Some readers might already be familiar with the ongoing saga of the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts. This is the place where children with serious behavioral problems, autism, and mental disabilities are subjected to painful electric shocks, food deprivation, and other forms of morally questionable treatment, ostensibly in order to cure them of their bad behaviors. There have been some excellent, excellent exposes on this place done by Mother Jones magazine, and a terrific treatment in Boston Magazine.
It seems that Federal officials are looking afresh into the center’s activities, pursuant to their jurisdiction under the Americans with Disabilities Act. State Senator Brian Joyce has been trying for years to ban the center’s most disturbing practice, the administering of electric shocks by way of a device called a Graduated Electronic Decelerator, which sounds like something from a science fiction/horror movie.
For those who might have seen the movie or read the book “A Clockwork Orange”, the principle behind the Rotenberg Center is almost exactly the same as that which was behind fictional Alexander DeLarge’s treatment. The only difference is that Alex was a violent and somewhat intelligent criminal who voluntarily chose to undergo the Ludovico Technique, while most, if not all, of the children at the Rotenberg Center have been forced into the treatment by their parents or other guardians. Once admitted to the center, it’s as if these kids lose all their rights to be treated as human beings and disappear into a legal black hole.
The Rotenberg Center has been through several incarnations and has made the news periodically throughout the thirty years or so that it has been doing its thing. It used to be called the Behavior Research Institute, which was a moniker that, I think, more accurately reflected the status of its inmates (or, as the center itself would have us say, its “patients”) as unwilling guinea pigs in a Behaviorist Laboratory. One time was the death of a student by asphyxiation in 1987; another time was the awful death of a young woman at the center in 1990. Much more recently the Rotenberg center made the news when two residents were accidentally tortured with dozens of electric shocks when a prank caller, claiming to be an authority figure at the center, instructed staff to do so. I’ve met a couple of people who worked at the center at one time- the qualifications for employment appear to be little more than a willingness to follow orders and a less-than-robust conscience. It pays better than McDonald’s, from what I hear.
More:
http://www.examiner.com/sitemaps/x-1328-Boston-Taxes-and-Economic-Policies-Examiner~y2010m3d1-Feds-to-Probe-Torture-School-in-Canton-MassSee also:
Uphold standards before signing off on shock treatment
Boston Globe - Mar 14, 2010
LAWRENCE HARMON (“Shocking truths,'' Op-ed, March 9) implies that the truth about the skin-shock treatment employed at the Judge Rotenberg Center is that it ...
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2010/03/15/uphold_standards_before_signing_off_on_shock_treatment/ Why subject the vulnerable to this ordeal?
Boston Globe - Mar 14, 2010
LAWRENCE HARMON (“Shocking truths,'' Op-ed, March 9) rightly sympathizes with parents of children with disabilities in the quest for effective services. ...
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2010/03/15/why_subject_the_vulnerable_to_this_ordeal/
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