Some very emotion stirring stories and images! There is really nothing more to say.... speechless......

Apparently, there is a video documentary being made. It seems to be a project by someone who is as curious about Pennhurst as many others are.

You can find a review on IMDB (internet movie data base). This project has been calling for previous tennants, staff and others who have experience or know about Pennhurst to come forward for interviews.

It would seem that this film has been in the making for quite a while and I am already eager to see it.

Sit Down AND hold your socks on! I now live 2 1/2 miles from Pennhurst. I did 4 yrs in the USCG, graduated college ( majored in psych) and did some grad school work (psych soc work)!
I also worked at a PA Habilation Center in PITTSBURGH where people were transfered from Polk State School in Franklin, PA. Polk was Pennhursts sister school but in the western part of PA. Polk was a hellhole too. I found the Habilation Center to be a good place for some of those who were there to have a decent chance of reentering society with some confidence and dignity. Some where to mentally incompetent and had no chance at survival in the real world though.
But I digress!
One day as I was working at a job which required dexterity, decision making, forethought and stamina. It was also a stepping stone position which would eventually lead to a position of much skill and all of the above. This job was non related field of my education, I was talking to a co-worker who was doing the exact same job as me. We must have been talking about where we grew up or something related to such.
I was astonished when he told me where he grew up. He said that he was placed into Pennhurst as a child by his parents. I think I said something akin to I couldn't believe it.
Pennhurst and Polk were dumping places for unwanted children. I know that the social infrastructure was lacking or at most infantile during the depression.
I saw people in W. PA who were like him. I couldn't believe that they were also institutionalized. Most did suffer from social depriviation and would have a difficult time making it outside of there but it's terrible they were there at all.
I know for a fact that those in the habilation center were treated well by most, yet I don't know for sure. How could I?
As you all know Pennhurst closed in 1986. Polk closed at about the same time and so did the habilation center but earlier.
Where did all those poor souls go?

Originally posted by Emerald The Paradigm
What do you expect? Certain people with psychotic tendencies get hookups to high positions to torture others.

Who in their right mind decides to work for a prison? A mental asylum? People who stitch up the dead? Soldiers like private contractors? Works for body scanners at airports? Animal Slaughterhouse?

Majority of them all have a "Killing" / "Torturing" / "Pedophile" mentality.

No human in their right mind takes those jobs.

I find your post most offensive.

I work as a Nurse in an Inpatient Healthcare facility in a well known Prison in the UK. I chose to work there. I work for the NHS that provides care for the inmates, both mental health, general health as well as substance misusers.

I do not judge what the inmates have done, but I do care for them.

There are many of these same facilities all over the world that continues to commit crimes against humanity to these poor souls confined to the care of the "state."
This also is nothing new. The tragedy is just how mankind can be so wicked, and always to the weakest.

The clients that were released from Pennhurst were first taken to facilities that were slightly more modernized. The keyword being,"slightly." These clients were then put into group homes in communities. Three or four clients share a home. These homes are staffed by individuals who for the most part love their clients.
This story pulls at my heart strings as well. I once knew a Pennhurst victim who spent nearly his entire life at Pennhurst. The information says no infants were taken into Pennhurts. However records from elderly individuals show, in the early years when the place was new, they did take infants. Infants they named John Jones and Jane Smith were probally taken to this hell,their only crime was being born out of wedlock. However after a lifetime of hell they left the facility greatly injured in ways that can never be understood.
There were two worlds at Pennhurst. The world in which some functioning clients were exposed to normal things and the Pennhurst reserved for those who would never be "normal." The second group lived lives of hell and after release suffered unseen emotional injuries until their death.
Parents were discouraged from seeing their children. Staff told parents seeing their children was harmful to their children and themselves.
When pennhurst closed,Clients were taken from Pennhurst to different facilities for evaluations then were put into group homes where they are respected and loved by staff members who assist them in their homes.