Human rights body calls on US school to ban electric shocks on children

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian


Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a notice to the Judge Rotenberg Center to immediately stop the shocks

Ed Pilkington in New York
@edpilkington
Tue 18 Dec 2018 06.00 EST

An international body entrusted with upholding human rights across the Americas has called for an immediate ban on the controversial use of electric shocks on severely disabled children in a school outside Boston.

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts, is believed to be the only school in the world that routinely inflicts high-powered electric shocks as a form of punishment on vulnerable children and adults. About 47 of its students are currently subjected to the “treatment”, which involves individuals being zapped with electric currents far more powerful than those discharged by stun guns.

Disability rights campaigners have tried for decades to stop the practice, which the school’s administrators call “aversive therapy”. So far the institution has managed to fend off all opposition, arguing that electric shocks are an acceptable way of discouraging harmful habits.

Now the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has issued a rare formal notice known as “precautionary measures” that calls for immediate cessation of the electric shocks.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/18/judge-rotenberg-center-electric-shocks-ban-inter-american-commission-human-rights

[Jedi Guy]

1. Why is this a thing in 2018?

Last edited Tue Dec 18, 2018, 06:22 PM - Edit history (1)

There are some really, really sick folks out there. Those poor kids deserve so much better.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. My thought exactly.

[Calista241]

2. Before this article, it never even occurred to me that this is still going on in our country.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Same here. It's hideous. n/t

[flibbitygiblets]

3. Sounds like we need to hook up some elecrodes to these school administrators to discourage them

from their "harmful habits"

[Shell_Seas]

5. How is this even a thing?

[spicysista]

6. Wait...this is real?

Woah. There are no words....How is this legally described as an actual "treatment"? This causes my heart to ache. Thanks for posting the link so that we can find out more information, Judi Lynn.
I am stunned.

[pecosbob]

7. I was shocked (no pun intended) to realize that ECT is still being used

[Judi Lynn]

11. Have never heard a peep about it. Unbearable. n/t

[DrToast]

15. This is not ECT

The article is talking about a punishment. ECT is effective for treating depression, but many people experience side effects such as memory loss and reduced cognitive abilities. It should be seen as a last resort, but it does work.

[pecosbob]

16. You are correct..there should be no conflation of ECT and using electrical shocks as punishment

or some sadistic and bizarre training method.

[Cetacea]

23. ECT is far more damaging. But electrically shocking children as put forth in article is barbaric eom

[DBoon]

8. if I used this on my dog, I'd be arrested

Why is it OK to treat children worse than dog

[LakeSuperiorView]

9. Wow, a lot to unpack...

First, eighth grade science teachers and students would be disappointed to shut down the static generator that gets all the students to hold hands.
Second, ECT, under appropriate use, is helpful for people with Major Depression in danger of suicide.
Third, use of electric shock as punishment is barbaric and should be considered assault with a deadly weapon.

[pecosbob]

12. I should have added that to my post...sorry.

[LakeSuperiorView]

14. No problem. I took someone through a round of ECT.

Wish I knew then what I know now, that it would be more than a month of two to three treatments a week. Having to be totally responsible for most aspects of someone else's life, down to getting them to eat and bathe.

It wouldn't have changed what I did, but it would have prepared me for it.

[Progressive dog]

13. I thought that ended years ago

Apparently the news coverage was all that ended.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/nyregion/25shock.html

“I understand people who don’t know about it think it is cruel,” said Susan Handon of Jamaica, Queens, whose 20-year-old daughter, Crystal, has been at Rotenberg for four years. “But she is not permanently scarred and she has really learned that certain behaviors, like running up and hitting people in the face, are not acceptable.”

Indeed, Rotenberg is full of children who will run up and hit strangers in the face, or worse. Many have severe types of dysfunction, including self-mutilation, head banging, eye gouging and biting, that can result from autism or mental retardation. Parents tend to be referred there by desperate education officials, after other institutions have decided they cannot keep the child.

A Massachusetts school for special needs children can continue to use a form of electric shock therapy on students after a long-running battle with state officials over the controversial treatment was decided in their favor.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/electric-shock-therapy-special-students-treatment-torment/story?id=56238582

[Tiggeroshii]

17. Im sorry what

I feel the date on the article must be wrong because surely that is not happening in the 21st century

[lillypaddle]

18. JFC!

This seems criminal to me - cannot believe this is happening in 2018.

[akraven]

19. It still happens in Alabama.

My beautiful daughter lives there. She wrote to the school board denying any corporal punishment for her two daughters (my gorgeous grandbabies). The entire school district is under investigation.

[Jedi Guy]

20. Wait, do you mean corporal punishment, or electric shocks as punishment?

I grew up in the Deep South (Mississippi, but at least right on the Gulf so it wasn't too bad), and I was paddled in first grade once. So it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that corporal punishment is still a thing in Alabama schools. It would surprise me to learn that they're using electric shocks as punishment in Alabama schools. Even Mississippi wasn't that bad.

[akraven]

21. Both.

The kids have a choice of the paddle or the zap.

They don't go to public schools there any more.

[Jedi Guy]

22. I don't even know what to say to that, apart from, "What the actual fuck, Alabama?"

Glad that your grandchildren aren't subject to that nonsense, and good for your daughter for taking a stand. Sadly, there are thousands upon thousands of children whose parents can't afford private or home-schooling, so they get abused by their teachers as a form of "discipline."

There's a reason the only thing I really miss from the South is the food...