AMA Question: What red flags, as someone who was on the inside, would you recommend that outsiders be on the lookout for to avoid programs like this?
Added 2019-03-09 23:41:38 +0000 UTCI think it all has to be about communication. If a program wants to put restraints on any form of communication: letters, phone calls, visits, etc... then it is probably a bad place.
Parents should be able to visit their children any time they want. People should be able to make phone calls without going through a switch-board or having another person listening. The US mail is supposed to be a right for every citizen, not something that a person can "earn" or have taken away from them.
I know that if my parents had ever discussed a "danger-word" with me as a child, something like "If you are ever in trouble, use the word "apple pie" a lot in the conversation, then I probably would have been able to beat the Elan system. They had people literally hovering over us while we made calls.
Even when my parents were finally allowed to visit, they had a high-Strength posing as my "friend" who was trained to monitor everything I said and call Elan at any moment that I might try to say the wrong thing.
So again, if I had been able to communicate somehow with my parents, in some secret way, or with freedom, then I would have immediately been able to alert them that I was in danger and that things were absolutely not right.
