MA: Report filed against Judge Rotenberg Center; Electric Shock Therapy Allegedly Violates Geneva Convention

"I prayed to God someone would help these kids..."

Excerpt from The Raw Story:

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0504/rights-group-files-urgent-appeal-alleging-torture-school-disabled/

May 4, 2010

By Diana Sweet

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) has filed a report and urgent appeal with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that the Judge Rotenberg Center for the disabled, located in Massachusetts, violates the UN Convention against Torture.

The rights group submitted their report this week, titled "Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center," after an in-depth investigation revealed use of restraint boards, isolation, food deprivation and electric shocks in efforts to control the behaviors of its disabled and emotionally troubled students.

Findings in the MDRI report include the center's practice of subjecting children to electric shocks on the legs, arms, soles of feet and torso -- in many cases for years -- as well as some for more than a decade. Electronic shocks are administered by remote-controlled packs attached to a child's back called a Graduated Electronic Decelerators (GEI).

The disabilities group notes that stun guns typically deliver three to four milliamps per shock. GEI packs, meanwhile, shock students with 45 milliamps -- more than ten times the amperage of a typical stun gun.

A former employee of the center told an investigator, "When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is 'like a bee sting' and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids."

For the full article, please click the following link: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0504/rights-group-files-urgent-appeal-alleging-torture-school-disabled/

MA: 'School of Shock' Closer to Closing?

— By Jen Phillips | Thu October 8, 2009 10:28 AM PST

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/10/update-school-using-electric-shock

Back in 2007 Mother Jones published an investigation called "School of Shock" into the Judge Rotenberg Center, a special-needs school that uses electric shocks and food deprivation to discipline its autistic and emotionally troubled students. Based in Canton, Massachusetts, the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) has been a blight to concerned citizens and parents for years. Massachusetts state senator Brian Joyce has introduced legislation several times over the years to outlaw using electric shocks on children, but so far none have gone into effect (one passed, but was later dropped). Currently, the senator has three bills in the legislature that would reduce or totally ban the use of electric shocks on students.

While Joyce works on a local level, 29 disability organizations sent a letter to 10 federal agencies calling for national legislation outlawing the use of electric shocks. The organizations want to outlaw "painful and dehumanizing behavioral techniques" which they say "violates all principles of human rights." For the record, not even US prisoners are allowed to be shocked, but a law passed in the mid-1980s said that the JRC could shock children as long as it got special approval by a family court for each student. Reporter Jennifer Gonnerman tried out the JRC's shock therapy, andwrote that though staff claimed it felt like a bee sting, "when I tried the shock, it felt like a horde of wasps attacking me all at once. Two seconds never felt so long."

Since Mother Jones's story was published in September 2007, shocking kids isn't the only thing the JRC has gotten negative attention for. In spring 2008, a staffer was arrested for raping another staff member on campus, and this week the Boston Globe reported that JRC was fined $29,600 for allowing 14 unlicensed clinicians to call themselves "psychologists." Later this month, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Children and Families will hold a hearing to consider Sen. Joyce's bills on electric shock. Until then, as far as the JRC is concerned, maybe no news is good news.