MISS. MOVES TO REGULATE WAYWARD CHILDREN HOMES

DAVID SNYDER

The Times-Picayune

The evidence of brutality was numbingly familiar: the buttocks of a 12-year-old boy lacerated black and blue by a limber stick that cut across the flesh at odd angles.

Beaten, he said, for failing to eat all his breakfast, the boy was only the latest of dozens of youths, many of them similarly brutalized, who have fled or been removed from the Rev. Herman Fountain's Bethel Baptist Home the past decade.

What startled Mississippi child welfare workers was not the brutality, but Fountain's timing. The latest evidence of cruel disciplinary practices at Bethel came only a year after 73 children were removed from the home after a judge concluded that at least some of the children were being imprisoned and abused.

In the face of stiff fines, jail sentences and a federal investigation of child labor practices, Fountain last week was adamant that he would continue to run the home his way - beatings, or "licks" as he calls them, included.

"I will continue to operate," he said. "Ain't no doubt. Till my last breath. We'll appeal. We'll appeal all the way up."

But Fountain's brand of hellfire discipline, practiced unchallenged on unidentified children in the secrecy of a closed environment, may be coming to an end in Mississippi.

Unlike Louisiana, where a legislative loophole has allowed unlicensed homes for wayward children to continue unchallenged, Mississippi has moved forcefully to place under state supervision Fountain's 10-year-old home, and a half-dozen other mostly church-run institutions like it.

The string may be running out for Bethel. Within a year:

*Judge Robert Oswald found Fountain in contempt of court June 8, 1988, after he refused to answer questions about the operation of the home and the care of the children. Fountain and two assistants are being fined $1,500 a day until they agree to cooperate. The meter is running and the fine has built to about $450,000 apiece. The reckoning may come this summer.

*More recently, Fountain was found guilty of assaulting a police officer. Fountain scuffled with police in a hallway of the George County Courthouse, where children from his home were interviewed after they were removed June 10, 1988. Fountain was sentenced to five years, a year of it to be served in prison. He is out on bond, appealing the conviction.

The U.S. Labor Department has completed a months-long investigation of Fountain's use of Bethel children on construction jobs. Those familiar with the investigation said the department can show that Fountain used the children without compensating them and that he broke the law by working underage children.

*The Mississippi Legislature passed a law last session requiring the operators of all institutions housing children to supply names and other information about the children, the names and personal backgrounds of staff members and to open the homes to regular inspection. Failure to comply can be cause to remove the children from the home. Fountain said last week that he will not comply. This phase of Fountain's problems will come to a head in October.

Louisiana passed a law aimed at regulating unlicensed youth homes, but crippled it by exempting "care given without charge." Homes that have been in trouble for child abuse in the past have operated as churches. To get around the law, payments by those sending children to the homes are considered "contributions" rather than tuition.

Fountain concedes that he has big financial problems. He will not say how many children are at Bethel, but a state child welfare official puts the number at 10, compared more than 100 when child welfare and law enforcement officers swooped down on the complex last June. Fountain said he has lost support from those who have traditionally provided money for the home's operation.

Thomas Brittain, state welfare department commissioner, said Fountain "will find himself in trouble again" if he does not comply with the new state regulations.

Fountain is not flinching.

"No way," said Fountain of compliance with the new law. "I'll take the same stand I took before, separation of church and state."

Fountain maintains that Bethel is a church, and that the state has no authority to regulate how a church conducts its business.

He said the home is being operated "exactly as it was." That means licks, no contact for new arrivals with the outside world, and the censoring of mail and telephone calls.

Fountain is not apologizing for the treatment of three youths removed from the home in March.

"They got their licks just like anybody else did," he said.

The three are 17, 15 and 12. The oldest ran away from the home and complained that he had been beaten several times. Authorities acted to remove the other two on the basis of the older boy's observations.

Sources said the 15-year-old was punched in the forehead and whipped on several occasions. One of the beatings, at the hands of a staffer, took place after he failed to memorize assigned Bible verses, the older boy said.

The youngest boy was beaten on three occasions, the oldest boy said. He said a staff member ignored the boy's pleas to stop the beating.

Those taken from Bethel last year are making a slow, painful adjustment to the outside world, child welfare workers said.

"It's like they were frozen in time on the date they went in there, educationally and emotionally" said Kim Myers, a social worker.

Whatever problems they had when they arrived are still with them, she said.

A 14-year-old boy sent there as a second-grader came away testing educationally at the second-grade level. A 17-year-old who spent 3 1/2 years in the home came away about that far behind in school.

"If we looked at the girls we got 10 licks, right on the spot," the 14-year old said. "If you ran away you got 15 licks."

He was taken to church by his foster parents, but couldn't stand the experience. The minister reminded him of Fountain.

"I just didn't want the memories coming back," he said.

His foster mother said, "They just didn't pay any attention to him. He was told that he was dumb, stupid, retarded and he still believes it.

"He didn't know the world was round. He didn't know the sun went around the world. What he did at Bethel was try not to be seen. He wants to disappear."

The 17-year-old likened Bethel to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

"In Parchman you had trusties," he said. "I was like a trusty."

But special status didn't stop him from drawing his share of punishment. He came to the home eight days before Christmas. He said Christmas cards and Christmas packages were withheld and that he did pushups and hauled rocks on Christmas.

"I skipped a whole year of school in the seventh grade," he said. "We were working on the boys' dorm. When I first got there (in 1981), the licks were bad."

And the best part of being out?

"The freedom," he said. "Being able to walk out of my own front yard without somebody telling you that you're running away."