A recent headline in the Tampa Tribune summarizes it nicely: Brutal Reform School Closes. This Thursday, June 30 2011, the Arthur G. Dozier school in Marianna is closing after 111 years of operation. Why am I writing about it? Well, it relates to the Sunland story in a couple of important ways. In 1957, when the Sunland Training Centers came into existence by act of the Florida Legislature, the appointed first administrator of the new child training schools, which joined the Marianna boys reform school and other reform schools around the state, was Arthur G. Dozier.
The former Industrial School for Boys in Marianna preceded Arthur Dozier's involvement by several decades and this writing is not a personal reflection on Mr. Dozier. We seem to have a long history of separating those in charge from the work outcome of their area of responsibility and I'll continue that tradition here. In fact, the first scandal of abuse according to the Tribune article occurred in 1903. Suffice it to say that abuses, including horrible beatings of children, occurred until corporal punishment was outlawed under Governor Kirk. That occurred in 1968 after the school was renamed for Dozier, and after Dozier had run the school during the 1950's and 1960's while some of the most (subsequently) publicized beatings were occurring. Enough said.
Another link is the concept that I have written about in the past concerning the state's role and the question of what differences in treatment can reasonably be expected to occur when programs are privatized. News of the Dozier school (now called the North Florida Youth Development Center) closure should make us all wonder: how can the state assure that children receive better care under another system? Is it possible that all such a shift creates is a change in perception of the state's role? When a ward of the state is beaten or otherwise mistreated in a state facility, the culprit is clear: it's our elected leaders. When our elected leaders outsource the care, if identical problems occur, state leaders can join us in our outcry and inspect, levy sanctions, change contracts. Now they are in the role of rescuer, but wasn't that child their responsibility all along?
In 2010, Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson, writing under the name Jefferson Bass, published the bestselling novel The Bone Yard, a work of fiction drawn from the story of the Dozier School. In the novel, the school burns down in the 1960's and is not rebuilt. Perhaps this would have been a more fitting end to the real Dozier facility. As with the Sunlands, reality was that a lot of jobs resided in these state institutions and there was considerable community pressure to keep the facilities open, even the worst ones such as the Arcadia Sunland and the Dozier school. Indeed, it is state budget cuts and not vengeance that has finally closed Dozier.
Perhaps a better way of judging the need for continuing a program might be the outcomes of the clients, but systems for evaluating the outcomes are susceptible to weaknesses that can render them useless: biases, subjectivity, and potential corruption. System inspections by those who live off the system make it difficult to feel much reassurance when such methods are employed. Still, justifying it as a jobs program cannot ever be enough. I believe the situation at hand speaks loudly to the need for state/private partnerships. Realistically, the state will always have a role as long as citizens expect public financing of these and other programs. Private citizens, including the family and friends of anyone receiving care in an institutional setting, need to be involved and knowledgeable consumers who can inspect, report, and also be responsible for more workable solutions. Should such a role be better encouraged, and in some circumstances, even expected of those receiving services? Look at what can happen when this doesn't take place.
Image: Dick Colon, a former resident of the Dozier school, walks through gravesites near the school where victims of the school are believed to be buried.
Sources: Northwest Florida Daily News May 26, 2011. Reform school for boys in Marianna will be shut down in June.
Montgomery, Ben and Moore, Waveney Ann. May 27, 2011. Brutal reform school closing. The Tampa Tribune.
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