A Cult of Abuse and Victimization Part 4 of 4

A Cult of Abuse and Victimization;

            The Dysfunctional Inner Circle of the National Park Service

Part 4 of 4- Isolation and Domination- Inherent Conditions of NPS Employment

The second step for abuse requires the predator to isolate the victim.  The very nature of work in the remote locations of most NPS sites isolates employees from friends, families, and support systems.  Isolation is inherent in the job.  Isolation, in and of its self, is not necessarily abuse.  The totalitarian and authoritarian structure of the NPS, however, creates situation where if managers and supervisors in remote National Park site have the least inclination toward predatory behavior, they can and readily do take advantage of the isolation to victimize their employees.  In his book The Case of the Indian Trader describes the potential risk of this NPS authoritarian structure in the isolation of NPS sites: “the social environment is often rigidly stratified, and the agency is able to exercise a level of control over the resident and even visiting population not seen elsewhere in normal American society.”  This lethal combination isolation and authoritarian power can produce situations where employees may even be isolated from their Constitutional rights by predatory supervisors and managers.  Supporting this idea, Berkowitz offers the following observation from The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) in 2002: “It’s apparent that the NPS needs to be reminded again that its employees are American citizens with First Amendment rights.”

The final step of victimization requires the predator to exercise control and domination over the isolated and defenseless victim.  It would be imprudent to believe that the National Park Service was created to provide opportunities for predatory managers and supervisors to victimize employees.  It would be criminal, however, not to accept that circumstances associated with working for the NPS have created a cult of abuse that quickly overwhelmed all the positive aspirations of the NPS.  The overwhelming evidence from employees and from  internal NPS documentation suggests the latter statement is true.  Despite all the rhetoric and seductive statements of the NPS mission, NPS management has de-evolved into one of the most authoritarian and tyrannical agencies in the US government.  The cult of predation that feeds this system begins in the isolated parks where managers and supervisors have nearly complete control over the lives of their employees.  NPS management has hijacked the rights and avenues for advocacy implicit in the boards, program, and departments outlined above.  The explicit purpose for this coercion of these programs is to strengthen the tyrannical authority and power that NPS management holds over its employees.  Paul Berkowitz, in his book The Case of the Indian Trader, corroborates this observation:

The unspoken social pressures and psychological impacts of this type of environment where employees may literally live next door to or across the street from their own supervisors, produce workers that over time become extremely obedient to and dependent on their employer for virtually every aspect of their lives.  

This sounds exactly like the final requisite stage that Leslie Morgan Steiner describes as being necessary for predation, victimization, and domestic violence-- domination over the victim. 

Again, I’m not suggesting that the NPS has become a haven for domestic violence.  However, abuse is abuse; victimization is victimization.  Rating levels of abuse and victimization and drawing an arbitrary line where one type of abuse is unacceptable (physical abuse) and another type of abuse is tolerated (emotional and psychological abuse) only serves to empower a culture of predation and abuse that judiciously avoids leaving physical bruises. Out of the ground of circumstances required for work in the NPS, the obnoxious weeds of predation, abuse, and victimization have grown and flourished. This is not surprising that all the requisite elements for traditional models of predation and victimization are present in the circumstances of NPS employment.  What is surprising is that so many good people have tolerated and even supported this dysfunctional and predatory behavior within the NPS.  To stand idly by while predatory managers write their own performance standards and work frenetically with other predator managers to create an insulate, abusive culture shrouded in confidentiality and secret records is to deny accountably for your own inaction.  To accept the current double standards for NPS managers’ ethical behavior is to provide tacit approval for these predatory people to act out their personal perversions of justice with impunity.   It is way past time to say “no” to the type emotional and psychological abuse that NPS employees are regularly victimized by.  It is time we recognize that not all injuries bleed and not all scars are visible.  It is time for transparency and accountability in the NPS. 

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA