STUDENT: No beatings creates an uncomfortable sense of total freedom. GUIDE: Freedom and spaciousness, that’s what’s there. It’s also a loss of identity because identity is maintained through this insanity we’re describing. That’s what keeps me at the center of the universe. That’s what keeps the whole thing going.

All over the world terrorist regimes use isolation to break people’s spirit. This weapon of psychological terrorism is daily deployed in our nation against teenage boys. In isolation they lose the sense of their value and worth. No wonder then that when they reenter a community, they bring with them killing rage as their primary defense.

They yearn for the “security” of the prison. Life on the outside is alien and frightening for them: it doesn’t run to the same routine or the same guidelines; it’s not what they know and they don’t feel equipped to handle it.