Video: Quest for justice makes grown men cry (White House Boys)

If you've read the stories of abuse regarding the "White House Boys" and the torture they endured while attending the "Florida School for Boys" or as it was later renamed the "Dozier School for Boys," you might have a sense of anger towards the state of Florida for allowing such abuse to continue.

There is only one truth: Either the stories are fictitious, or Florida state-sanctioned abuse, rape, and murder of some of the state's most needy children. While it is true that many children were sentenced to the school after committing extremely violent crimes, it is also true that some of the children were guilty of things such as

Flags represent anomalies in the ground (USF)

truancy, were wards of the state, or needed direction. While many may disagree with the methods used to transform children on the road to becoming hardened criminals, many will readily agree that murder, rape, and physical torture are not effective methods of rehabilitation.

They are also illegal.

The children who endured torment while wards of the Dozier School for Boys, have been treated with disdain by the state of Florida, and until Florida Governor Rick Scott overturned a judge and state committees decision to leave the deaths, graves and truth of what transpired at Dozier alone, there nightmares would have continued indefinitely.

There is simply no way that survivors of this brutality can even begin to heal until the truth is told and justice is served.

What might be most infuriating to me, is that up until August 2013, when Florida Governor Rick Scott approved USF's request to unearth graves on the school site and search for the truth, the "White House Boys" were treated as if their stories were mere allegations, fictitious truths conjured by troubled youth.

I don't know about you, but when I see a group of senior citizens, (some who continued to live a life of hardened crime) break down in tears when speaking about what they endured at Dozier...

Well, I'm convinced.

How could anyone listen to these survivors and not believe them...

Isn't the public aware of how many men simply do not cry? To see a group of men crying...

well, for me, that's all the proof I need.

Now, thankfully, the researchers at USF will uncover real, tangible, scientific proof that will finally give voices to those who were told to "hold the bars, bite the mattress and not move...lest the floggings start over again."

No matter how long Florida covered up the atrocities, there were those who continued to believe you, who never gave up the pursuit of justice...and who a century later, still grieve for the senseless brutality endured by those who were in need of the most help, and suffered greatly.

Can every juvenile offender be rehabilitated, reformed and safely integrated back into society? Of course not; but does that give state officials the right to abuse, rape, and murder child offenders because they are deemed to have the least amount of rights? Absolutely not.

There is no rehabilitation in rape, murder and abuse. The very people who were authorized by the state to be a troubled child's and their family member's "last chance at a decent life" were brutalized, in my opinion; it's a miracle any child who passed through Dozier not only made it out alive, but went on to live a productive life.