Teacher Blew Whistle on Brutality, Lost Her Job : New York: When she learned that an ‘attitude adjustment’ at troubled teen center meant a beating, she reported the practice and was fired. She is suing for back wages and reinstatement.

Five weeks into her new job, Patricia Hanley witnessed an “attitude adjustment” at Austin MacCormick Center, a youth lockup with a reputation for turning menacing teen-agers into model inmates.

Two boys were adjudged to have misbehaved for questioning a teacher about a spelling, so all 13 students in their unit were detained in a recreation room and pelted with abuse for nearly an hour.

Then two burly guards took the offending pair into a padded chamber called the “timeout room.”

“I heard banging, and the boys came out and their faces were all red and bruised, and that was it, the ‘counseling session’ was over! I walked out of there that night and I don’t think I’ve ever felt as guilty in my whole life.”

Ultimately, Hanley decided she could not live with that guilt; she blew the whistle and spurred an investigation into brutality at the center.

But there was a price to pay: Hanley lost her job as a special education teacher. These days, she gets by on tutoring, mowing lawns and painting houses. She visits a mental health clinic for therapy each week.

All, she says, because she revealed the abuse of children.

“I can’t believe I was as naive as I was. I mean, child abuse is supposed to be a hot issue,” she said. “If it had been a different set of kids, I think it would have been.”

She is suing for back wages and reinstatement under a state whistle-blower law, contending she was retaliated against for simply doing her duty.

The 52-bed center had built up renown for its ability to handle New York’s most violent and maladjusted youths. Hanley had expected a tough-minded but innovative regimen for trying to remold the 13- to 18-year-olds, many of them learning disabled or emotionally disturbed.

It wasn’t like that at all.

“The program was all based on fear. There was no learning,” she said.

“I’m not a Pollyanna. I wouldn’t be a big nurturer with these kids--they’d manipulate you to death. But you can work on self-esteem, have them do something educationally and be proud of it. They’re salvageable people.”

She assumed that the first beating--a few days before Christmas, 1989--was a lapse that her supervisors would surely clamp down on.

But this was nothing new, and they didn’t seem troubled. “You must learn MacCormick’s ways,” a senior counselor told her.

So-called “beat-downs,” she soon discovered, were routinely administered at the hilltop detention center to keep the youngsters in line, even when they had done nothing wrong.

And the threat of retaliation had deterred anyone from complaining--at least not any new staffers who wanted to keep their jobs.

She began cataloguing a litany of beatings by guards, some so severe that the victims needed hospital treatment.

The bylaws of the Division for Youth forbid the hitting of any youngster. An employee who fails to report suspected child abuse can be charged with a Class A misdemeanor and dismissed.

Hanley alerted the state’s Child Abuse Hotline but got nowhere. She was subjected to ridicule, malicious gossip and death threats. Six months later, she was dismissed without a hearing.

“I was probationary, so they thought I would be history. If you don’t want to be fired, you have to look the other way for three years.”

But she persevered. Last summer, propelled by an expose in Syracuse’s Herald-Journal/Herald American, her complaints finally got the attention of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. In January, state investigators confirmed a pattern of physical abuse at MacCormick dating back to at least 1986.

In the meantime, the U.S. Justice Department is investigating beatings and other possible civil rights violations at a Buffalo facility that was shut down in March. And the state Legislature allocated $150,000 for an evaluation of MacCormick and three other top-security youth centers.

This May, Hanley went to Washington to accept a Cavallo Foundation Award for Moral Courage, a $10,000 national prize for whistle-blowers.

“It’s amazing the amount of people who have come out of the woodwork,” the soft-spoken Hanley, 40, said at her rural home outside Ithaca. “It’s something you fall into, not anything you seek. People like us believe in the system, even though right now I think I’m an anarchist.”

MacCormick’s old management is gone, and state regulators have spelled out new practices to help prevent abuses there.

“The bottom line is no one should fear trying to help root out bad employees,” said James Cotter, Division for Youth spokesman. “If they don’t come forward, they’re doing a disservice to young people in our care.”

The agency attempted to settle with Hanley two days before the Syracuse newspaper published its six-month investigation of MacCormick. The offer, however, was later withdrawn.

“All I can get is back salary. No one does this for money,” Hanley said. “I won’t feel free until it’s settled and I can move on with my life. I’m not going to find work around here; I know it.”