Hard Candy: Nobody Ever Flies Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Charles A. Carroll
Champion Press, Ltd. (2005)
ISBN 1932783342
Reviewed by Joanne Benham for Reader Views (8/06)

Charles Carroll and his older brother Robert were two young, intelligent boys when they were orphaned in the 1940s.  Unable to find a foster home willing to keep them, the state of New Jersey changed their classification from ‘orphan’ to ‘retarded’ and placed them in The New Jersey State Colony for Boys, a mental institution meant for non-criminally insane and mentally retarded boys that, at the time, was housing 900 inmates, men and boys, in a facility meant for far fewer inhabitants. 

The home was lovely in the areas open to public view, but behind the walls, out of the public eye, was a festering cesspit of pain, filth, degradation and mental and sexual abuse.  The staff included psychopaths, sexual predators, sadists and pedophiles.  The children of some homes were put into the care of monitors, who were inmates themselves, and took great pleasure in maiming and molesting the children under their care.  One particularly brutal monitor deliberately broke a young retarded boy’s arm three different times, telling the indifferent house parent that the child was clumsy and fell.

This atmosphere was hard enough for the children who didn’t understand what was going on around them and to them.  For an intelligent child like Charles, it was a two-fold nightmare.  Not only did he suffer his own share of abuse and torture, he was fully cognizant of the pain and torture being inflicted on the other children and helpless to stop it.

While reading this book was horrific, the knowledge that this sort of abuse is still going on is shocking.  At the end of the book, Charles has a 71-page appendix of highlights from documented government investigations into mental health institutions and juvenile facilities involving murder, wrongful death, abuse and too many other crimes to mention.  And note that these 71 pages are only a partial listing. 

This is a true horror story.  Anything Hollywood ever made pales in comparison.  Every adult in the United States, actually every adult in the world, should read this book and then ask how they can help.  Start by writing to your elected officials, especially the ones in the states with the most egregious records.  I’ve already written to my senator and congressman asking what the government in Missouri is doing to stop this behavior.

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