8 ms·

A drug rehab program has sent patients to work without pay

85 points by smacktoward 8y ago

kazinator 8y ago
Hey, "arbeit macht frei" of your habit, bro!
- berbec 8y ago
  A quick duckduckgo for those unaware: "Arbeit macht frei" is a German phrase meaning "work sets you free". The slogan is known for appearing on the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
  - wizardforhire 8y ago
    Yep and slogan that must be drilled into everyone’s head less we forget the atrocities of the past and are doomed to repeat.
TomMckenny 8y ago
>It’s like the closest thing to slavery It is not just like slavery, it _is_ slavery. The 13th amendment explicitly and intentionally allows slavery as a form of punishment. And at the end of the Civil War, southern states capitalized on this and passed broad laws like the vagrancy act that re-enslaved the recently freed. For example, looking for separated family became criminal vagrancy. The curiously profitable idea that forced labor is somehow morally beneficial to its victim predates the Civil War and unfortunately clearly continues today.
- zdragnar 8y ago
  Rehab- proper rehab with counselling and treatment- is expensive. Offering work to help pay the cost makes it much more accessible, and there is definitely a theraputic effect to be had from manual labor (exercise) and a regular schedule. As long as the people there were (a) there voluntarily, (b) could leave at will, and (c) knew what they were getting into, I dont see anything wrong with it. Of course, if they were not actually getting treatment, or if the work was considered all of the "treatment" they would get, then it's an outright sham and should be sued on malpractice grounds.
  - pstuart 8y ago
    If there was real concern about cost (there isn't), then we would be working to minimize the number of incarcerated.
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    > or if the work was considered all of the "treatment" they would get The article makes it clear that that's the case. > Like many participants, Ethan Ewers was ordered to complete Cenikor by a Texas judge after failing a drug test while on probation. Once he arrived, he said he worked 43 days straight in a sweltering warehouse unloading cargo containers for Walmart. > Multiple former staff members told Reveal that counselors routinely falsified counseling records to make it appear as though patients received more counseling than they did. During busy work seasons, some received no counseling at all.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    America pays more per inmate to get less value in terms of minimizing recidivism and general quality of life in prison than most other western nations... if for profits prison are "for profit" then they're terrible at it. We really need to amend the amendment that allows this sort of BS through - at the very least allowing prisons to harness a nearly free labour force lowers the ability for free labourers to compete with them - it's sort of like predatory pricing but for labour.
- ars 8y ago
  > It is not just like slavery, it _is_ slavery. They have the ability to leave though, slaves don't. So while reprehensible, it's not slavery. Wage theft is probably the best term I know of for this.
  - brewdad 8y ago
    For most, leaving means going to prison.
    - munk-a 8y ago
      Where, actually, they'd probably have a more sane work arrangement, there are actually regulations around the safety of prison labourers... though again they don't get paid because private prisons gotta make sure they get lots of return customers.
  - BonesJustice 8y ago
    Many of the “clients” at these rehab facilities were ordered there by a judge, so while they could technically refuse, the alternative is prison (likely involving more slave labor).
xvector 8y ago
I have the utmost hatred for these organizations. And the people that run them. They need to be fined out of existence. Their executives need to be jailed. I don't think our society will face meaningful change unless there are physical consequences (read: jail) to doing terrible-human-being stuff like this. The executives will just go off with their cushy $20M severance paychecks and exploit some other group of people in a slightly different way.
- titanix2 8y ago
  That’s why I’m very happy with the prosecution of Carlos Ghosn in Japan. Yes, this maybe part of an international power game between the two car vendors executives but if there is charges against him he’s not clean either. In France he would had a fake trial like all influencing people have and be sparred from jail or any real consequences. In Japan he risks jail like everyone regardless of his status.
- munk-a 8y ago
  Just in general America has a severe issue with CYOAism, liability sale, liability insurance and responsibility - we need a serious reform to get rid of excuses be it "just following my boss's orders" to "I was just responding to market pressures - I'm an innocent capitalist fulfilling what the market demands".
  - seem_2211 8y ago
    Agreed. That's one thing I really hate as an excuse. You can't make that excuse and respect yourself.
  - learc83 8y ago
    >I'm an innocent capitalist fulfilling what the market demands I agree. We've been using that excuse for too long. In the 50's William Levitt, the country's largest home builder and the originator of the modern suburb, said exactly that when asked why he built white only communities. "If we sell one house to a Negro family, 90 to 95 percent of our white customers will not buy into the community." "As a Jew, I have no room in my heart for racial prejudice. But the plain fact is that most whites prefer not to live in mixed communities. This attitude may be wrong morally, and someday it may change. I hope it will." In other words: I know it's wrong, but I'm just doing what my customers want.
seem_2211 8y ago
This is criminal. We should have extremely harsh penalties for this sort of nonsense.
- munk-a 8y ago
  So I moved up to Canada a few years back... and was amazed and delighted to see that unpaid internships are just blanket illegal up here. The US has some pretty terrible labour laws.
  - xvector 8y ago
    Unpaid internships are usually illegal in the US too [1, 2]. Exploitative managers ignore this rule and desperate interns don't care after a certain point. [1]: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm [2]: https://www.fastweb.com/career-planning/articles/let-s-get-legal-guidelines-for-paid-or-unpaid-internships https://www.fastweb.com/career-planning/articles/let-s-get-l...
    - munk-a 8y ago
      That clearly states that unpaid internships are legal, it states that un-compensated internships are illegal but you're still free to deduct the value of "experience" from the wages you're paying someone. That's pure BS and - unless the training being received is purely academic in nature - people should get paid. And within this I include assisting a professor with research so they can publish a fancy paper and get lots of clout. If someone is reaping a benefit (i.e. if the activity exists for any reason other than purely to teach you things) then the employee should be paid. If your company brings in students and steps them through problems you've already solved showing the process of identifying and resolving the issue after the fact - that's educational and good on your company for donating your time to help train a new generation - if they are contributing to the solution in any way then they're an employee.
      - xvector 8y ago
        > That clearly states that unpaid internships are legal, Sorry, this is why I said "usually". One of the many circumstances under which internships must be paid is if you provide benefit to the company. Since most internships do this, even unpaid ones, most unpaid internships are illegal (but not all fo them). It's all very vague and I'm sure you could lawyer up and find loopholes should students complain. But I feel like if you're giving unpaid internships in the first place, money for a court case is not on the table.
ummonk 8y ago
Sounds like they’re probably keeping connected with politicians to ensure they can operate with impunity when they should be getting criminally charged.
mirimir 8y ago
If programs like this actually worked, they might be OK. And by "worked", I mean that clients generally graduated with enough experience and references to get well-paying jobs. But it seems that they don't work. And that they're just a bullshit cover for slavery.
- drewmol 8y ago
  While it says only 8% graduate, I'd wager that a majority or large minority of the patients (ugh) who are subject to and participate in this 80-hour-unpaid-work-week-as-a-rehab program are smart, capable and marketable enought to leverage their fully-employed appearance/status to find actual, paid employment long before 18 months. 6300 hours is a lot of free labor to invest for a mid 90's Oldsmobile.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    One hopes. But what's the success rate for internships?
Johnny555 8y ago
Is the program successful at its stated purpose of drug rehabilitation? How does it compare to other treatment programs, in particular the recidivism rate? The article says: Many participants said Cenikor saved their lives and equipped them for success. After 18 months in the program, participants can become eligible to receive wages and graduate with jobs, a car and the tools to build a promising life. But fewer than 8 percent of people who enter Cenikor make it to graduation, according to the program’s own numbers, and therefore never receive a paying job. So "many participants" said the program saved their lives, and while only 8% "graduated" did the program help any of the other 92% of participants with their drug problem? I have a relative with serious drug problems, she's been through numerous drug treatment problems and has "kicked the drug habit for good" too many times to count. Drug rehabilitation is hard. If this program actually worked, I'd be more inclined to overlook the hard work part (but not the dangerous work, but since it's happening at established employers, OSHA should be enforcing safer working conditions)
- blotter_paper 8y ago
  8% is in the ballpark of AA/NA, IIRC (those organizations claim that they've "never"* seen a person following their steps fail to stay clean/sober, but that's just tautological nonsense), and this is about the same as people who attempt rehab by going to church. To be clear about my biases I'm not religious, I'm not categorically opposed to drugs (see username), but I've also seen addiction wreck lives (including those of family members). It's not obvious to me that everyone who gets clean from AA/NA would also get clean from going to church or a work program like the one in TFA, and the same is true of those other routes. I suspect there are overlapping sets of people who would benefit from these different programs -- I don't know that, but it would be surprising if human psychology was so simple that they were all the same set, or that one was a superset of the other two. I've also known people who went to AA/NA briefly, got clean, and went back to relatively minor drug use without engaging in the sort of self-destructive excesses they had in the past. I bet that some of the dropouts still found improvement in their lives. I have mixed feelings about this article, and I'm not trying to defend Cenikor, but I'm also not trying to attack them, just adding some thoughts that might be relevant. *IIRC, "never" has been changed to "rarely" in recent editions of the text, but only in the last decade or so.
mnm1 8y ago
Oh nice. Continuing America's tradition of slavery and forced labor regardless of laws. And of course judges and the government are involved. These people should all be thrown off high platforms or tall trees. Without any harnesses, rope, or protective gear of course.

85 points by smacktoward 8y ago

kazinator 8y ago

Hey, "arbeit macht frei" of your habit, bro!

berbec 8y ago
A quick duckduckgo for those unaware: "Arbeit macht frei" is a German phrase meaning "work sets you free". The slogan is known for appearing on the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
- wizardforhire 8y ago
  Yep and slogan that must be drilled into everyone’s head less we forget the atrocities of the past and are doomed to repeat.

TomMckenny 8y ago

>It’s like the closest thing to slavery It is not just like slavery, it _is_ slavery. The 13th amendment explicitly and intentionally allows slavery as a form of punishment. And at the end of the Civil War, southern states capitalized on this and passed broad laws like the vagrancy act that re-enslaved the recently freed. For example, looking for separated family became criminal vagrancy. The curiously profitable idea that forced labor is somehow morally beneficial to its victim predates the Civil War and unfortunately clearly continues today.

zdragnar 8y ago
Rehab- proper rehab with counselling and treatment- is expensive. Offering work to help pay the cost makes it much more accessible, and there is definitely a theraputic effect to be had from manual labor (exercise) and a regular schedule. As long as the people there were (a) there voluntarily, (b) could leave at will, and (c) knew what they were getting into, I dont see anything wrong with it. Of course, if they were not actually getting treatment, or if the work was considered all of the "treatment" they would get, then it's an outright sham and should be sued on malpractice grounds.
- pstuart 8y ago
  If there was real concern about cost (there isn't), then we would be working to minimize the number of incarcerated.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  > or if the work was considered all of the "treatment" they would get The article makes it clear that that's the case. > Like many participants, Ethan Ewers was ordered to complete Cenikor by a Texas judge after failing a drug test while on probation. Once he arrived, he said he worked 43 days straight in a sweltering warehouse unloading cargo containers for Walmart. > Multiple former staff members told Reveal that counselors routinely falsified counseling records to make it appear as though patients received more counseling than they did. During busy work seasons, some received no counseling at all.
- munk-a 8y ago
  America pays more per inmate to get less value in terms of minimizing recidivism and general quality of life in prison than most other western nations... if for profits prison are "for profit" then they're terrible at it. We really need to amend the amendment that allows this sort of BS through - at the very least allowing prisons to harness a nearly free labour force lowers the ability for free labourers to compete with them - it's sort of like predatory pricing but for labour.
ars 8y ago
> It is not just like slavery, it _is_ slavery. They have the ability to leave though, slaves don't. So while reprehensible, it's not slavery. Wage theft is probably the best term I know of for this.
- brewdad 8y ago
  For most, leaving means going to prison.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    Where, actually, they'd probably have a more sane work arrangement, there are actually regulations around the safety of prison labourers... though again they don't get paid because private prisons gotta make sure they get lots of return customers.
- BonesJustice 8y ago
  Many of the “clients” at these rehab facilities were ordered there by a judge, so while they could technically refuse, the alternative is prison (likely involving more slave labor).

xvector 8y ago

I have the utmost hatred for these organizations. And the people that run them. They need to be fined out of existence. Their executives need to be jailed. I don't think our society will face meaningful change unless there are physical consequences (read: jail) to doing terrible-human-being stuff like this. The executives will just go off with their cushy $20M severance paychecks and exploit some other group of people in a slightly different way.

titanix2 8y ago
That’s why I’m very happy with the prosecution of Carlos Ghosn in Japan. Yes, this maybe part of an international power game between the two car vendors executives but if there is charges against him he’s not clean either. In France he would had a fake trial like all influencing people have and be sparred from jail or any real consequences. In Japan he risks jail like everyone regardless of his status.
munk-a 8y ago
Just in general America has a severe issue with CYOAism, liability sale, liability insurance and responsibility - we need a serious reform to get rid of excuses be it "just following my boss's orders" to "I was just responding to market pressures - I'm an innocent capitalist fulfilling what the market demands".
- seem_2211 8y ago
  Agreed. That's one thing I really hate as an excuse. You can't make that excuse and respect yourself.
- learc83 8y ago
  >I'm an innocent capitalist fulfilling what the market demands I agree. We've been using that excuse for too long. In the 50's William Levitt, the country's largest home builder and the originator of the modern suburb, said exactly that when asked why he built white only communities. "If we sell one house to a Negro family, 90 to 95 percent of our white customers will not buy into the community." "As a Jew, I have no room in my heart for racial prejudice. But the plain fact is that most whites prefer not to live in mixed communities. This attitude may be wrong morally, and someday it may change. I hope it will." In other words: I know it's wrong, but I'm just doing what my customers want.

seem_2211 8y ago

This is criminal. We should have extremely harsh penalties for this sort of nonsense.

munk-a 8y ago
So I moved up to Canada a few years back... and was amazed and delighted to see that unpaid internships are just blanket illegal up here. The US has some pretty terrible labour laws.
- xvector 8y ago
  Unpaid internships are usually illegal in the US too [1, 2]. Exploitative managers ignore this rule and desperate interns don't care after a certain point. [1]: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm [2]: https://www.fastweb.com/career-planning/articles/let-s-get-legal-guidelines-for-paid-or-unpaid-internships https://www.fastweb.com/career-planning/articles/let-s-get-l...
  - munk-a 8y ago
    That clearly states that unpaid internships are legal, it states that un-compensated internships are illegal but you're still free to deduct the value of "experience" from the wages you're paying someone. That's pure BS and - unless the training being received is purely academic in nature - people should get paid. And within this I include assisting a professor with research so they can publish a fancy paper and get lots of clout. If someone is reaping a benefit (i.e. if the activity exists for any reason other than purely to teach you things) then the employee should be paid. If your company brings in students and steps them through problems you've already solved showing the process of identifying and resolving the issue after the fact - that's educational and good on your company for donating your time to help train a new generation - if they are contributing to the solution in any way then they're an employee.
    - xvector 8y ago
      > That clearly states that unpaid internships are legal, Sorry, this is why I said "usually". One of the many circumstances under which internships must be paid is if you provide benefit to the company. Since most internships do this, even unpaid ones, most unpaid internships are illegal (but not all fo them). It's all very vague and I'm sure you could lawyer up and find loopholes should students complain. But I feel like if you're giving unpaid internships in the first place, money for a court case is not on the table.

ummonk 8y ago

Sounds like they’re probably keeping connected with politicians to ensure they can operate with impunity when they should be getting criminally charged.

mirimir 8y ago

If programs like this actually worked, they might be OK. And by "worked", I mean that clients generally graduated with enough experience and references to get well-paying jobs. But it seems that they don't work. And that they're just a bullshit cover for slavery.

drewmol 8y ago
While it says only 8% graduate, I'd wager that a majority or large minority of the patients (ugh) who are subject to and participate in this 80-hour-unpaid-work-week-as-a-rehab program are smart, capable and marketable enought to leverage their fully-employed appearance/status to find actual, paid employment long before 18 months. 6300 hours is a lot of free labor to invest for a mid 90's Oldsmobile.
- mirimir 8y ago
  One hopes. But what's the success rate for internships?

Johnny555 8y ago

Is the program successful at its stated purpose of drug rehabilitation? How does it compare to other treatment programs, in particular the recidivism rate? The article says: Many participants said Cenikor saved their lives and equipped them for success. After 18 months in the program, participants can become eligible to receive wages and graduate with jobs, a car and the tools to build a promising life. But fewer than 8 percent of people who enter Cenikor make it to graduation, according to the program’s own numbers, and therefore never receive a paying job. So "many participants" said the program saved their lives, and while only 8% "graduated" did the program help any of the other 92% of participants with their drug problem? I have a relative with serious drug problems, she's been through numerous drug treatment problems and has "kicked the drug habit for good" too many times to count. Drug rehabilitation is hard. If this program actually worked, I'd be more inclined to overlook the hard work part (but not the dangerous work, but since it's happening at established employers, OSHA should be enforcing safer working conditions)

blotter_paper 8y ago
8% is in the ballpark of AA/NA, IIRC (those organizations claim that they've "never"* seen a person following their steps fail to stay clean/sober, but that's just tautological nonsense), and this is about the same as people who attempt rehab by going to church. To be clear about my biases I'm not religious, I'm not categorically opposed to drugs (see username), but I've also seen addiction wreck lives (including those of family members). It's not obvious to me that everyone who gets clean from AA/NA would also get clean from going to church or a work program like the one in TFA, and the same is true of those other routes. I suspect there are overlapping sets of people who would benefit from these different programs -- I don't know that, but it would be surprising if human psychology was so simple that they were all the same set, or that one was a superset of the other two. I've also known people who went to AA/NA briefly, got clean, and went back to relatively minor drug use without engaging in the sort of self-destructive excesses they had in the past. I bet that some of the dropouts still found improvement in their lives. I have mixed feelings about this article, and I'm not trying to defend Cenikor, but I'm also not trying to attack them, just adding some thoughts that might be relevant. *IIRC, "never" has been changed to "rarely" in recent editions of the text, but only in the last decade or so.

mnm1 8y ago

Oh nice. Continuing America's tradition of slavery and forced labor regardless of laws. And of course judges and the government are involved. These people should all be thrown off high platforms or tall trees. Without any harnesses, rope, or protective gear of course.