The Patrick administration filed a motion Thursday challenging a court decree that has allowed one Massachusetts school to continue for decades the controversial practice of using electric shocks to control children and adults who have developmental disorders or other special needs.
While some families and others connected with the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton argue that the skin-shock procedure is necessary to treat people with the most severe conditions, others say it is tantamount to torture. Disability rights advocates and some former patients have worked for years to shut down the center.
Comments
The most "shocking" fact in this article is the per resident cost. If the yearly cash flow is about $55 million and there are 240 residents, the yearly cost per resident is almost $230,000 per year. Where does this money come from? How much of it is taxpayer or insurance premium payer funds? While no reasonable person would deny assistance to those with Special Needs, there is some evidence that this humane motivation has been manipulated and undercut by “businessmen-therapists” for their personal benefit, not for the students.
The revelations of a North Shore Special Ed Collaborative a year or so ago that resulted in interlocking directorates, money resources used to by condos in Florida for staff and lavish lifestyles echoed the McLaughlin case at the Chelsea Housing Authority and worse.
I was shown a brochure for the Rotenberg center last year that made it look like a Las Vegas Taj Mahal rather than a therapeutic center. This abuse takes needed resources from those that really need those resources and places them into the hands of the unscrupulous.
This is a very interesting comment although it has nothing to do with electric shock treatments. The tuition in these schools are paid for by a combination of local ( school district) and state ( usually the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education)funds. Judge Rotenberg Center is not the only $230,000+ a year placement. There are a few different schools like this. In many cases, you cannot tell the reason why the schools are so expensive. The direct service workers/teachers earn about $12/hour. Once these students turn age 22, they are served by the DDS, and the funding is reduced by approximately two-thirds- yes, that's right, the Department of Developmental Services does the same job for the same student at one-third the cost. In many cases you will see that the more expensive children's services group homes have 8 kids living in very small cramped and dirty quarters, but the DDS group homes have 4 or 5 adults living there and the homes are spotless. So why is this? Who looks into where this money is going? I am all for helping people with severe disabilities reach their full potential, but I think that we have slipped into helping greedy people with itchy palms reach the maximum amount of money that they can slip into their wallets. All of these places should be investigated and their financial situation should be made public. The public is paying so the public should know the facts,
This treatment sounds Medeival. Naturally, humans being the often corrupt and self centered beings we are there will be some who take advantage of a draconian "therapy" like the one described. I think the state office who oversees treatment of children who are disabled should be involved. This "treatment" is DISGUSTING!
This place, and its founder Matthew Israel, are despicable. Hopefully the feds and Patrick are successsful in shutting it down lest somebody resort to vilgilante methods to obtain the same result.
55 million sounds like a lot, but that's got to be gross. Id be interested in finding out how much the executive director makes and also if the money has anything to do with the methods of treatment. My guess would be no.Money isn't the motivation for the treatment itself. I would imagine possibly convenience and safety. Individuals are very unlikely to be seriously injured or killed with the use of the aversion therapy. When the patients are always jacked-up on a million chemicals you have to be very careful about overdose and dependency.
Giermund- You are correct that, as methods of torture go, these electric shocks are unlikely to leave much in the way of permanent physical injuries. I'm confident, however, that the psychological scars associated with this abhorrent practice will never fully heal.