Because institutions represent the most extreme form of unnatural settings, it follows that they should be subject to the most stringent regulatory requirements. Regulations and institutions seem to deserve each other. The closer any setting approximates an institution, the more highly regulated it should be. Regulations foster ritualistic compliance and not fulfillment of their spirit. The more rigid the rules and regulations, the more compliance with them becomes an end in itself.
Paperwork becomes synonymous with programming and looking good replaced doing good.
Regulations place control and power in the hands of regulators, and not people with developmental disabilities and their families. Rules and regulations, whether imposed by federal programs, state agencies, or courts, place regulators and monitors as the guardians and protectors of people with developmental disabilities and their families and, in so doing, deprive them of control over their own lives. Regulations direct attention to concrete and tangible things and trivialize the most important things in life. A final paradox of regulations is that the most important things in life are the most difficult to measure objectively. As a consequence, tangible things, such as the number of square feet per bed, and trivialize the most important aspect of services.