PRISONERS
OF PROFIT
after taking a shower when he
realized that the boxer shorts he
had been issued were too big.
According to a police report and
an interview with the inmate’s
mother, the boy asked a female
staff member if he could have
another pair. She said no. So he
asked another male counselor. According to the police report, the
s econd counselor turned to the
boy, grabbed his shirt and started
to choke him. Another male staff-
HUFFINGTON
11.03.13
eral other youth had to hold the
counselor back.
“Why did he still have access to
my son 15 minutes later?” asked
the boy’s mother, who requested
that her name not be used in order
to protect her son’s identity. “Why
wasn’t he removed immediately?”
Her son was unavailable for an
interview because he has since
been arrested and incarcerated at
another YSI facility.
During a similar incident in
“As Alexander pleaded for help, one drill instructor
told him to ‘go ahead and die already,’ according to
the investigative report.”
er pulled the counselor off, but he
continued to go after the boy.
Staff removed the boy and took
him to his room while leading the
staffer who choked him to another part of the hallway. But after a
few minutes, the same counselor
charged into the boy’s room and
tried to choke him again, said the
mother, who spoke with staff and
her son after the incident. Sev-
February 2012, a Thompson Academy staff member got into an argument with a 13-year-old boy
who wanted to get a folder with
schoolwork from another room.
The staffer told him no, but the
boy disobeyed.
According to a therapist and
other witnesses mentioned in a
police report of the incident, the
staff member started choking
the boy and picked him up. The
therapist said the staff member’s actions “were preventing