Rights Group Accuses Judge Rotenberg Center of Torture

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) has filed a disturbing report with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that the Judge Rotenberg Center for the disabled in Massachusetts is engaging in the torture of disabled children through electric shocks and restraints.

The report, entitled “Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center,” gives pictures and accounts of how restraints and shocks are used to control the behavior of the children.

What is most disturbing are the allegations that electronic shocks are administered by remote-controlled packs attached to a child’s back called a Graduated Electronic Decelerators (GED).

This is not the first controversy for the Judge Rotenberg Center. Judge Rotenberg CEO and founder Dr. Matthew L. Israel established the program in California back in 1977. The center was the subject of an investigation into the death in 1981 of a 14-year-old boy who was tied to his bed. After the investigation cleared Israel, he moved first to Rhode Island and then to Massachusetts. Recently there was an allegation that the Center destroyed tapes after giving shocks to children in a prank call, here.

For a copy of the report, click USReportandUrgentAppeal

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