Crist, others, bear shame for the white house boys

Silence is a terrible thing.
In this case, however, silence speaks volumes about our state’s elected officials, especially Governor Charlie Crist. When most thinking people would expect an official outcry about the inhuman and inhumane conditions at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, all we get from senior elected officials in this state is silence.
The lack of public response by the state’s leadership to media revelations of the horrors at the Dozier School – and the pain and suffering inflicted on boys in its infamous white house – leads one to conclude one of three things about Crist and others in a position to force change, all unflattering: One, they just don’t care; two, they don’t believe the media and eye-witness reports of the shocking conditions at the “school”; or three, the boys are too young to vote and therefore don’t merit attention.
Rather than grabbing self-serving headlines by empanelling a statewide grand jury to investigate official corruption in public office in Florida, Crist should have been at the gates of Dozier demanding the warden’s head and initiating the process to close the place to bring an end once and for all to the concentration-camp-like treatment of the inmates there. (He still would have gotten the positive media attention he so craves).
It has always been said that you can judge the humanity of a society by the way it treats the less fortunate among its citizens, and all Floridians can share some of the shame for the legacy of pain that has been written into the history books by the Dozier School. And yet, our share of the shame is lessened by the reality that we, as individuals, have little real power to change what goes on there. History has shown that governor after governor has neglected to take corrective action to protect the boys sentenced to serve hard time there, a dereliction of duty that appropriately increases their personal measure of the collective shame for allowing those evils to continue.
This is 2009, the facts about Dozier have been well established by the media once again, and it’s time to put in place a plan to gradually reduce the staff and inmate population and close the facility. If Crist and others in positions of leadership in the state aren’t concerned or caring enough to do it – or just lack the chutzpah – then the federal courts should take over and begin the process.
And, if our state’s leadership needs evidence of the evils there from one more eye witness – one more victim of abuse at Dozier – I’ll be glad to share with them my personal experience there as one of the white house boys.
(Bernie DeCastro, an Ocala resident, is an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010.)