Shock School Replicates Shocking Obedience Experiment

Shock School Replicates Shocking Obedience Experiment

By Maia Szalavitz
Huffington Post

Read More: Abusive Treatment, Autism, Child Abuse, Milgram, Rotenberg, Shock, Tough Love, Breaking Living News

What does it take to shut down an abusive school? Perhaps the fact that it has just replicated an experiment notorious both for being ethically problematic and showing how easy it is to get normal people to "just follow orders" to hurt others?

Picture this scenario, as described by the Boston Globe and in a report [pdf] from the state of Massachusetts.

At 2AM, a prank caller dials up a school known for its use of punitive electric shocks on autistic children and others with behavior disorders. He singles out three emotionally disturbed boys, ordering that they immediately be given many more shocks than their "treatment plans" allow. He cites particular misbehavior at a particular time as the reason for this punishment.

The staff has never been told to do this before. They did not check with their superiors to see whether the order was legitimate; in fact, they apparently assumed they were being tested for their compliance. Neither staff nor other inmates had seen or heard anything about any incidents at the time alleged by the caller to justify the punishment.

Nonetheless, they "followed orders," shocking two of the boys, first in their beds, later in a "recreation room" in restraints. One complained that he felt like he was "about to have a stroke," yet no medical attention was sought.

This went on for two hours while the rest of the kids nearly riot, claiming that the order must be a hoax. One boy gets 29 shocks; the other 77. He later has to be hospitalized for second-degree burns as a result. Before the last boy can be given the shocks, the staff finally work out that something is wrong.

As it turns out, the prankster was a former resident of the program, which is known as the Judge Rotenberg Center and located in Massachusetts. The incident occurred in August.
The staff involved were fired, the program says procedures have been changed, the state report filed.

But no one has noted that the school's procedures led to a real-life reproduction of the famous Milgram experiment -- in which 65% of subjects rapidly complied with orders to shock others, even when they thought their victim was experiencing a heart attack and had to flip a switch labeled "danger severe shock."

In that case, the "victims" were actually actors, no real harm was done to them-- and a great ethical controversy ensued over the treatment of subjects, who had been deceived by experimenters about the nature of the research. Many psychologists worried that distress over learning that you might have been a "good German" in a situation like the Holocaust could be irreparable.

Here, however, poorly-trained staff inflicted serious and genuine emotional and physical pain on emotionally disordered children -- at the prompt of an anonymous caller, and outside an experimental setting!

If such an incident could happen, there can be no legitimate argument that Rotenberg is a decent "treatment" program, which only uses shocks as part of a careful behavioral plan. All institutions which incarcerate vulnerable people run the risk of abuse -- this risk is elevated exponentially when the program has a philosophy that suggests that pain is helpful to patients and punishment is treatment.

If the state won't shutter the school on the basis of this clear violation of human rights and clear evidence that the program is not what it claims to be, what will it take before they finally pull the plug?

Prank Leads to Children Being Electroshocked at Rotenberg Center

THE BOSTON GLOBE

December 18, 2007

Prank led school to treat two with shock Special ed center duped, report says
By Patricia Wen

Two special education students at the controversial Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton were wrongfully delivered dozens of punishing electrical shocks in August based on a prank phone call from a former student posing as a supervisor, a state investigative report has found.

School staffers contacted state authorities after they realized they hadbeen tricked on Aug. 26 into delivering 77 shocks to one student and 29 shocks to another, according to Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for theDepartment of Early Education and Care, which drafted the report. Both students were part of a Rotenberg-run group home in Stoughton for males under age 22.

The Judge Rotenberg center, which serves about 250 adults and children from across the country, has been under fire for more than two decades for its unorthodox behavior-modification treatments, including electric shocktreatments.

Its defenders say that the school takes in troubled students, some with self-damaging behavior, who have been rejected by other schools.

The center, which Massachusetts officials have tried twice to close because of its treatment methods, focuses on serving people with autism, mental retardation, and emotional problems. Ernest Corrigan, a spokesman for the Rotenberg center, said the school contacted law enforcement "within hours" after discovering the prank, and that such an incident has never before happened at the school.

Corrigan said they have instituted new safeguards to prevent such occurrences. He also said that while the school regrets the incident, the two male students who received the wrongful shocks did not experience any serious physical harm and did not need medical treatment afterwards.

The shock devices, which are strapped to some students' arms, legs, or torsos, deliver two-second electric jolts to the skin. The devices are controlled remotely by teachers. State officials said the identity of the prankster is known to law enforcement authorities, but they would not release his name publicly and he has not been arrested.

The identity of the staffer who was fooled into administering the shocks has also not been released. State officials indicated that some disciplinary action took place, though they would not specify what it was. According to records from the Disabled Persons Protections Commission hotline phone log, there are repeated complaints about the incident.

Oneentry said "the caller claimed that the shocks were approved, however, they were not. "Based on the prankster's call, one of the students was also wrongfully placed in four-point restraints, limiting mobility of all four limbs.

Critics of the Rotenberg school say the case shows that school officials have failed to live up to their public promises to deliver electric shocksonly sparingly and with great oversight.

"This shows a systemic breakdown atthe center," said Leo Sarkissian, executive director of ARC ofMassachusetts, which represents people with cognitive and developmental disabilities. "It only takes a phone call to instigate shocks to this degree."

Top officials in New York and Washington, D.C., where many of the center's students originate, have called for a stop to the controversial shocktreatments at the school.

Yesterday, in a prepared statement, state Senator Brian Joyce called on officials to more strictly limit and regulate the use of shock therapy inthe state.

"This incident is horrifying and it would be immoral for the Legislature and the Executive branch not to react strongly and swiftly," Joyce said.

Corrigan, the spokesman for the center, said he is confident the August case will not be repeated, and he hopes this episode "will not be used to overshadow the good work that we do for those who have no where else to go."

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

RELATED POST:

SCHOOL OF SHOCK

http://stopchildprofiteering.blogspot.com/2007/08/cult-that-spawned-tough-love-industry.html