ought to spend a little more browsing (and submitting testimony) time on the House Ways and Means Committee, where many programs affecting the courts are. (see some of my posts). CCA knew right where to go to get their policies through.
”
One CCA-backed appropriations committee member deserves special mention. Former Tennessee governor, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) received $31,200 from 2003-2008 from the Nashville-based company and its employees, spouses and their subsidiaries, according to Federal Election Commission documents. Alexander’s history of supporting CCA includes endorsing its failed bid in 1985 to take over the Tennessee prison system.
In the House, CCA’s PAC gave $5,000 to Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), who sits on the Subcommittee on Homeland Security Appropriations. Another $2,500 went to fellow committee member John Carter (R-TX) who is also on the Committee on Homeland Security. Carter’s district is where CCA’s T. Don Hutto family residential center is located. He is a major advocate for “a system of 100 percent catch and return.”
Republican members of the House Immigration Reform Caucus reaped CCA’s support for backing the Secure America though Verification and Enforcement Act. The Act calls for expediting “the removal of illegal aliens by expanding detention capacity.
I have a question. Suppose, very hypothetically, all illegal aliens (that’s people…) WERE removed? Then what about all that prison capacity? Hmmm??? Maybe another Kids for Cash scenario? (As if aspects of the child protective services, and foster care incentives, and child support agency system(s) weren’t already this…)
WELL, some people – shareholders — wanted to know what was going on with all this money:
In 2007, the company fought a shareholder resolution that requested semi-annual reports on the company’s political contributions and expenditures.
“Absent a system of accountability, corporate executives are free to use company assets for political objectives that are not shared by and may be inimical to the interests of a company and its shareholders,” argued Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary Investment Program, who introduced the failed measure to force CCA to disclose payments it makes to trade associations, political recipients and soft money entities such as 527s.
To influence lawmakers who did not receive direct donations, CCA has spent millions on lobbyists. They got what they asked for.
And we even got a corporate (CCA) counsel taking a spin at a judgeship in Tennessee. That should help:
CCA’s general counsel, Gustavus Puryear IV, could give the revolving door another turn. Puryear made headlines this year when President Bush nominated him for a federal judge seat in the Middle District of Tennessee, where CCA is headquartered. Puryear has worked as a speech writer for Vice President Dick Cheney. He testified during a Senate hearing that he would recuse himself from cases involving the company.
WELL, this is just a flavor. Not only does this subject matter overlap with family court, but take note of these TWO students’ masters’ thesis project. The same principles apply in organizations which are close to the federal faucet through HHS (see “What Decade Are These Stores?” post.). I notice that the Loop21.com article noticed a n Arizona connection. (bottom of last post)
from their ABOUT BD link — and I also added this link to my blogroll:
Our desire was to create an innovative way to present the business of privatized detention services — using solid reporting skills and pairing that up with video and interactive info graphics. This was also an experiment for us in creating a platform for a news product, that largely went under reported in mainstream news when we started the Corrections Corporation of America investigative project in late 2007. That project became the first investigative-new media project for the University and has since won the Melvin Mencher Award for Superior Reporting and James A. Wechsler Award for National Reporting, and a finalist at the 2009 SXSW Interactive Awards.
This link is to a “money.cnn” report focusing on Arizona, where a bid was made to privatize the entire state’s prisons.
”
According to research firm IBISWorld USA, private corrections is a $22.7 billion industry with an annual growth rate in the last half-decade of 4.7%. While growth slowed from 2009 to 2010, projections for the industry remain largely optimistic.
“The prison population continues to grow regardless of what the economic conditions are,” says George Van Horn, senior analyst at IBISWorld.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of federal inmates housed in private facilities jumped nearly 14% between 2000 and 2007, and nearly 6% between 2007 and 2008.
Even so, the federal government nor any other state has gone as far as Arizona has in the march toward prison privatization. Last fall, Governor Brewer signed a law calling for the privatization of all the state’s prisons, should a private contractor offer an upfront bid of $100 million. This March, the law was repealed because no private company made a bid.
A prison too far?
But with the recent escapes, officials in Arizona and elsewhere have started to question the use of private correctional facilities. When Arizona’s privatization bill passed, the state’s director of corrections, Charles L. Ryan, took the unusual step of writing a letter to Governor Brewer expressing concern.
“[The bill] seeks to attempt something never experienced in the nation: Privatizing a state’s entire prison system. This is bad public policy,” the letter read.
“This escape has put everything in stark relief,” says Goddard. “A private company has an acceptable level of loss. In the case of violent offenders, I don’t believe the public does or should tolerate any incidence of failure.“













Gulag Archipelago, Bahrain Archipelago — Systems to Silence Dissent
with 7 comments
LET’s TALK “ARCHIPELAGO”
I often call the Family Law system an “Archipelago,” referring to the networked system that ensnares families.
My other, kind of ridiculous analogy, includes the Giant Squid, lurking in the depths, but with many tentacles, and the nightmare of a ship at sea and sailors’ dreams. When you experience multiple tentacles through this system, the only way to mentally/emotionally grasp the whole is by flexible imagery, it’s a SENSING.
Just in case, someone missed the reference:
AND
You see that “instrument of survival…” — you see this blog, the some of the links on my blogroll, others in this system? This current system doesn’t compare — I THINK — but it sure is headed that way, and becoming an ACCEPTED practice in the USA and overseas, Thought Police is no joke, really.
You cannot help a situation you can’t stomach even being aware of, naming, or seeing. This is how much abuse gets ignored. There’s an innate alienation to emotionally protect onesself from the (truth) that the world just ain’t fair, AND that “time and chance happen to us all.” No, it must have been something about the victim’s fault, and the “But that’s THEM, and not US” scenarios kicks in, even when it’s someone close to the person. I understand this. It’s a daily balance from being paralyzed by awareness of what DOES and CAN happen, right here, now (not referring to this historical piece) and from realizing that one’s conscience canNOT accept a “back to business as normal,” again.
WIKIPEDIA contributes — and would I miss a chance to mention this? Of course not.
He was raised without a father. Must’ve been at risk of a horrible life because of that (and not wars, political changes, or purges. No, healthy families have two parents. WELL then, with this formula, how does one explain such an author? Or is there ANOTHER reason for this policy in the US, and the Family Court Archipelago here, and overseas?
In the BAHRAIN ARCHIPELAGO (physical island chain)
Human Rights Issues in a small island nation:
Yesterday’s post blogged a custody case of a woman and child from Arizona trapped in Bahrain in a custody dispute. Bahrain is an “archipelago.” I showed the NASA photo, and found multiple Human Rights Watch articles on Woman and Child Abuse there. Portugal and Great Britain had their time in its history, divisions between Shi’ite majority and Sunni minority reverse (from what I can tell) the rest of the world’s status, and women only got the vote in 2002. It’s considered more liberal than some of it’s neighbors, and is home to what will be (is?) the WORLD’s longest bridge, from Qatar peninsula to the tiny Bahrain main island. Not the best place for a foreign-born woman to be trapped in a custody dispute!
HERE is an article “Women Don’t Need to Accept Polygamy” (currently that doesn’t seem true, but it presents issues)
And Amnesty International Documented in 1994-1996, increasing abuse of women and children in suppressing civil unrest:
A number of them were subjected to beatings and threats for allegedly [1] having participated in demonstrations or [2] for attempting to prevent the arrest of their male relatives. Some women were arrested and held as hostages in order [3] to coerce male relatives to hand themselves over to the authorities, while others were detained [4] apparently as a punishment for the opposition activities of their male relatives, who were either detained or had evaded arrest. It would appear that some women were also detained [5] in order to deter other women from joining public protests.”
{{Pause to reread the above paragraph — the various PURPOSES for beating and threatening these women. It didn’t always even related to anything they personally had done.}
EVERYCULTURE.COM:
What about Here? What about, now, today, the U.S.A. — are we an island in the world, with our Bill of Rights and Constitution, and legislative, judicial, executive branches of government, and just a bit of distance between the states and the feds? (less and less so each administration….). Do we have ROYALTY? Do we have RIGHTS?
Define “we.”
TheLoop21.com
I decided to look up this CCA, and found a 2000 “CORPWATCH” article that calls the Private Prison Complex a “Gulag.”
Note: My laptop is slow, and frequently loses text before it’s saved. This is exceptionally frustrating — yesterday, I lost probably 2 hours of work, background on Bahrain — which is why it’s on today’s post. The other part of the word “wait” is some days, simply watching a little “processing” symbol spin around and load a page. Graphics rich pages, such as from TheLoop21.com, are painful to load; guilt tends to kick in at this point for even blogging.
While on this topic: NONE of this blog was done from a regular, home PC. I had a laptop, which was stolen, briefly. Then probably a half year of (back to the libraries) (being car-less), and recently laptopped again — only a older, slower one. So be thankful for whatever comes out cohesive and coherent. Most times, I am looking at a single screen maximum 2 paragraphs visible at a time. Printing is another project. So all in all, perhaps it symbolizes the trouble also being stuck in the courts — basic infrastructure is hard to maintain, and forget it for a current generation of electronic equipment, whether computer, phone, or mechanical, such as transportation.
How could any system which so systematically removes work time from adults be in the interest of children? And the instability of it over time is reflected in parents’ ability to retain jobs and social connections.
We are heading towards world-wide slavery, it seems.
Many (noncustodial) mothers I know, active in protesting and seeking reform, speak eloquently on the human face of the suffering. Others also speak of the legal abuse, and psychological devastation of ongoing threat of losing one’s children, or hope of seeing them again, or being caught (liek the author, above) speaking “in appropriately” and thrown in jail, or being gagged, with the threat of jail, if they don’t comply. As I, too, have become alienated from a normal work life, not through economy, but through the courts, after dysfunctional/violent (which came first?) marriage, and similarly dysfunctional institutions willing to do anything about the violence, I have become more aware of, and personally know mothers who’ve become shadows of their former severals, women who have gone to jail attempting to protect a child, and women who have been threatened with jail if they don’t shut up (“Gag order”). I don’t want to think about how many homeless women I know who got that way after a custody switch, or women who are not homeless, but paying their former batterer.
In addressing this, people protest the indignity and the travesty of human rights, legal rights, and common sense.
WELL, some attitudes are NOT common to all, and better acknowledge it sooner.
FAR FEWER are willing to analyze the common CENTS (more like $$) economically that are behind the system. Some do, but how many people do you know that are willing to become the next Irving Fine ? Or will take their chances, and start to subpoena major organizations’ bank accounts, tax records, and insist that answers be given?
If it’s gut-wrenching and and too much to stomach, hearing about the outrage of children and juveniles being raped, without anyone stopping it, of a complete dual system of enforcement of court orders, and no recourse when failure to arrest still results in unnecessary deaths, LOTS of them, then why not look at some “dry” figures, some analyses, and get really outraged?
The bottom line is the bottom line. We all have our personal, legal ones, but the systems in this country (and extending globally) are political/economic. THEIR bottom line looks a lot different.
Remember, in any relationship, there are two points of view, and two “bottom lines.” When the government power to incarcerate is involved, and combined with this same government’s IRS agency (similar powers) to take and reallocate income — not just people — we have to take a look at their books, and who cooked up the business plan.
Now: PRIVATE PRISON ARCHIPELAGO — CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE
US: America’s Private Gulag
by Ken Silverstein, Prison Legal News
June 1st, 2000
What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry.
US: America’s Private Gulag
by Ken Silverstein, Prison Legal News
June 1st, 2000
What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry.
Consider the growth of the Corrections Corporation of America, the industry leader whose stock price has climbed from $8 a share in 1992 to about $30 today and whose revenue rose by 81 per cent in 1995 alone. Investors in Wackenhut Corrections Corp. have enjoyed an average return of 18 per cent during the past five years and the company is rated by Forbes as one of the top 200 small businesses in the country. At Esmor, another big private prison contractor, revenues have soared from $4.6 million in 1990 to more than $25 million in 1995.
Ten years ago there were just five privately-run prisons in the country, housing a population of 2,000. Today nearly a score of private firms run more than 100 prisons with about 62,000 beds. That’s still less than five per cent of the total market but the industry is expanding fast, with the number of private prison beds expected to grow to 360,000 during the next decade.
The exhilaration among leaders and observers of the private prison sector was cheerfully summed up by a headline in USA Today: “Everybody’s doin’ the jailhouse stock”. An equally upbeat mood imbued a conference on private prisons held last December at the Four Seasons Resort in Dallas. The brochure for the conference, organized by the World Research Group, a New York-based investment firm, called the corporate takeover of correctional facilities the “newest trend in the area of privatizing previously government-run programs… While arrests and convictions are steadily on the rise, profits are to be made — profits from crime. Get in on the ground floor of this booming industry now!”
A hundred years ago private prisons were a familiar feature of American life, with disastrous consequences. Prisoners were farmed out as slave labor. They were routinely beaten and abused, fed slop and kept in horribly overcrowded cells. Conditions were so wretched that by the end of the nineteenth century private prisons were outlawed in most states.
During the past decade, private prisons have made a comeback. Already 28 states have passed legislation making it legal for private contractors to run correctional facilities and many more states are expected to follow suit.
The reasons for the rapid expansion include the 1990’s free-market ideological fervor, large budget deficits for the federal and state governments and the discovery and creation of vast new reserves of “raw materials” — prisoners. The rate for most serious crimes has been dropping or stagnant for the past 15 years, but during the same period severe repeat offender provisions and a racist “get-tough” policy on drugs have helped push the US prison population up from 300,000 to around 1.5 million during the same period. This has produced a corresponding boom in prison construction and costs, with the federal government’s annual expenditures in the area, now $17 billion. In California, passage of the infamous “three strikes” bill will result in the construction of an additional 20 prisons during the next few years.
{{GOT THAT? SERIOUS CRIME RATES HAVE BEEN DROPPING FOR 15 YEARS (@2000). GOTTA KEEP THE PLACES FILLED FOR BUSINESS TO TURN A PROFIT, THOUGH. HOW? DRUGS WAR, 3 STRIKES YOU’RE OUT}}
The private prison business is most entrenched at the state level but is expanding into the federal prison system as well. Last year Attorney General Janet Reno announced that five of seven new federal prisons being built will be run by the private sector. Almost all of the prisons run by private firms are low or medium security, but the companies are trying to break into the high-security field. They have also begun taking charge of management at INS detention centers, boot camps for juvenile offenders and substance abuse programs.
The Players
Roughly half of the industry is controlled by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, (CCA) which runs 46 penal institutions in 11 states. It took ten years for the company to reach 10,000 beds; it is now growing by that same number every year.
{There’s a TN connection…}
CCA’s chief competitor is Wackenhut, which was founded in 1954 by George Wackenhut, a former FBI official. Over the years its board and staff have included such veterans of the US national security state as Frank Carlucci, Bobby Ray Inman and William Casey, as well as Jorge Mas Canosa, leader of the fanatic Cuban American National Foundation. The company also provides security services to private corporations. It has provided strikebreakers at the Pittston mine strike in Kentucky, hired unlicensed investigators to ferret out whistle blowers at Alyeska, the company that controls the Alaskan Oil pipeline, and beaten anti-nuclear demonstrators at facilities it guards for the Department of Energy.
Esmor, the number three firm in the field, was founded only a few years ago and already operates ten corrections or detention facilities. The company’s board includes William Barrett, a director of Frederick’s of Hollywood, and company CEO James Slattery, whose previous experience was investing in and managing hotels.
US companies also have been expanding abroad. The big three have facilities in Australia, England and Puerto Rico and are now looking at opportunities in Europe, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and China.
Greasing the Wheels of Power to Keep Jails Full
To be profitable, private prison firms must ensure that prisons are not only built but also filled. Industry experts say a 90-95 per cent capacity rate is needed to guarantee the hefty rates of return needed to lure investors. Prudential Securities issued a wildly bullish report on CCA a few years ago but cautioned, “It takes time to bring inmate population levels up to where they cover costs. Low occupancy is a drag on profits.” Still, said the report, company earnings would be strong if CCA succeeded in ramp(ing) up population levels in its new facilities at an acceptable rate”.
“(There is a) basic philosophical problem when you begin turning over administration of prisons to people who have an interest in keeping people locked up” notes Jenni Gainsborough of the ACLU’s National Prison Project.
{{Now we are going to talk about LOBBYING….}}
Private prison companies have also begun to push, even if discreetly, for the type of get-tough policies needed to ensure their continued growth. All the major firms in the field have hired big-time lobbyists. When it was seeking a contract to run a halfway house in New York City, Esmor hired a onetime aide to State Representative Edolphus Towns to lobby on its behalf. The aide succeeded in winning the contract and also the vote of his former boss, who had been an opponent of the project. In 1995, Wackenhut Chairman Tim Cole testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee to urge support for amendments to the Violent Crime Control Act — which subsequently passed — that authorized the expenditure of $10 billion to construct and repair state prisons.
CCA has been especially adept at expansion via political payoffs. The first prison the company managed was the Silverdale Workhouse in Hamilton County, Tennessee. After commissioner Bob Long voted to accept CCA’s bid for the project, the company awarded Long’s pest control firm a lucrative contract. When Long decided the time was right to quit public life, CCA hired him to lobby on its behalf. CCA has been a major financial supporter of Lamar Alexander, the former Tennessee governor and failed presidential candidate. In one of a number of sweetheart deals, Lamar’s wife, Honey Alexander, made more than $130,000 on a $5,000 investment in CCA. Tennessee Governor Ned McWherter is another CCA stockholder and is quoted in the company’s 1995 annual report as saying that “the federal government would be well served to privatize all of their corrections.”
In another ominous development, the revolving door between the public and private sector has led to the type of company boards that are typical of those found in the military-industrial complex. CCA co-founders were T. Don Hutto, an ex-corrections commissioner in Virginia, and Tom Beasley, a former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. A top company official is Michael Quinlan, once director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The board of Wackenhut is graced by a former Marine Corps commander, two retired Air Force generals and a former under secretary of the Air Force, as well as James Thompson, ex-governer of Illinois, Stuart Gerson, a former assistant US attorney general and Richard Staley, who previously worked with the INS.
Leaner and Meaner?
The companies that dominate the private prison business claim that they offer the taxpayers a bargain because they operate far more cheaply than do state firms. As one industry report put it, “CEOs of privatized companies… are leaner and more motivated than their public-sector counterparts.”
Because they are private firms that answer to shareholders, prison companies have been predictably vigorous in seeking ways to cut costs. In 1985, a private firm tried to site a prison on a toxic waste dump in Pennsylvania, which it had bought at the bargain rate of $1. Fortunately, that plan was rejected.
Many states pay private contractors a per diem rate, as low as $31 a prisoner in Texas. A federal investigation traced a 1994 riot at an Esmor immigration detention center to the company’s having skimped on food, building repairs and guard salaries. At an Esmor-run halfway house in Manhattan, inspectors turned up leaky plumbing, exposed electrical wires, vermin and inadequate food.
To rachet up profit margins, companies have cut corners on drug rehabilitation, counseling and literacy programs. In 1995, Wackenhut was investigated for diverting $700,000 intended for drug treatment programs at a Texas prison. In Florida the US Corrections Corporation was found to be in violation of a provision in its state contract that requires prisoners to be placed in meaningful work or educational assignments. The company had assigned 235 prisoners as dorm orderlies when no more than 48 were needed and enrollment in education programs was well below what the contract called for. Such incidents led a prisoner at a CCA facility in Tennessee to conclude, “There is something inherently sinister about making money from the incarceration of prisoners, and in putting CCA’s bottom line (money) before society’s bottom line (rehabilitation).”
{{Couldn’t have said it better myself: 2 bottom lines. MONEY? or REHABILITATION? (or whatever line someone is pushing at the public, currently}}
The companies try to cut costs by offering less training and pay to staff. Almost all workers at state prisons get union-scale pay but salaries for private prison guards range from about $7 to $10 per hour. Of course the companies are anti-union. When workers attempted to organize at Tennessee’s South Central prison, CCA sent officials down from Nashville to quash the effort.
Poor pay and work conditions have led to huge turnover rates at private prisons. A report by the Florida auditor’s office found that turnover at the Gadsden Correctional Facility for women, run by the US Corrections Corporation, was ten times the rate at state prisons. Minutes from an administrative meeting at a CCA prison in Tennessee have the “chief” recorded as saying, “We all know that we have lots of new staff and are constantly in the training mode… Many employees (are) totally lost and have never worked in corrections.”
Private companies also try to nickel and dime prisoners in the effort to boost revenue. “Canteen prices are outrageous,” wrote a prisoner at the Gadsden facility in Florida. “(We) pay more for a pack of cigarettes than in the free world.” Neither do private firms provide prisoners with soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes or writing paper. One female prisoner at a CCA prison in New Mexico said: “The state gives five free postage paid envelopes per month to prisoners, nothing at CCA. State provides new coats, jeans, shirts, and underwear and replaces them as needed. CCA rarely buys new clothing and inmates are often issued tattered and stained clothing. Same goes of linens. Also ration toilet paper and paper towels. If you run out, too bad — 3 rolls every two weeks.”
Cashing in on Crime
In addition to the companies that directly manage America’s prisons, many other firms are getting a piece of the private prison action. American Express has invested millions of dollars in private prison construction in Oklahoma and General Electric has helped finance construction in Tennessee. Goldman Sachs & Co., Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, among other Wall Street firms, have made huge sums by underwriting prison construction with the sale of tax exempt bonds, this now a thriving $2.3 billion industry.
Weapons manufacturers see both public and private prisons as a new outlet for “defense” technology, such as electronic bracelets and stun guns. Private transport companies have lucrative contracts to move prisoners within and across state lines; health care companies supply jails with doctors and nurses; food service firms provide prisoners with meals. High-tech firms are also moving into the field; the Que-Tel Corp. hopes for vigorous sales of its new system whereby prisoners are bar coded and guards carry scanners to monitor their movements. Phone companies such as AT&T chase after the enormously lucrative prison business.
{{And you thought the concept was just science fiction, or some religious doomsayer, predicting…. NOPE! Shades of Holocauset, much?}}
About three-quarters of new admissions to American jails and prisons are now African-American and Hispanic men. This trend, combined with an increasingly privatized and profitable prison system run largely by whites, makes for what Jerome Miller, a former youth corrections officer in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, calls the emerging Gulag State.
Miller predicts that the Gulag State will be in place within 15 years. He expects three to five million people to be behind bars, including an absolute majority of African-American men. It’s comparable, he says, to the post-Civil War period, when authorities came to view the prison system as a cheaper, more efficient substitute for slavery. Of the state’s current approach to crime and law enforcement, Miller says, “The race card has changed the whole playing field. Because the prison system doesn’t affect a significant percentage of young white men we’ll increasingly see prisoners treated as commodities. For now the situation is a bit more benign than it was back in the nineteenth century but I’m not sure it will stay that way for long.”
This article originally appeared in CounterPunch, a Washington DC-based political newsletter.
WELL, someone had to say this, and I’m not the first. As to women, a term that continues to come to mind as to this court system was a “Jim Crow” period following some feminist gains in the 70s. The backlash can be severe.
I remind this world that a lot of people became fatherless during WARS.
Now, we are ready to read the next post from the UK area. This post was just an introduction which got out of hand…
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
September 1, 2010 at 2:18 PM
Posted in Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Metaphors for Family Law, My Takes, and Favorite Takes, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids
Tagged with Bahrain Archipelago, Bahrain Human Rights Watch, Cutting Costs Raising Prices on Prisoners, Declaration of Independence/Bill of Rights, Incarcerated Teens Sexual Assault, Industry Lobbyists, Jim Crow, Keeping Prisons Full, Making sense of it all, Nobel Prize Winner was fatherless, Private Prison American Gulag, Racist Institutions, Revolving Door of Government, social commentary, Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, TheLoop21.com, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..