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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported:
Alexander Youth Services Center
Trouble
inside
At Mac Cottage at the Alexander Youth
Services Center,
boys reported being beaten with sticks and fists and lined
up to be slapped.
Group session
Boys rest their hands on their knees during a group meeting in their
unit at the Alexander Youth Services Center. It was at such a meeting
at Mac Cottage last year that an employee warned boys in the group
that if they got out of line, he would strangle them as they slept and
dump their bodies in a pond behind the cottage -- and no one would
ask questions. (Click here for more).
A brush
with danger
Division
of Youth Services worker Faye Higgins helps a youth with a needle-
craft project. This spring, Higgins and another woman found themselves
locked inside a unit at the Alexander Youth Services Center while some
of the state's most violent boys rioted around them. "I was afraid I was
going to die. After it was over, I was a nervous wreck."
Given
a line
A boy fishes in
an Alexander Youth Services Center campus pond. Eight boys living
in the Mac Cottage said a staff worker threatened to kill them and throw
them into
the pond if they reported his alleged abuse to authorities.
Kickball conflict
Youth services workers
wrestle with a girl at the Alexander Youth Services
Center's START unit for violent girls after the youth burst out of the
gymnasium
kicking and screaming in an apparent argument over kickball scoring. The
workers
handled this incident by the book.
Aftermath
of a rampage
Boys in the Goldstar
unit at the Alexander Youth Services
Center toppled a washing machine, a dryer, a table and
some bookshelves during a riot this spring. After police
arrived, the boys used the washing machine to block a door.
Courtesy the state Human Services Department
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