Plantation “ethics”

A social worker on N Unit named Sebin at DSH (remember what the acronym stands for — it was originally all about L Unit!) has been going around telling patients not to sign anything attesting to true facts which have been omitted from or altered (to become false) in court reports about patients. One of my own favorite mini-causes, within the larger cause of abolition, has long been this actual perjury, committed habitually and continuously at Elgin Mental Health Center and every other state psychiatric facility in Illinois.

Judges rely on the truth and accuracy of the information that comes to them in court reports. These documents are filed as under oath. Of course, nobody easily believes doctors would lie about the details of their patients’ conditions and progress. What they don’t understand is that perhaps psychiatrists are in a sense not real doctors. And state psychiatrists who coerce people into accepting unwanted “treatment” are worse — they’re plantation overseers or gangsters.

The “facts” in court reports are mostly taken from daily progress notes or other reports (e.g., incident reports, security reports), written by staff who almost never end up under oath in court. I have gone out of my way several times to get low level staff into court under oath, precisely because I can often prove they have made mistakes or lied in the paperwork which is supposed to be exempt from hearsay rules as reliable “medical records”.

What happens is, some evil sleaze ball like Richard Malis-with-malice tells a social worker, “Don’t write so much positive stuff about patient X, because it will make it more difficult for me to get an involuntary medication order!” Or a little Hitler like James Patrick Corcoran tells clinical staff, “Change the court report to say patient Y was verbally aggressive, or you’re going to lose your job!” People know they’re supposed to be truthful, but it’s not hard to push them, little by little, into corruption. When the whole setting is as wrong as psychiatric slavery to begin with, everyone who gets their pay from the master quickly accommodates their “ethics” to the demands of whoever holds a whip just up the bureaucratic ladder.

Sebin’s social worker supervisor on N Unit is an experienced and well-intended staff member named Mario Rabaza. It’s hard for me to imagine that Mario would have been so stupid as to organize what can surely be portrayed later as evidence of a cover-up.

The question that comes to my mind is, who is going around Mario and using Sebin to make patients think they have no recourse and will be in danger of retribution if they tell the truth? Who’s really setting Sebin up to take the fall?