“The place was run by these girl gangs that were like crime families. Well organized—‘daddies’ at the top, then ‘housewives,’ ‘cousins,’ ‘uncles,’ and so on. They’d take your money, make you do their chores, beat you up for no reason. They came out at night. There was a lot of abuse—you know, physical stuff, sexual stuff sometimes. The staff knew, but they didn’t care—the girls kept much better order than the staff ever could. I tried to stay out of the way, but they got everyone in the end. They found me hiding one night and attacked me in a bathroom. . . .” She paused.

“Anyway, I found an old book on boxing in the library and a couple of the younger girls knew some karate so we did a makeshift self-defense class. I was determined. Every time they came looking for something from me, I fought back. So I never joined their ‘shadow society,’ as one social worker called it. I got into a lot of fights, spent quite a lot of days and nights in the little punishment room, which was the moniker for solitary confinement. I spent a week there once. What I did was get the girl who was the leader of the group that attacked me in the bathroom off by herself and gave her one hell of a beating.”

Pia worried that she was saying too much, but Rothman simply nodded again when she looked at him.

“I worked really hard at the lessons that were available at Hudson Valley Academy. It was my escape. There were some teachers who cared. I was determined not to end up pregnant on welfare or in jail like most of the girls did when they left. For the most part the staff didn’t care what happened or what anybody did as long as we didn’t actually kill each other. Excuse my English, but it was like a goddamn garbage dump. Leave the trash there till it’s eighteen and had developed a taste for drugs and then release them into the world with no supervision. Good luck.

“The superintendent there, he knew it was the system that created as many problems as it fixed. Papitano was his name. He tried to get better therapists and teachers. He even tried to have the place shut down, but he was threatened so he stopped trying.