US school for the disabled makes children wear packs that deliver powerful shocks to control behaviors.

From Raw Story:

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."


I almost don't know where to start in expressing my outrage and disbelief that this is happening to disabled children in the United States of America.  I am not typically made physically ill by the horrible things I read about or see on television but this one was the exception.

I have worked much of my life with children, including children and teens with behavioral difficulties, and I have NEVER seen such a barbaric approach used before.

Though I share JRC's dislike for the overuse of medications to treat children with severe emotional problems I certainly would never advocate replacing them with 45 milliamps of electricity!  This is how abusive pet owners keep their dog from peeing on the floor! NOT how so-called "educators" teach children to overcome their disabilities and learn to trust adults and respect appropriate boundaries!

Dealing with children who have severe disabilities and behavioral problems is extremely difficult and emotionally exhausting, but this kind of punitive shortcut is certainly NOT the way to speed up the process or make the children more manageable.  I cannot imagine how satisfying it must feel to a staff member who has just been kicked or pinched by a difficult student to "teach them a lesson" by shocking them into submission, or how often that kind of power must get abused.

This school needs to be shut down immediately, and the people who participated in this conduct need to be kept away form children for the rest of their life.  If a person who sexually abuses a child is restricted from having contact with them ever again, I cannot imagine the penalty for what these people have done should be any less severe.

And not that I want to connect every topic back to Sarah Palin, but as we all know she has crowned herself as some sort of advocate for children with special needs.

Well Ms. Palin you have the power to bring an incredible amount of attention to this horrible situation. I dare say you could probably get the facility shut down or, at the very least, have its policies completely revamped.  If I had your kind of name recognition I certainly would not hesitate to use it to bring justice to the children abused by this facility..

So in the name of the special needs child who has served you so well in your desire to make money, Trig Paxson Van Palin, will you not take a stand for these children, and do everything in your power to protect them from this kind of abuse in the future?

That is of course, unless on the issue of protecting children with special needs, it turns out that you are once again a hypocrite?