Formation Center Survivor Testimony

They don't take you in handcuffs. That's the first thing people get wrong when they imagine it. There are no handcuffs, no uniforms, no armed escorts. The bus is a regular city bus with tinted windows and the seats are clean. Cleaner than a regular bus. There are maybe twenty of us on the bus and nobody is crying. Nobody is screaming. We are all very quiet and very still and I remember thinking – and I am ashamed of this – I remember thinking that the quiet meant we all understood this was for the best.

The woman next to me was knitting. She was knitting on a bus to a formation center and I thought: she's not afraid. She knows something I don't know. She knows this is going to be okay. I took comfort from her knitting. I took comfort from a woman knitting on a bus to a place I did not want to go. That is the kind of thing they understand about people. That we look sideways for permission to be calm.

[pause – witness adjusts position, drinks water]

The bus had locks. I noticed them when I sat down. Small magnetic locks on the windows. I noticed them and I did not think about them because the woman next to me was knitting and the seats were clean and the air conditioning was on and it was August and the bus was cool and I was grateful for the air conditioning. I was grateful. That is the word I keep coming back to. Grateful. They had not done anything yet and I was already grateful.

The processing hall is beautiful. That's the second thing. You expect concrete and fluorescent lights and it's not that. It's wood floors. Warm lighting. There are plants – real plants, not plastic. There's a fountain. A small stone fountain with water running over it and the sound of water fills the room and I remember thinking: this is a place that cares about sound. This is a place that thought about what it would feel like to walk into it and they put a fountain there so the first thing you hear is water.

A woman greeted us. She wore a blue dress. Not a uniform – a dress. A blue dress with a small pin on the collar, the Bureau's pin, the dove-and-circle. She smiled at each of us individually as we came in. She said our names. She had our names on a tablet and she looked at the tablet and then she looked at us and she said our names like she was glad to see us. "Diane. Welcome, Diane. We've been expecting you."

I felt seen. I am writing this and I can feel how stupid it sounds and I am writing it anyway because it is true. I felt seen. A woman in a blue dress said my name and I felt seen and I wanted to cry because it had been so long since anyone had said my name like they were glad to say it.

She gave me formation garments. Soft cotton. Gray. Not prison gray – dove gray. That's what she called it. "Here are your dove grays, Diane." Like the color had a name that meant peace. I put them on in a changing room that had a mirror and a hook for my clothes and a small shelf for my things and I looked at myself in the mirror and I looked – calm. I looked calm in dove gray cotton and I thought: maybe this is what I need. Maybe I need to be somewhere that makes me look calm.

The biometric chair is in a room by itself. The room is small and warm and smells like lavender. The chair is leather and it reclines and when you sit in it, it adjusts to your body – the way a good office chair adjusts, except more. It adjusts to the curve of your spine, the angle of your neck, the position of your arms. It fits you perfectly. It is the most comfortable chair I have ever sat in.

The technician was a man. Young. Maybe thirty. He had kind eyes. He put sensors on my wrists and my temples and my chest and he explained each one as he attached it. "This one measures your heart rate. This one measures your skin response. This one is just for temperature – we want to make sure you're comfortable." He was gentle. His hands were steady. He asked if I was warm enough. He asked if the chair was comfortable. He asked if I wanted water.

Then the questions started. They came on a screen in front of me. Simple questions at first. "What is your name." "What year were you born." "Do you feel safe right now." I answered out loud and the chair measured my voice and my heart and my skin and the screen showed a small green bar that meant: truthful. A green bar every time I answered. The green bar felt good. I am not proud of this. The green bar felt good because it meant I was doing it right.

The questions got harder. "When did you last feel at peace." "Describe a moment when you felt closest to your community." "Have you ever doubted the Bureau's commitment to your wellbeing." The green bar kept appearing. Even on the hard questions. Even when I wasn't sure if I was telling the truth. The green bar appeared and I felt relief and the relief made me want to answer more questions and the questions made me want the green bar and I was inside something – a loop – and I did not see the loop because the loop was comfortable and the chair was comfortable and the room smelled like lavender.

[long pause – witness's breathing changes]

I was in that chair for four hours. I know because the technician told me afterward. Four hours felt like forty minutes. When I stood up I was unsteady and he steadied me and he said, "You did really well, Diane. Your scores are good." And I smiled. I smiled because a young man with kind eyes told me I did well and I wanted to do well and I had done well and I was proud.

I was proud of being measured.

The reconciliation room is where they show you what you've agreed to.

Not in those words. They don't say "here is what you've agreed to." They say: "Diane, we're going to review your formation plan together. This is the part where you and I talk about what the next few months will look like, and how we can best support you." The pastoral evaluator – her name was Sr. Anne, I think, or Sr. Ann, something soft – she sat across from me at a table, not a desk, a table, a round wooden table, and she had a printed document with my name on it and she walked me through it page by page.

My formation plan was thirty-two pages. She walked me through all thirty-two pages. It took two hours. She was patient. She answered every question I asked. She never rushed me. She never looked at a clock.

I signed the plan. I signed every page. Initials at the bottom of each page and a full signature on the last page. I signed it because I understood it and I agreed with it and the agreement felt like relief because the plan said I would be here for approximately ninety days and during those ninety days I would attend pastoral sessions and group gatherings and devotional practice and at the end of ninety days I would be released and my tier would be adjusted and I could go home.

Ninety days. Go home. Those words. I signed because of those words.

I did not read page twenty-seven closely enough. Page twenty-seven described the conditions under which the formation period could be extended. I initialed page twenty-seven. I signed that I had read and understood page twenty-seven. Page twenty-seven said the formation period concludes when the citizen achieves alignment, not when a calendar date arrives. Page twenty-seven said there is no maximum number of extensions. I initialed that. I initialed "there is no maximum number of extensions" and I did not stop and think about what that meant because I was tired and the evaluator was patient and the table was wood and the room was quiet and the word "home" was on the last page.

I was in formation for seven months. Not ninety days. Seven months. Because my biometric scores improved slowly and my weekly alignment scores stayed at three and four and the evaluator said I needed more time and I agreed because the agreement was voluntary and the voluntariness was documented and I signed every extension form and every extension form said "the citizen consents" and I did consent because the alternative was more time in a place where the only way out was to agree that you belonged there.