During the 13 years I was a social worker for three New York State's juvenile prisons, then called "Training Schools," and later called "Residential Treatment Centers," and now referred to as "Detention Centers", I documented thousands of pages of day-to-day records of abuse. I started at the now defunct Hudson School for Girls in July, 1965, then at the now-defunct Wynantskill Center for Girls, and last, at the Brookwood Center for Boys in Claverack, New York, now transformed into the largest maximum security center for boys who are considered the most dangerous teens in the state.
All three of these intended-treatment centers were inept at best, but mostly neglectful and corrupt, and did much more harm than good. Even today, these juvenile "prisons" as I call them, are closed off to the public, hiding their extreme failures to help the youngsters they are so highly-paid to rehabilitate, and hiding serious abuses that would appall and infuriate most decent citizens, particularly the parents and families of these teenage victims of New York's failed juvenile justice system.
Here is a report from my first day back at the Hudson School for Girls shortly after the state closed the Wynantskill School for Girls after the abuse and neglect was uncovered, with help from me and one other staff member.
I had begun my social work career at the Hudson School in 1965, transferred to the Wynantskill School in 1968 after learning that the Hudson School had deteriorated so badly it was close to experiencing a riot. Unfortunately, I learned too late that the Wynantskill School was also in shambles and even closer to a riot, which occurred a few days after I got there. After three years at Wynantskill, I returned to the Hudson School with grave misgivings, but no choice in the matter, unless I left the state system, which I had no intention of doing.
On August 12, 1971, shortly after my return to Hudson School, I recorded this report:
(Note: Only first names and last names initials are used to protect confidentiality of the residents) Names of the staffers are the full names, and in Caps.)
* * * * * *
Thursday, August 12, 1971
I attended a group meeting in Cottage # 1 today at `12:30. I had asked GEORGE DOLECAL the cottage supervisor ( who maintained he had a degree in psychology, which was never proven) if I could observe his cottage meeting, to fulfill my commitment to observe one meeting before Friday, Aug. 13. GEORGE was amenable.
MRS. MARY HERRING, the Cottage #1 housemother attended, and another staff, a white woman wearing glasses, stayed until 2:00P.M. I didn't catch her name.
Two girls I knew from Wynantskill (they had been transferred after the closing) were part of the group. Evelyn G. And Arnita N., both from Mary Kozoriz's Cottage 6 at Wynantskill. There were seven other girls€”Gladys, Debbie, Terry, Carmen, Debbie N., JoAnn and Linda, none of whom I had ever seen before.
JoAnn and Terry were angry when they came in. Terry held her stomach and said she didn't feel well. JoAnn sat with eyes closed, and for most of the meeting, appeared to be trying to sleep, eyes closed tightly, a jacket serving as a blanket, and in a sleeping position. She was obviously quite angry and answered only when spoken to, and then in short, angry, clipped relies€“usually heavy with sarcasm.
A Negro girl named Debbie began the meeting. She was in an angry mood, every other word out of her mouth was obscene: fucking, you assholes, shit, fuck, etc. Arnita joined in occasionally. then Evelyn G. At first the subjects were trivial. Debbie complained that girls in the cottage would say to each other, "You're full of bullshit," and such other unfriendly statements, but would not explain why they said it. She brought up that Carmen wasn't functioning properly in the kitchen. Both girls were dressed in cook's uniforms, gold with white headbands. It was brought out that some of the cooks took the largest helping of food for themselves, particularly meat and fruit. The group agreed that one day some girls had meat heaped high on their plates while JoAnn had no meat at all. GEORGE DOLECAL asked JoAnn, who was looking very angry, why she hadn't said anything about it. She snapped without looking at him€“something to the effect that “well, you're hearing about it now. His retort, including the word "fuck" was something like "well, what the fuck good is it now “only made her look angrier and the subject was dropped.
Finally, Debbie and Arnita & Evelyn began to attack Debbie N. For not talking in the meeting. At one point, one of the girls asked her "Where's your mind at?" (To indicate that Debbie seemed disinterested in the meeting.) Debbie's answer was:
"In my head, where did you think it was?"
GEORGE DOLECAL yelled, "Up your ass. Why don't you stand up and then maybe you can think."
Debbie N. gave him a dirty look and turned away.
Evelyn G. Began to attack JoAnn for sleeping and Debbie N. For not talking. GEORGE DOLECAL seemed to become increasingly more annoyed at Debbie N. and at one point he told her if she didn't talk, she was going to bed at seven (7:00) that night. She told him she wasn't talking and she wasn't going to bed at seven either. They argued back and forth briefly.
Finally GEORGE told the group they were a bunch of bastards, referring to the "fucking meeting." Evelyn G. Became very upset at GEORGE DOLECAL, insisting that she was not a bastard. Finally she began crying. GEORGE DOLECAL told her that she shouldn't be mad at him, but at Debbie N. He said he would put the whole fucking bunch to bed at seven if the meeting didn't improve. Evelyn G. renewed her attack on Debbie N., using profanity, demanding that Debbie talk. Debbie refused. GEORGE DOLECAL said that he would drag her ass up the fucking stairs and throw her into bed if she didn't start talking. She still didn't talk. Before that, GEORGE DOLECAL told the group that he felt that Debbie N., JoAnn, and Linda should be transferred out of the cottage because they weren't doing anything in the meetings. The group members discussed their feelings, but there was a lot of tension and no real agreement within the group as to which girls deserved another chance and which should be transferred. Most felt that Linda deserved more of a chance, as she was relatively new, but that the other two needed to be transferred. All three girls, JoAnn, Debbie N. And Linda looked disgusted by the whole conversation and indicated that they didn't particularly care one way or the other.
Finally, the Debbie who was a cook, began sobbing, apparently with frustration and disgust as the whole tone of the meeting. Arnita & Evelyn began crying, too. Debbie (the cook) finally sobbed, "I want to go home to my mother." Later, Arnita said she had a terrible headache. Another girl said she had a headache, too.
MRS. HERRING said nothing throughout the entire meeting except once, when Debbie N. Looked at her and smiled sarcastically, MRS. HERRING then said, "You're stupid."
The other staff member said nothing at all and finally left at 2:00 PM. A few minutes after she left, GEORGE DOLECAL told the group they could sit there all night; he was going to have some coffee. He and MRS. HERRING left the meeting, inviting me to go with them, but I remained with the girls for about ten more minutes. The tension seemed to break a bit after GEORGE DOLECAL and MRS. HERRING left. The girls stopped picking on the scapegoats and two or three laughed.
During the meeting, at the height of their anger toward Debbie N., Debbie the cook had said she wanted to punch Debbie N. In the mouth. She asked GEORGE DOLECAL if she could do it. He said she could do whatever she wanted, but he didn't think it would solve anything. Later, Evelyn asked the same kind of question and his answer was generally the same, except to add that she would have to face the consequences.
Before George Dolecal left the meeting, girls were called JoAnn "The Sleeping Beauty," and Debbie N. "Queen Shit."
I thanked the girls for allowing me to observe and told them I hoped they could be more helpful to each other. They were very polite and friendly to me.
After I left, GEORGE DOLECAL returned to the meeting, but it broke up a few minutes later. There appeared to be a lot of tension and unrest in the cottage.
GEORGE JENSEN ( my then - supervisor) attended my community meeting in Cottage C. He entered as girls were saying that he had confused them by his remarks and that they preferred the way I operated the meeting. I asked the girls to tell GEORGE, which they did, and he explained to them his intended purpose€“getting them to look at their reactions & responses. Meeting proceeded fairly well. Girls talked about Elizabeth S. and it appeared to help her handle angry feelings a little better. She was able to verbalize her tendency to displace anger (in this case toward Debbie C) onto others.
_____________________________________________________________________
Note: George Dolecal continued to harass the girls and later became assistant superintendent at the Hudson School. The place deteriorated rapidly during the next three years; there were hundreds of runways and serious incidents, including a serious riot. Eventually my testimony before the Senate Select Crime Committee on February 13, 1975, led to the closing of the Hudson School. A few months later, in January, 1976, I transferred to the Brookwood School for Boys. A few months after that, George Dolecal was transferred to Brookwood also. His behavior there was completely opposite of his corrupt behavior at Hudson School. He was clearly frightened of the boys, stayed out of their way, and just hung around the secretaries, and often left the building to visit a friend. After a couple of years, he was promoted to superintendent of a Division for Youth camp; eventually, five or six female staff members at the camp sued George Dolecal for sexual molestation and harassment. I believe he was finally fired. The defendants won their case against him; it costs New York State taxpayers over $100,000 to settle the lawsuit against George Dolecal.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Cop Killer and Thrill Killer
Ralph "Bucky" Phillips and Willie James Bosket, Jr.
This is the true story of how I became the advocate for the two most dangerous killers in recent New York State History. Years before these two now-convicted murderers ever entered my life, I was a small town country girl, daughter of a farmer, and for four years a junior high school English teacher in a rural central school district near my home in Upstate New York.
At the age of 32, after deciding that a teaching career was not my life's ambition, hoping instead to become a journalist or fiction writer...which never happened...I took a job as a counselor with convicted delinquents locked up in New York State- run treatment centers...or, more accurately...junior prisons. As part of the job contract, New York State paid my tuition and all expenses to a graduate school of social work, and upon completing the two years masters degree, I was obligated to work in the juvenile prisons for at least two more years. Eventually, I worked with these kids for 13 years.
My last three years with the state New York State Division for Youth took place at the Brookwood Center for Boys, a maximum security facility for some of the state's most incorrigible and even dangerous kids, many from the crime-ridden streets of Harlem, Buffalo, Albany and Rochester. In the mix were other "bad" kids from very rural areas in upstate and the western counties of the state. Many of the "rural" kids were auto thieves or burglars.. The city kids, in contrast, were far more assaultive and difficult to deal with.
On September 24, 1976, shortly after Brookwood became one of the state's maximum security boys' center, a 14 year old from a small town called Stockton near Jamestown, was transferred to Brookwood under my direct supervision; his names was Ralph James Phillips.
Six months later, on February 18, 1977, another 14 year old boy from Harlem was transferred to Brookwood in a unit (called a wing) across from the unit I supervised; his name was Willie James Bosket, Jr.
For eleven months after the arrival of Ralph Phillips, and six months after Willie Bosket arrived, both were released on parole to their homes. End of the story? Actually, it was just the beginning.
Except for their delinquent histories and their birth year 1962,, Bosket and Phillips were direct opposites in many ways. Bosket was a city kid from Harlem, Phillips a country boy who was practically raised in the woods. Bosket was black, Phillips a white kid who was half Seneca Indian, although at Brookwood, he was classified as white, his Indian blood not particularly apparent in his appearance, nor did he ever mention it.
Willie Bosket was the most aggressive, disobedient kid in Brookwood at the time. Ralph Phillips was probably the most obedient, the least aggressive, the easiest to work with. Quiet, polite and somewhat shy, Ralph never caused any problems except one: he repeatedly absconded from Brookwood, usually with other passive white kids like himself, each time after they were beaten by the assaultive black kids. Each time they ran away, they stole cars. Ralph often got as far as Buffalo, once to an Indian reservation.
Willie never ran away from Brookwood. He was "top-dog" so to speak, calling all the shots, intimidating all his peers and most of the staffers. He had a long, terrifying history of violent behavior from the age of ten, assaulting secretaries, teachers, even psychiatrists.
By the time he was placed at Brookwood, he had already worn out his welcome at three other detention facilities, two of them state-run, one a private voluntary agency. At the age of ten he had even stolen a state van and driven it back to Harlem. His "reign of terror" at Brookwood was much to his liking. He never even attempted to run away. He was having too much fun, doing as he pleased, threatening kids and staffers, and rarely being punished.
Ralph was punished harshly each time he was captured after absconding. Usually the punishment was room or wing confinement and loss of privileges for weeks at a time, sometimes as long as a month. Willie rarely lost his privileges for longer than a day or two, even after beating up kids, destroying state property, and threatening to kill people.
Willie was released in six months. Ralph had to spend eleven months at Brookwood before he was sent home. Both of them were back in trouble within months of their release. In March, 1978, Willie was arrested for shooting three men, killing two of them, "just for the fun of it." He soon made headlines and was sentenced to the max at the time, five years, first in a juvenile prison, Goshen, and then to the state prisons after he turned 16 in December, 1978. After serving the five years, Willie went home to Harlem, and soon was re-arrested for a crime of menacing. Eventually, he committed more crimes in state prison, and in April, 1988, after stabbing a prison guard, nearly killing the man, he was sentenced to life without parole.
Ralph was arrested several times and eventually served three separate sentences in state prisons for non-violent crimes, mostly theft, burglary, and larceny. He never committed any violent crimes against people...until he was 44 years old, and then he escaped from a minimum security prison just four days before he was to be released
stole cars and then gunned down three state troopers, killing one of them.
Both Willie and Ralph are now spending the rest of their lives in New York State Prisons, both in maximum security Special Housing Units, monitored day and night, with hardly any privileges. Both live what I consider death-in-life scenarios. Neither one has any hope or chance of ever being free.. Both expect to die in state prison.
I have hundreds of letters from Willie James Bosket, Jr. and dozens of letters from Ralph "Bucky" Phillips. I was Willie Bosket's advocate and close friend for 15 years after he killed the two men in the Harlem subways.
I am currently the advocate for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, who has been corresponding with me ever since he surrendered to the Pennsylvania state police eight days after shooting the two state troopers, killing one of them.
Their stories, and my connection to them describes the failed New York State juvenile justice system as well as the waste of two young lives. Presently, I'm too close to these tragedies to write about them. I keep all their letters. Both Ralph and Willie are brilliant young men; both write beautifully; both have unusually charismatic, appealing personalities; both of them have stunned their families and their friends by the violent, tragic crimes they committed, destroying the lives of their victims, their own families, and most of all, their own wasted lives.
The tragedy goes on. The endings are inevitable; the endings will be sad. These stories suggest that there is justice, but for those of us who are close to the victims, the criminals, or their families, there are no victories.
This is the true story of how I became the advocate for the two most dangerous killers in recent New York State History. Years before these two now-convicted murderers ever entered my life, I was a small town country girl, daughter of a farmer, and for four years a junior high school English teacher in a rural central school district near my home in Upstate New York.
At the age of 32, after deciding that a teaching career was not my life's ambition, hoping instead to become a journalist or fiction writer...which never happened...I took a job as a counselor with convicted delinquents locked up in New York State- run treatment centers...or, more accurately...junior prisons. As part of the job contract, New York State paid my tuition and all expenses to a graduate school of social work, and upon completing the two years masters degree, I was obligated to work in the juvenile prisons for at least two more years. Eventually, I worked with these kids for 13 years.
My last three years with the state New York State Division for Youth took place at the Brookwood Center for Boys, a maximum security facility for some of the state's most incorrigible and even dangerous kids, many from the crime-ridden streets of Harlem, Buffalo, Albany and Rochester. In the mix were other "bad" kids from very rural areas in upstate and the western counties of the state. Many of the "rural" kids were auto thieves or burglars.. The city kids, in contrast, were far more assaultive and difficult to deal with.
On September 24, 1976, shortly after Brookwood became one of the state's maximum security boys' center, a 14 year old from a small town called Stockton near Jamestown, was transferred to Brookwood under my direct supervision; his names was Ralph James Phillips.
Six months later, on February 18, 1977, another 14 year old boy from Harlem was transferred to Brookwood in a unit (called a wing) across from the unit I supervised; his name was Willie James Bosket, Jr.
For eleven months after the arrival of Ralph Phillips, and six months after Willie Bosket arrived, both were released on parole to their homes. End of the story? Actually, it was just the beginning.
Except for their delinquent histories and their birth year 1962,, Bosket and Phillips were direct opposites in many ways. Bosket was a city kid from Harlem, Phillips a country boy who was practically raised in the woods. Bosket was black, Phillips a white kid who was half Seneca Indian, although at Brookwood, he was classified as white, his Indian blood not particularly apparent in his appearance, nor did he ever mention it.
Willie Bosket was the most aggressive, disobedient kid in Brookwood at the time. Ralph Phillips was probably the most obedient, the least aggressive, the easiest to work with. Quiet, polite and somewhat shy, Ralph never caused any problems except one: he repeatedly absconded from Brookwood, usually with other passive white kids like himself, each time after they were beaten by the assaultive black kids. Each time they ran away, they stole cars. Ralph often got as far as Buffalo, once to an Indian reservation.
Willie never ran away from Brookwood. He was "top-dog" so to speak, calling all the shots, intimidating all his peers and most of the staffers. He had a long, terrifying history of violent behavior from the age of ten, assaulting secretaries, teachers, even psychiatrists.
By the time he was placed at Brookwood, he had already worn out his welcome at three other detention facilities, two of them state-run, one a private voluntary agency. At the age of ten he had even stolen a state van and driven it back to Harlem. His "reign of terror" at Brookwood was much to his liking. He never even attempted to run away. He was having too much fun, doing as he pleased, threatening kids and staffers, and rarely being punished.
Ralph was punished harshly each time he was captured after absconding. Usually the punishment was room or wing confinement and loss of privileges for weeks at a time, sometimes as long as a month. Willie rarely lost his privileges for longer than a day or two, even after beating up kids, destroying state property, and threatening to kill people.
Willie was released in six months. Ralph had to spend eleven months at Brookwood before he was sent home. Both of them were back in trouble within months of their release. In March, 1978, Willie was arrested for shooting three men, killing two of them, "just for the fun of it." He soon made headlines and was sentenced to the max at the time, five years, first in a juvenile prison, Goshen, and then to the state prisons after he turned 16 in December, 1978. After serving the five years, Willie went home to Harlem, and soon was re-arrested for a crime of menacing. Eventually, he committed more crimes in state prison, and in April, 1988, after stabbing a prison guard, nearly killing the man, he was sentenced to life without parole.
Ralph was arrested several times and eventually served three separate sentences in state prisons for non-violent crimes, mostly theft, burglary, and larceny. He never committed any violent crimes against people...until he was 44 years old, and then he escaped from a minimum security prison just four days before he was to be released
stole cars and then gunned down three state troopers, killing one of them.
Both Willie and Ralph are now spending the rest of their lives in New York State Prisons, both in maximum security Special Housing Units, monitored day and night, with hardly any privileges. Both live what I consider death-in-life scenarios. Neither one has any hope or chance of ever being free.. Both expect to die in state prison.
I have hundreds of letters from Willie James Bosket, Jr. and dozens of letters from Ralph "Bucky" Phillips. I was Willie Bosket's advocate and close friend for 15 years after he killed the two men in the Harlem subways.
I am currently the advocate for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, who has been corresponding with me ever since he surrendered to the Pennsylvania state police eight days after shooting the two state troopers, killing one of them.
Their stories, and my connection to them describes the failed New York State juvenile justice system as well as the waste of two young lives. Presently, I'm too close to these tragedies to write about them. I keep all their letters. Both Ralph and Willie are brilliant young men; both write beautifully; both have unusually charismatic, appealing personalities; both of them have stunned their families and their friends by the violent, tragic crimes they committed, destroying the lives of their victims, their own families, and most of all, their own wasted lives.
The tragedy goes on. The endings are inevitable; the endings will be sad. These stories suggest that there is justice, but for those of us who are close to the victims, the criminals, or their families, there are no victories.
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