Florida School for Boys

That was one day.

Paul John Knowles was sent away to the infamous Dozier School for Boys.

A 2013 investigation revealed that at least 50 bodies were buried on the grounds of the school.

To date, more than 500 former students have alleged brutal beatings and a culture of abuse.

Florida School for Boys, which is Dozier School for Boys.

I call it Florida School for Boys.

And he stayed in and out of there until he got old enough to go to Rayford, the Florida State Prison.

And nobody followed what happened to him closely during that period.

On more than one occasion, he was sent to the Florida School for Boys.

The name gives nothing away.

It stood at Mariana in the Panhandle, open since 1900.

So I believe it was 2013, and Florida officially closed their last state juvenile prison.

They, again, reform comes out of tragedy, and the Dozier School, people can look it up, they had a tremendous tragedy there.

They found mass graves of juveniles that were being buried behind their facility.

But Florida now outsources all of the juveniles who are not direct filed, which is very few are direct filed, who are being treated in the juvenile system.

Now all you have is a piece of paper telling you he's never coming home.

For more than a century, children were sent to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.

Some had committed serious crimes.

Others were there for skipping school, running away, or simply having nowhere else to go.

And the 31 crosses were just the beginning.

31 white crosses.

This was the final resting place for boys who perished at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida.

The ground sagged and dipped, only mowed on occasion.

A hagwon is, I think, a South Korean phenomenon.

They're these sort of private cram schools for students to take, like, supplementary classes in English and Korean and math to prepare for South Korea's college admissions exam, which are...

They sound totally onerous, and it's become a sort of runaway phenomenon.

Okay, but just have that in mind.

Yes.

The novel is heavily based on the real-world Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida.

I've heard of that place.

It's horrific.