7-22-2002 Copyright Edwin L. Young, PhD 1 II. The Structures of the Institutional Host Environment...

7-22-2002 Copyright Edwin L. Young, PhD

1

II. The Structures of the Institutional Host Environment

and Their Effects on the Personality and Behavior of

Residents

DEGREES OF STRUCTURE

1. HIGHLY STRUCTURED2. MODERATELY STRUCTURED with POSITIVE

AVENUES3. HIGHLY UNSTRUCTURED

HAVE DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS


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THE OPPRESSIVE, STRICT, REGIMENTED ENVIRONMENT HAS THE FOLLOWING EFFECTS ON THE PERSONALITY OF ITS RESIDENTS

1. THEIR PUBLIC PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIOR BECOMES RELUCTANTLY AND SUPERFICIALLY CONFORMIST

2. THEIR PRIVATE PERSONALITY, AND BEHAVIOR, BECOMES ALIENATED AND RESORTS TO AN ANTISOCIAL, COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE FANTASY LIFE


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HIGHLYSTRUCTURED;

STRICTRESTRICTIONS

CHANNELED,PRODUCTIVE

BEHAVIOR

LACK OFSTRUCTURE;

HIGHLYPERMISSIVE UNINHIBITED

BEHAVIOR:PRIVATE PERSON

IS DOMINANT

MODERATESTRUCTURE

WITHPOSITIVEAVENUES

REPRESSEDBEHAVIOR:

PRIVATE PERSONIS TENSE ANDENGAGES IN

FANTASY LIFE

LEADS TO:

LEADS TO:

LEADS TO:


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THE OPPRESSIVE, RIGIDLY

STRUCTURED HOST ENVIRONMENT


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Elements and Effects of an Oppressive Environment

1. An Oppressive Environment equals: High structure and strict restrictions.

2. Types daily activities are determined by those in control.

3. Daily activities are on a strict regimented schedule determined by staff.

4. Choices for types of activities and times for engagement are eliminated.

5. Individualistic behaviors and expressions of feelings, preferences, and opinions are prohibited and only exactly specified behaviors are permitted.

6. Statements of punishment consequences for deviations from prescribed and proscribed behaviors and deviations from regimented schedules are continuously and vigorously expressed by staff.

7. Staff rarely express positive recognition, encouragement, praise, or permission for individualistic behavior.

8. Residents are expected to behave like robots.

1. This Oppressive Environment results in Repressed Behavior:

2. The Private, Inner Person has an increased fantasy life related to behavior that has to be suppressed.

3. These inner fantasies involve what could have been:

1. Spontaneous playfulness2. Anger reactions3. Expressions of

displeasure, disappointment, anddisagreement

4. Fantasies involving otherpursuits that are natural to theindividual but that areprohibited.

4. The Public Person is superficially conformist: 1. The Public Person is rigid, sullen in appearance

and zombie, robot-like in behavior.2. Oppressed Public Person engages in sudden

outbursts of negative behavior and surreptitious sabotage of the program.

5. The Oppressed person learns for their Private Person:

1. In-authenticity2. Dissimulation3. Distrust 4. And to be Anti-Establishment.


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A Typical Scenario Of Typical Hostile Interaction Between Youth And

Staff In Juvenile Correctional Institutions.

•This scenario is often played out in juvenile correctional institutions across the country.

•It seems to many like this is the only and inevitable way negative incidents can be dealt with.

•There may be an alternative.

•This alternative is what we aim to present to you today.

This scenario was played out at HCYV many times a day up until May of 1994, when Stars and Stripes was officially begun.

Have you seen this typical scenario, that we are about to dramatize for you, in your institution?


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The Effect of the Authority’s Increasingly Negative Reactions to Youth’s Inner Anger Experience Is to Drive It Deeper and

Makes it More Inaccessible and Increases Pressure to Explode

Interrogation breeds

defensive resentfulness.


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The staff’s reaction is to get suspicious and frustrated and begin to make accusations.

The youth gets more angry and resentful and rational thinking gets cloudy.


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The staff becomes convinced of guilt and gets furious at the youth’s obstinate behavior and begins

to blame.

The youth’s rational thinking stopped and now he is not hearing or seeing what the staff is communicating. He is simply becoming enraged and feeling combative.


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Now the staff is enraged and begins administering punishment,

feeling the more harsh he is, the less likely the youth will be to behave that way in

the future.

Boom

!The youth either explodes into violence or inhibits and plans for future malicious revenge.


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Now, Let Us Take A Look At The Alternative

In the slide presentations and discussions that follow, we shall explore more in-depth with you the program called “STARS AND STRIPES”

We want to share with you what many feel is a fabulous new approach or model

We want you to know that any jurisdiction could easily implement this model

And, we want you to know the many benefits that your jurisdiction too, could derive from a program like:

“STARS AND STRIPES”


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STARS AND STRIPES PROVIDES A NATURAL AND MODERATELY STRUCTURED HOST

ENVIRONMENT WITH THE FOLLOWING MAIN FEATURES:

1. POSITIVE ATMOSPHERE IN A COMMUNITY THAT IS TOTALLY INTEGRATED IN “STARS AND STRIPES”

2. POSITIVE AVENUES FOR LEARNING AND ACHIEVEMENT

3. GUIDANCE FROM AND BONDING WITH STAFF THROUGH STAFF SUPPORT TEAMS

4. RESIDENT DORM GOVERNMENT FOR SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH PEERS AND STAFF AND DEVELOPING PROJECTS TOGETHER

5. POSITIVE COACHING FROM BOTH STAFF AND HIGHER RANKED PEERS

6. VISIBLE RECOGNITION FOR ACHIEVEMENTS AND RANK

7. GRADUATED REWARDS AND PRIVILEGES


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Foremost Is the Provision of Support Teams That Act as

Parent Surrogates

Support Teams Provide the Youth with:1. Support2. Nurturance3. Guidance

1.Focuses on Assisting Him in Learning How to Use Good Judgment on His Own


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Stars and Stripes Support Teams

Alright! This is Johnny’s plan. We support you Johnny. Now, come back after you’ve

tried it and let’s all see how it worked.

“STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER”


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Children and teens running wild in a neighborhood and growing up un-socialized can be socialized and assisted to develop with more age appropriate maturity with civilized character and values.

This is made possible by providing positive, formal roles through which teens can be gradually, progressively, and normally socialized, as occurs in any healthy, nurturing family.

Caught,adjudicated,

sent to institution.

Running Wild In Running Wild In The NeighborhoodThe NeighborhoodRunning Wild In Running Wild In The NeighborhoodThe Neighborhood

Becomes a Mature *Star*

Enters theSTARS

AND STRIPESProgram


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Understanding Social Cannibalism of the Early Teen Years and the Life Cycle of Aggression and Picking on People

5.

Causes of Social Cannibalism

2.1. 4.3.

7.

6.

7. Teen becomes a parent and repeats physical punishment, abuse, picking on, suppressing hostile come backs, and attacking behavior that is different.

Development of SocialCannibalism Over Time1. Parent abusively punishes or picks on child for behavior that deviates from family cultural norms.2. Child turns and picks on smaller child3. Child picks on child who is different4. Becomes Teen and picks on younger child

5. As Teen, he picks on similar other teens for minor differences and vulnerabilities.

6. As teen he turns on age cohorts who are different.

Insecurity escalates upon entering the new phase of adolescent freedom of mobility and choices. Insecurity is transformed into paranoid suspicion, angry resentment, and invidious comparisons. Teens cluster in small groups of high similarity and pick on outsiders and each other.Being away from parental protection there comes a fear of older, upper classmen, and strangers. Fear, when cornered, turns into explosive rage. Frightened, vulnerable kids in a group are transformed into mob aggression.Parental physical punishment and abuse, feeling picked on at home, and forced suppression of hostility all result in displacement of anger and resentment onto peers who are different or perceived as engaging in put downs or invidious comparisons.Teen desires to make someone else ‘who is not a threat’ suffer the same way the Teen had to suffer. This is the Initiation Turnabout Syndrome.In this way, the child models the parents’ abusive and punitive attacks. This parental model becomes incorporated and remains dormant, but then re-surges spontaneously from the unconscious when child has become a parent. When the roles are reversed, and the teen becomes a parent, the teen parents as he was parented.

Cycle of social cannibalism is perpetuated


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Combination Of Running Wild In The Neighborhood And Natural Teen Social Cannibalism

Results In Gathering Into Ruthless Gangs And Committing Insensitive Violent Acts –

BUT WHEN THEY COME TO ‘STARS AND STRIPES’, THEY ENTER STUDENT GOVERNMENT

Arrested and Adjudicated youths come into the institution with the attributes of social alienation, rebellion against authority and social institutions, social cannibalism, a gang mentality, and a repertoire of skills for displacing blame from self onto others.

1. Student government that is run by youths who have attained higher Stripes or Star provides a setting in which these youths can learn a new set of social skills that replace the old ones.

2. They learn civil conduct with each other.3. They learn to identify with the program and institution.4. They learn how to take a problem solving approach, rather than

blame, when problems arise between each other and with staff.5. They learn to use the process of governing to improve their

conditions.6. The un-socialized culture of the neighborhood is replaced with

order, respect, recognition, personal bonding with others who are different, productivity as an individual and as a group, and reward for good behavior and accomplishments.

7. The cycle of social cannibalism is broken and replaced with mutual understanding and mutual support.


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Student Government: Learning Civil Conduct and How to Use the Processes of

Governing to Solve Human Concerns

President

Vice PresidentSecretary


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Criteria For Progression In Ranks Of Stars And Stripes

•Stripe 4. Shows positive leadershipCommunication skillsAccepts success and failure gracefullyAssists in solving conflicts, MediatesEndures unavoidable delays, hardships, setbacksHas completed project benefiting others•Stripe 3. Problem-solves Coaches, encourages, mentors PatienceProblem-solvesShort-term goalsLong-term goals

•Stripe 2. School behavior/gradesSocial skillsPositive group memberNon-agitationControls horseplayBasic self-awareness•Stripe 1. No runaway attempts Does not AWOLControls verbal aggressionControls physical aggressionFollows directions and rules Respect for others ownershipRespect for property


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Beginning with the GREENHORNGreenhorns must achieve the Stripe 1 criteria to receive

Stripe 1Then the residents move through Four Stripes to the Star

GREENHORN

STRIPE 1

STRIPE 2

STRIPE 3

STRIPE 4

STAR


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Stars and Stripes Provides a Progression of Formal, Positive Roles,

within a Total, Positive, Institutional Environment, that Facilitate Maturation and the Development of Character

Pro-social Roles Have a Positive Impact on

the Institution

Institution Improves

Institution Becomes a Positive Host for

SupportingPro-social Roles

Pro-social roles have a more firm and stable place in the institution


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•An Example Of A Pro-social Role:

Mediator


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I’m going to rip your heart out for what you did!

BLIND

RAGE

BLINDRAGE

I hate you!

I’m Stripe 4, I am officially a Mediator. I can help them settle this.Hey, guys, I can see you both are really angry with each other. Let me listen to both sides. Maybe we can find a way to settle this. Would you like for me to try to serve as your Mediator? How about just giving it a try?

Stripe 4s and Stars Are Trained Mediators The Pro-social Role of Mediator

Can Settle Down the Conflicts in the Institution


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By providing a structured environment that creates the community conditions in the

Institution in which:

• Residents are mutually facilitating toward each others’ positive goals and behaviors

• Positive parent surrogates are internalized and inoculate the residents against negative or absent parents at home

• Residents internalize positive attitudes toward school and learning

• And in which new roles, positive attributes of character, and pro-social behaviors are internalized


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The structured host environment of Stars and Stripes constructs settings to elicit pro-social roles. These roles of the program prescribe specific behaviors. Pro-social roles replace negative behaviors and alienation that was learned in their unstructured neighborhood and home environments. As a by- product, these pro-social roles develop self-esteem, emotional security, bonding, identification, a positive view of the world, along with the wide range of positive social skills and positive, personal survival skills.

THE SOCIAL ARTS OF:

Meeting-discussing Problem solving PlanningDecision-making Group goal settingCooperating-coordinatingPerforming WorkEvaluatingMaking promotion decisions for peersMediating NegotiatingGiving and Accepting AwardsPlaying-SportsmanshipCompeting-teamworkGender relationsSocializingParticipating in RecreationSupervising work Counseling-listeningHelping and accepting helpDealing with feelingsExpressing feelingsResolving conflictsDealing with ethnic differencesDealing with individual differencesDealing with different beliefs and valuesTeaching-tutoring Studying and learningSetting one’s long and short term goalsSelf disciplineAcceptance of and adhering to rules

As these qualities are incorporated --

He becomes


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The Juvenile Correctional Institution Has the Obligation to the Community to Return the Youth to their Community As a Pro-social, Responsible Member of the Community

By providing a structured environment that creates the community conditions in which: 1. Residents are mutually facilitating toward each others’ positive goals and behaviors, 2. In which positive parent surrogates are internalized and inoculate the residents against

negative or absent parents at home, 3. In which the residents internalize positive attitudes toward school and learning, 4. And in which new roles, positive attributes of character, and pro-social behaviors are

internalized.

This Internalizing of all of the facets of the New Community prepares the youth to return home with pro-social behaviors and a sense of responsibility toward the community


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The existence of the New Community is a result of this new approach that builds a truly effective structured host environment. This is not the traditional concept of structure where the goal is to tightly keep the youth ‘busy’ every minute. This kind of structure is purposefully constructed to provide recognized pro-social roles, social skills development, bonding and guidance with mature parent surrogate staff, official rewards, and motivating programmed activities.

These are among the many factors of Stars and Stripes that lead to the adoption of role specific behaviors that actually shape and transform the personality and character of the youths. These are the factors that prepare the youth to re-enter the community as a responsible citizen.

Returns To The Community A

Responsible Citizen


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EFFECTS OF “STARS and STRIPES” onthe INSTITUTION’S STAFF

1. Pro-social STUDENT ROLES improve the environment for the staff.2. Staff begin to have a more positive impact on the institution3. Staff are empowered to develop new programs for these motivated

students4. Overall institutional programs and morale improves5. Institution becomes a positive host that promotes the students' self

esteem, emotional security, confidence6. The new institutional culture mimics the greater society values increasing

the probability that the students’ gains will be transferred to the community

7. Higher stripe students begin to espouse societal values to tutor newer students in these values

8. When a student coaches another peer, he is more likely to incorporate what he coaches and this stays with him for the long term

9. The higher stripes and stars act as tutors to beginners10. Being tutored by a peer with higher ranks makes a strong impression on

beginners11. This tutoring process imprints on the minds of the tutors and makes a

lasting impression on them12. Taking with him a new set of values, when the student is released he is

much less likely to recidivate13. This is not warehousing. It is managing structures that create long term,

in-depth changes in residents in a very short time


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When officials and dignitaries come to visit and when their tour is over, they typically comment:

“How fortunate you are that the Judges send only the best behaved youth to the ‘Stars and Stripes’ program”.

The irony is that when we kicked off the “Stars and Stripes” program, Dr. Young said that once it gets rolling, people will want to come see it and when they leave they will be saying,“how nice it is that you only get the best youths sent to your program”.

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