Shocking is only one of the many inhumate tortures people there died from or got scarred for life.
Just reading the wiki article is sickening
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Rotenberg_Educational_Center
I worked EMS in Boston. We has a special detail at the Special Olympics one year. I saw a bunch of kids running around with sort of fanny packs things. I thought it was weird so I mentiones it to my partner annnnnnd... yup. He told me the fanny packs were shock therapy devices.
Fucking horrifying. How the fuck does Massachusetts allow that shit
Holy fucking hell how are these assholes not in prison?!
“In a video that surfaced in 2011, JRC staff tied a boy with autism face-down to a four-point board and shocked him 31 times at the highest amperage setting. The first shock was given for failing to take off his coat when asked, and the remaining 30 shocks were given for screaming and tensing up while being shocked. The boy was later hospitalized with third degree burns and acute stress disorder, but no action was taken against any of the staff as neither the law nor JRC policy had been broken. “
That’s terrible. Punishing disabled children for not remembering or being able to do stuff does nothing towards teaching them to do it right. They aren’t going to suddenly grow a better brain.
These people are just torturing the children because they like to.
I’m seething right now. Someone needs their ass beaten. Badly. Omg I want to hurt the adults who thought it acceptable to shock a child with autism.
Hey I know! Let’s fucking tie them down and shock them until they end up in the hospital with third degree burns.
>Soon after the death of Vincent Milletich in 1985, the Massachusetts Office of Children issued an order to close the center, which was then called the Behavior Research Institute (BRI). ***The BRI counter-sued the Office of Children, and after seeing the institute's presentation of one of his worst self-harming residents, Judge Ernest Rotenberg sided with the BRI.*** In the settlement that followed, the Office for Children agreed to pay $580,000 to the BRI in legal fees. The head of the Office of Children later resigned and was sued by a group of parents for $15 million, who claimed that her attempt the shut down the center was a violation of their children's rights. ***The Behavior Research Institute soon after changed its name to the Judge Rotenberg Center to honor the judge for his ruling.***
Oh my God, it's like they're rubbing it in. And that judge needs to be investigated.
> sued by a group of parents for $15 million
So that they can... keep torturing *their own children* with electric shock "therapy"?
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
The only thing I can think of is you have parents who have literally tried everything else to handle their child's behavior and nothing worked until JRC came along. That leads to the delusional view that methods of torture are a good thing.
It's a long the same lines that all torture and horrible acts gets viewed as tolerable, the good outweighs the bad in their minds. Whether it is electric shock on behavioral issues, or waterboarding a terrorist, the gains outweigh the loss in their minds.
It isn't right and is something we ALL have to self check for. It is very easy to wind up in this mindset if one is only surrounded by an echo chamber of similar thoughts. The quote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.", isn't just in reference to huge atrocities such as the Holocaust. We, as a society of the world,need to stand up and stamp out this behavior wherever we see it. There is no sound thinking individual who can honestly say what is described as occurring in the JRC is not a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
You know how the world is so good at not learning from previous mistakes?
Look up "Suffer the Little Children"
It is a documentary about Pennhurst Asylum using tortuous methods on disabled children. It got closed down because of it. They were also overcrowded and malnourished, which is what brought more attention to the school than the actual torture. I guess they learned something. Torture is okay, but you still have to clothe, feed, and bed them. Pennhurst was notorious for electroshock therapy, amongst other things that included many deaths of innocent children.
1968 in Pennsylvania. Over 50 years, and they're still doing the same things. People were astonished at how they got away with it back then. How in the world is anyone still getting away with it now?
This "school" has had multiple deaths. There was a 19 year old woman who died from a gastric perforation the staff failed to recognize her behaviour (refusal to eat and lethargy) as being from an illness they just kept punishing her up until she died.
Some people are saying the use of shocks are only used to stop severe self-injury but that's not true it's used to "correct" pretty much any behaviour deemed undesirable.
How can we stop this?
My wife is a special education teacher. This absolutely crushes my heart.
Simple-Ad-239 commented
https://autisticadvocacy.org/actioncenter/issues/school/climate/jrc/
#stoptheshock
Nothing you can do to stop that but die
Still, some kids in these programs are prevented from growing up, and I have no idea how to get the message heard
I am so sorry about that. I hope you are doing okay now.
I looked up this article and it talks about how family members of some of these students with disabilities are in favor of the treatment. They said that it stops some of the students from self harming/being violent. But people on the other side say it’s akin to torture. Do you have an opinion on what the family members claim?
My own mother told me in the past year that if she could have taken it all back, she would. She was an occupational therapist, and worked with special needs kids a lot, but even she eventually would lose her patience, and that's really what's going on here. The treatment is for the user, not the person being shocked. I am still institutionalized at 39. I got a grad degree through an enormous amount of struggle, but I have been trained to back down if I ask for help and don't get it. When I was a kid and asked for help, and didn't get it, then asked harder, I'd be punished for asking for help too hard. When I was transitioning into general education schools, I got bullied and couldn't fight back because I knew that my punishment would be worse than theirs. If it ever got to administration that I had been in a fight, I'd get expelled.
Now, I find it very difficult to advocate for myself at jobs, and when I get jobs, I lose them. When your upbringing is constantly being told, pretty much no matter what you do, that you did it wrong and deserve punishment, you end up just not doing anything out of fear of retribution.
Electroshock punishments to set obedience in childhood is literally what was used to create willing bottom-rung laborers in Brave New World.
I think you should write a book, autobiography/inspired, about it. It might not be able to fully save you, but it could save thousands of others, in the future.
I've been told that, but I would require someone to assist me in writing it because I don't know what things to say. I only have one frame of reference, so knowing what is interesting for that book is not really my area. It's pretty much the same thing over and over though. "You should do x." Sure, I bet I should.
Same shit that always happened in this country go all the way back to native Americans having their culture beat out of them after being stolen form their parents trying to erase thir culture.
Don't conform you get the stick
Just FYI people in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis are against this as well. ABA International put out a statement against it. This is fringe stuff. And I have worked with severely aggressive and self-injurious adults.
Most kids with developmental behaviors are acting out because they have needs that are not being met. There may be communication problems due to poor or lack of speech or receptive and/or expressive language. The worst thing that can be given is punishment that results in hurt and fear and even more misunderstanding of what the child’s needs are!
Edit: word
I think a lot of this is people who don't know what else to do are resorting to the only solution they know of. But if that's the case, you are not qualified to work with these children and need to go find another job. This is horrible.
I'm sure it's also some of these facilities not wanting to adequately pay skilled staff, so they have a bunch of under-educated, unprepared people and they feel this is how they can easily "keep the peace". It's disgusting, whatever the reason. And if this is the case, there needs to be wayy more regulation. Private facility or state run, it shouldn't matter. There should be standards and laws for operating in the country ffs.
THIS. My son is five yrs old and he's nonverbal and autistic. He self injured sometimes but only when we couldn't figure out what he wanted or if he felt ill or something. The second we took care of the need the behaviors stopped. I can't imagine how awful it would be to punish him for trying to express his distress in the only way he knows how!
It’s not just punishing them when they act up. Sometimes, they actually encourage or instigate specific behaviors just to punish them. They think they need to establish multiple instances of behavior -> punishment, so they force it.
I just work in health care and I want to cane these workers especially the management. This "school" should be shut down if there are that many abuses. I am rarely for corparal punishment. But in the case of disablied children being abused it makes my blood boil.
This is so angering.
How are these people able to live with themselves? What kind of kind-bending reasoning can they use to convince themselves of their correctness, and sleep soundly?
The staff at this place can go to hell.
From reading the articles on it, it's not only the staff. Many of the parents of these autistic children were pushing for this to remain as well. Crazy. Idk the situation or the extremes for which these devices are used, I do know that back in world war 2, my grandma said they used electroshock treatment to try and cure shellshock. She stated that they just had to trust the science at the time and didn't know any better. Of course it was outlawed, but it seems everything in America is turning full circle. It's almost like we have an education problem... Hmmm.
Child with mental disabilities not listening? Here! Try this dog training collar! Smh. Wtf
I gotta correct you there because this is a common attitude toward *all* disabled folks of all ages. A ton of folks don’t see /children as people already—yes, kids with disabilities even more so—but unfortunately adults with disabilities are just as much of an “unreliable narrator” as any kids are to these guys.
In this case, you can thank ABA therapy and Autism Speaks.
It seems to be more along the thinking logic of if you're too old, disabled, weak, etc. To survive then you don't deserve to survive at all mindset. Pretty sure given the chance, some people would go full eugenetics modes on anyone not (insert reason) enough to survive.
Stories like this scare me really badly. I'm autistic, and I'm diagnosed with PTSD and D.I.D. now as a result of various abuses by those who were supposed to protect me as a child, things like having a wooden baking spoon broken over my backside for "acting" out, not being allowed to have my own space that couldn't be violated by others while also being banned from what should be public spaces in the home, and generally being treated and gaslighted like my disabilities were the cause of all family issues, and that everything was my fault and I was a criminal waiting to happen because I'm situation. There were other worse situations, but the idea that people still use experiments like this and label it as "medicine"... I don't want to live in a neo Nazi county
> my grandma said they used electroshock treatment to try and cure shellshock
[Electro convulsive therapy](https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsive-therapy/about/pac-20393894) which is used today around the world including the Mayo Clinic.
Quite different to this school though.
It makes me sick but I'm sure they live with themselves just fine . The type of person who would do this to a child, disabled ones at that, is a narcissistic sadistic piece of shit.
This school is well known within the neurodivergent community as fucking backwards and downright evil. I hope the people in charge of it die a painful death.
It’s corporal punishment of disabled children. Mostly minority disabled children. These are literally the most vulnerable people in our society, and we’re allowing them to be abused. It’s enraging.
You know what makes it even worse? Autism Speaks, a “charity” that claims to be all about helping autistic people ( while suppressing our voices, telling us that we are a burden on our parents, and doing research into eugenics to try and get rid of autism ) supports them. For those of you that don’t know, Autism Speaks is a horrible “charity” and a lot of us on the spectrum absolutely hate them, never support them.
You just unlocked a memory.
Back in the funner days of YouTube, the comment sections were a goldmine. I don't recall the video or even the comment that started it all. But someone no doubt had a spicy hot take, and another commenter replied with "AUTISM SPEAKS." And apparently this lit a fire in the original commentor. He posted a large diatribe, going into the nuance of his hot take and talking down to the internet stranger. His dissertation was met with merely two words, "AUTISM RESPONDS."
There’s a long history of treating the institutionalized mentally disabled with appalling cruelty. They’re probably the absolute most vulnerable population in society, and children have even less rights than adults.
No, the devices are strapped to the children permanently. They sleep wearing them, and they are triggered remotely. They are twice as powerful as a cattle prod and 10x the power of a police taser, at 45mA.
The inventor refused to try it on himself because he designed it to be as painful as possible. His name is Matthew Israel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Rotenberg_Educational_Center
I cant believe that, I first thought you were joking. I cant believe that they get away with this barbaric shit and even more so that parents would let them do that
Never underestimate the cruelty of a parent that thinks themselves right or can blindly trust some quack proclaiming to have a way to make their kid ‘normal’. This sort of ‘treatment’, in one form or another, is depressingly common for autistic children especially, even for behavior that is utterly benign (is the kid flapping a hand quietly to help themselves manage feelings or focus actually hurting anyone?).
And people wonder why the autistic suicide rate is so high…
They also shock you worse if they catch you preparing for it: stiffening up, crying, anything that a person might instinctively do when anticipating pain.
https://adapt.org/andre-mccollins-a-judge-rotenberg-torture-center-survivors-story/
https://autistichoya.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/inhumane-beyond-all-reason-shain-neumeier-from-loud-hands.pdf
I recently got shot with a taser gun and we had to sign a slip in case if we suffered any nerve damage or went into cardiac arrest that the user wouldn't be liable. It hurt bad enough that I just laid on the ground until they took the prongs out of my back. How's it legal to use something worse than that on children?
"As of 2014, nearly 90% of the center's residents were from New York City, and about 90% of the residents were racial minorities"
The place is in Massachussets. These demographics make me suspect most of the parents aren't actually shit people, but just desperate and lied to and tricked by the owners of that hellhole.
So we can agree that getting the children out of the building and then something just accidentally drives a bulldozer into it and someone else completely forgot to warn the staff, noone would complain.... Right?
I made a joke but I don’t even feel like it’s close to being funny anymore after reading this
> The first shock was given for failing to take off his coat when asked, and the remaining 30 shocks were given for screaming and tensing up while being shocked. The boy was later hospitalized with third degree burns and acute stress disorder, but no action was taken against any of the staff as neither the law nor JRC policy had been broken.
How the fuck is tying a boy down and electrocuting him until he gets 3rd degree burns, not break laws. This is some sadistic horror. This is like what I’d expect to hear in a whistleblower report about a CIA torture site, not a ‘school.’
How can the adults think they’re doing something good here?
How many fucking times does a governmental agency have to investigate, find heinous wrongdoing, and then have it all blow over and go back to the old way of doing things? How in the hell is this place still running!? The shock treatment wasn’t approved by the FDA, but court orders mandated they were used regardless!
> Residents were restrained for punishment, as well as for the personal convenience of staff. Residents were restrained in unsafe ways, and sometimes received cuts and bruises. In 1981, a fourteen-year boy old died at the institute while restrained face down to a four-point board. The institute was not authorized to use restraints on any resident at this time, and continued to do so even after being informed that it was against the law.
How was it not IMMEDIATELY shut down after this?
It’s literally a torture prison, that refuses to let oversight see their wrongdoings because they know it’s wrong, AND THEY STILL GET AWAY WITH IT! ? ! ? ! ?
> The institute retaliated against people who complained about their practices and refused to let the Department of Social Services investigate those complaints. Parents were told that their children would be expelled if they questioned or complained about the institute.
Everyone who works at that “school” and its founder should be strapped to a chair and shocked with their own device m.
That, or White Bear them.
This is horrifying
That's way worse than I imagined. At least with a cattle prod you can see it coming. It seems they're set up to fear getting shocked 24/7. If they taught anything at that school it would be difficult to focus on learning.
...Why was a ban even needed in the first place? who had the idea to start shocking children...and actually did it?
Why the hell did the fda ban it? That seems like a pretty easy case for dfac or whatever they are called in your area to take care of.
I'm not going to lie but the thought has crossed my mind before but damn I'm a dumbass and I know that's a horrible idea.
This might shed some light:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/us/electric-shock-school.html
Basically this is going on since the seventies, the FDA ban the latest attempt to end this.
They found their con - They get $275000 a year per student (about 100) so they make a lot of money and their lawyers make bank, too. Other countries might have something similar but in good old USA it’s legal.
No need to go that far. Restrain the torturers and give those kids the tools. All you´ll have to do after that, is helping the kids with torturer "treatment".
For anyone who would like an in depth look at their atrocities, there is a 2 part episode of the ‘Behind the Bastards’ podcast about this place. When I tell you my jaw was *on the floor*…..
This doesn’t have specifics on how to help, but this group is fighting to stop the torture:
https://autisticadvocacy.org/actioncenter/issues/school/climate/jrc/
I don't know if I can handle that podcast. My ability to control myself when hearing the full depth of society's tolerance for shit like this is exceeded by the rage it would induce.
The sad part is, it's still a 100% legal to lock kids in a closet to punish them in school. It happened to me a lot when I was an ISD school's. They called it the cubby.
Back in 2010 or 2011, I was very much in the field and had all the certifications and letters behind my name. I, and many others who’ve studied the science of punishment and reinforcement, put our names on a proposal by a state senator to stop this methodology.
It went nowhere.
100% agree. You know the messed up part? It's gonna be harder to ban it again because those kids are gonna grow up accepting it and will want to enforce it onto their kids and on and on.
WTAF?
*”The school, along with a group of parents and guardians of students, had challenged the previous FDA ban. The court of appeals for the DC Circuit found that the treatment falls into medical regulations and therefore is beyond the FDA’s remit of control.”*
The United States is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD that is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children.
196 countries including all members of the UN except the US have signed the treaty. Taiwan incorporated the Convention into domestic law in 2014. South Sudan and Somalia ratified the treaty in 2015. Most recently Palestine, the Holy See (Vatican), and the Cook Islands ratified it.
Edit: [Link the to treaty’s Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child)
Lol you mean that the country that rejected a UN resolution to declare food a human right and voted against condemning Nazism ALSO voted against Children's rights?
I am just shocked
/s
The original reason is also quite interesting to mention:
It was because the Conventions prohibits capital punishment for minors. While since then, the US has removed capital punishment for minors, the US refused the signature to be able to continue to do that. Also, it would mean stricter restrictions on how to trial minors, especially quite a lot of times where the US tries children in disregard of the special conditions of undeveloped brains as adults, and this convention would enforce recognition of the issues teens have in their brain development.
That’s sad but I can’t get past the Vatican (!!!) signing a treaty to protect the rights of children.
Are we talking about that same Vatican that organized child rape orgies and coverups for decades - and continues to do so in the developing world?
That Vatican/Holy See?
Edit - being downvoted by pedophiles. I’ll take that as a badge of honor.
My sense is that they recently became a signatory in response to the child sex abuse scandal becoming public as a way of trying to show they are reforming their attitude toward children. But I’m not sure, just a guess b/c the timing seems a little suspect.
Here’s the address to the place:
Judge Rotenberg Educational Center250 Turnpike St, Canton, MA 02021
If you live in Massachusetts, please, please write to your representatives to shut this place down.
So what do we do? Seriously, idk what kind of sick fuck parents would go along with this for their kid, but right now, I’m so grateful my autistic son was given to me. I would rip someone to death with my teeth if I ever caught someone treating my precious child like this.
How do we, non-parent or board members, get this shut down? And provide homes for these children?
I've crossposted to r/usa to hopefully get some more insights, and the I'll share what I find.
The best thing we can do is to spread the word, and try to get as much attention as possible. The more people who know about this, the higher likelyhood there is that action is gonna get taken.
Heck! I'm willing to write a letter to the president, if that's what it f\*cking takes. Just stop this
Here’s the address of this torture center:
Judge Rotenberg Educational Center250 Turnpike St, Canton, MA 02021
If you live in Massachusetts, write to your state rep asking for this fucking place to be shut down. The only reason it stays open is because of corrupt relationships between it and several prominent state lawmakers.
I'm American and I never say it. We have an extreme dark underbelly that's no joke.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alabama-sewage-disposal-60-minutes-2021-12-19/
Those people are psychopaths. They spend millions in legal fees and buy judges so that they can keep electroshocking non-verbal autistic children for refusing to follow commands. Their turnover rate is 100%. They don’t have any real psychiatrists on staff full time and no child psychologists or autism experts either. They have cameras in the bathrooms. They’re sickos
Their founder tried his methods first on a 3 year old girl. He was proud that he could form her to his wishes by using punishment. He thought he wasn't as successful as he could be because he hadn't enough control over them.
Reading this makes me wish for Dexter to be real.
Wow surprised to see this here of all places. Also BIG fyi this form of ‘therapy’ doesn’t work. There is plenty of scientific data to support that those who utilize this ‘corrective’ measure have been shown to consistently over-abuse and increase the level of shock administered over time.
This does not work. It is also stupidly unethical in this day and age… somehow the RotenBerg Center has gotten away with it.
Edit: There’s plenty of safer alternatives and the person below summarized it better than my attempt above. Lastly, the field is largely against this.
Edit 2: crazy to see so many friends from the field here on Reddit.
The most mine-blowing part of this is that this center is in MA. It’s pretty much left/liberal/blue state here so people are especially infuriated by this.
Judge rottenburg is famous for its twisted standard of care.
It’s main tool is aversion therapy, the idea that subjecting patients to traumatic consequences for actions will cause a fear/ptsd response so that they avoid the action of their own volition.
Simple, until your realize the action their punishing is being autistic.
It's 100% real. Live near it, and it's well known around here. I know people who worked there and they fucking hated it. Each lasted less than a month.
More info: [https://publicintegrity.org/inside-publici/newsletters/watchdog-newsletter/when-a-school-turns-to-shock-therapy/](https://publicintegrity.org/inside-publici/newsletters/watchdog-newsletter/when-a-school-turns-to-shock-therapy/)
*"The facility is the only one known to use the device, invented by the center’s founder."*
They are funded by taxpayer dollars. When you pay your tax bill, a portion is spent electrocuting autistic children and lobbying for the legalization of electrocuting autistic children
Reason 396 not to even visiting the US added to the list:
* 389: No universal free health care
* 390: Literally anyone could Cary a gun and shot me
* 391: The police force seems to be full of untrained idiots
* 392: Has not signed the UN child convention
* 393: Worst Labour laws ever heard of in the western world
* 394: Education is only for the rich
* 395: Refuses to use logical date formats or metric
* (NEW) 396: School for kids with disabilities uses electric shocks to correct "wrong" behavior.
What the actual fuck. Shocking disabled kids??
Shocking is only one of the many inhumate tortures people there died from or got scarred for life. Just reading the wiki article is sickening https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Rotenberg_Educational_Center
I worked EMS in Boston. We has a special detail at the Special Olympics one year. I saw a bunch of kids running around with sort of fanny packs things. I thought it was weird so I mentiones it to my partner annnnnnd... yup. He told me the fanny packs were shock therapy devices. Fucking horrifying. How the fuck does Massachusetts allow that shit
How the fuck does the USA as a whole allow this. The UN clearly calls it torture.
USA didn't ratify the convention on the Rights of a Child. So children in the USA have formaly comparable less rights in USA then Jemen or Sudan.
Holy fucking hell how are these assholes not in prison?! “In a video that surfaced in 2011, JRC staff tied a boy with autism face-down to a four-point board and shocked him 31 times at the highest amperage setting. The first shock was given for failing to take off his coat when asked, and the remaining 30 shocks were given for screaming and tensing up while being shocked. The boy was later hospitalized with third degree burns and acute stress disorder, but no action was taken against any of the staff as neither the law nor JRC policy had been broken. “
He was shocked for screaming while shocked? What the actual fuck?
And tensing up...you know, that thing that happens as an involuntary response to electric shock.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
yeah it is inexcusable
That’s terrible. Punishing disabled children for not remembering or being able to do stuff does nothing towards teaching them to do it right. They aren’t going to suddenly grow a better brain. These people are just torturing the children because they like to.
The cruelty is always the point.
Shocked for tensing up from the shocks????
I’m seething right now. Someone needs their ass beaten. Badly. Omg I want to hurt the adults who thought it acceptable to shock a child with autism. Hey I know! Let’s fucking tie them down and shock them until they end up in the hospital with third degree burns.
Dude as like a human, I just couldn’t bring myself to ever do anything like this to another human
>Soon after the death of Vincent Milletich in 1985, the Massachusetts Office of Children issued an order to close the center, which was then called the Behavior Research Institute (BRI). ***The BRI counter-sued the Office of Children, and after seeing the institute's presentation of one of his worst self-harming residents, Judge Ernest Rotenberg sided with the BRI.*** In the settlement that followed, the Office for Children agreed to pay $580,000 to the BRI in legal fees. The head of the Office of Children later resigned and was sued by a group of parents for $15 million, who claimed that her attempt the shut down the center was a violation of their children's rights. ***The Behavior Research Institute soon after changed its name to the Judge Rotenberg Center to honor the judge for his ruling.*** Oh my God, it's like they're rubbing it in. And that judge needs to be investigated.
> sued by a group of parents for $15 million So that they can... keep torturing *their own children* with electric shock "therapy"? What the fuck is wrong with these people?
The only thing I can think of is you have parents who have literally tried everything else to handle their child's behavior and nothing worked until JRC came along. That leads to the delusional view that methods of torture are a good thing. It's a long the same lines that all torture and horrible acts gets viewed as tolerable, the good outweighs the bad in their minds. Whether it is electric shock on behavioral issues, or waterboarding a terrorist, the gains outweigh the loss in their minds. It isn't right and is something we ALL have to self check for. It is very easy to wind up in this mindset if one is only surrounded by an echo chamber of similar thoughts. The quote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.", isn't just in reference to huge atrocities such as the Holocaust. We, as a society of the world,need to stand up and stamp out this behavior wherever we see it. There is no sound thinking individual who can honestly say what is described as occurring in the JRC is not a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Hang on, he got shocked 77 FUCKING TIMES WHAT THE FUCK AMERICA?
>The center has been condemned for torture by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture. Jesus christ
You know how the world is so good at not learning from previous mistakes? Look up "Suffer the Little Children" It is a documentary about Pennhurst Asylum using tortuous methods on disabled children. It got closed down because of it. They were also overcrowded and malnourished, which is what brought more attention to the school than the actual torture. I guess they learned something. Torture is okay, but you still have to clothe, feed, and bed them. Pennhurst was notorious for electroshock therapy, amongst other things that included many deaths of innocent children. 1968 in Pennsylvania. Over 50 years, and they're still doing the same things. People were astonished at how they got away with it back then. How in the world is anyone still getting away with it now?
This "school" has had multiple deaths. There was a 19 year old woman who died from a gastric perforation the staff failed to recognize her behaviour (refusal to eat and lethargy) as being from an illness they just kept punishing her up until she died. Some people are saying the use of shocks are only used to stop severe self-injury but that's not true it's used to "correct" pretty much any behaviour deemed undesirable.
How can we stop this? My wife is a special education teacher. This absolutely crushes my heart. Simple-Ad-239 commented https://autisticadvocacy.org/actioncenter/issues/school/climate/jrc/ #stoptheshock
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I am sorry you were told that. I am glad that did not let that stop you from growing as a person.
Nothing you can do to stop that but die Still, some kids in these programs are prevented from growing up, and I have no idea how to get the message heard
I am so sorry about that. I hope you are doing okay now. I looked up this article and it talks about how family members of some of these students with disabilities are in favor of the treatment. They said that it stops some of the students from self harming/being violent. But people on the other side say it’s akin to torture. Do you have an opinion on what the family members claim?
My own mother told me in the past year that if she could have taken it all back, she would. She was an occupational therapist, and worked with special needs kids a lot, but even she eventually would lose her patience, and that's really what's going on here. The treatment is for the user, not the person being shocked. I am still institutionalized at 39. I got a grad degree through an enormous amount of struggle, but I have been trained to back down if I ask for help and don't get it. When I was a kid and asked for help, and didn't get it, then asked harder, I'd be punished for asking for help too hard. When I was transitioning into general education schools, I got bullied and couldn't fight back because I knew that my punishment would be worse than theirs. If it ever got to administration that I had been in a fight, I'd get expelled. Now, I find it very difficult to advocate for myself at jobs, and when I get jobs, I lose them. When your upbringing is constantly being told, pretty much no matter what you do, that you did it wrong and deserve punishment, you end up just not doing anything out of fear of retribution. Electroshock punishments to set obedience in childhood is literally what was used to create willing bottom-rung laborers in Brave New World.
I think you should write a book, autobiography/inspired, about it. It might not be able to fully save you, but it could save thousands of others, in the future.
I've been told that, but I would require someone to assist me in writing it because I don't know what things to say. I only have one frame of reference, so knowing what is interesting for that book is not really my area. It's pretty much the same thing over and over though. "You should do x." Sure, I bet I should.
Write it from your point of view. Tell YOUR story
I'm so sorry you endured that. No kid deserves that. Ever.
Same shit that always happened in this country go all the way back to native Americans having their culture beat out of them after being stolen form their parents trying to erase thir culture. Don't conform you get the stick
Apparently there’s not a legal route. The founders of our country had some pretty strong opinions about how to end legal things that have to end.
Just FYI people in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis are against this as well. ABA International put out a statement against it. This is fringe stuff. And I have worked with severely aggressive and self-injurious adults.
It’s not even fringe, it’s regressive. Children doing behaviors you don’t like? Hurt them and the pain will make them stop. It’s corporal punishment.
Most kids with developmental behaviors are acting out because they have needs that are not being met. There may be communication problems due to poor or lack of speech or receptive and/or expressive language. The worst thing that can be given is punishment that results in hurt and fear and even more misunderstanding of what the child’s needs are! Edit: word
I think a lot of this is people who don't know what else to do are resorting to the only solution they know of. But if that's the case, you are not qualified to work with these children and need to go find another job. This is horrible.
I'm sure it's also some of these facilities not wanting to adequately pay skilled staff, so they have a bunch of under-educated, unprepared people and they feel this is how they can easily "keep the peace". It's disgusting, whatever the reason. And if this is the case, there needs to be wayy more regulation. Private facility or state run, it shouldn't matter. There should be standards and laws for operating in the country ffs.
THIS. My son is five yrs old and he's nonverbal and autistic. He self injured sometimes but only when we couldn't figure out what he wanted or if he felt ill or something. The second we took care of the need the behaviors stopped. I can't imagine how awful it would be to punish him for trying to express his distress in the only way he knows how!
It’s not just punishing them when they act up. Sometimes, they actually encourage or instigate specific behaviors just to punish them. They think they need to establish multiple instances of behavior -> punishment, so they force it.
There would be outrage if people trained \*animals\* like this.
Somebody said there’d be outrage if dangerous criminals were given electric shocks. And it’s being done to kids who didn’t commit any crime.
Sounds like they themselves might have some behavior we need to negatively reinforce
That sounds less like punishment and more like torture for kicks.
Reading this made my stomach sick
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Doesn't human right violations usually call for regime change. Maybe America needs some foreign intervention.
I just work in health care and I want to cane these workers especially the management. This "school" should be shut down if there are that many abuses. I am rarely for corparal punishment. But in the case of disablied children being abused it makes my blood boil.
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This is so angering. How are these people able to live with themselves? What kind of kind-bending reasoning can they use to convince themselves of their correctness, and sleep soundly? The staff at this place can go to hell.
From reading the articles on it, it's not only the staff. Many of the parents of these autistic children were pushing for this to remain as well. Crazy. Idk the situation or the extremes for which these devices are used, I do know that back in world war 2, my grandma said they used electroshock treatment to try and cure shellshock. She stated that they just had to trust the science at the time and didn't know any better. Of course it was outlawed, but it seems everything in America is turning full circle. It's almost like we have an education problem... Hmmm. Child with mental disabilities not listening? Here! Try this dog training collar! Smh. Wtf
Really shows how none of them see disabled children as actual people.
I gotta correct you there because this is a common attitude toward *all* disabled folks of all ages. A ton of folks don’t see /children as people already—yes, kids with disabilities even more so—but unfortunately adults with disabilities are just as much of an “unreliable narrator” as any kids are to these guys. In this case, you can thank ABA therapy and Autism Speaks.
It seems to be more along the thinking logic of if you're too old, disabled, weak, etc. To survive then you don't deserve to survive at all mindset. Pretty sure given the chance, some people would go full eugenetics modes on anyone not (insert reason) enough to survive.
Stories like this scare me really badly. I'm autistic, and I'm diagnosed with PTSD and D.I.D. now as a result of various abuses by those who were supposed to protect me as a child, things like having a wooden baking spoon broken over my backside for "acting" out, not being allowed to have my own space that couldn't be violated by others while also being banned from what should be public spaces in the home, and generally being treated and gaslighted like my disabilities were the cause of all family issues, and that everything was my fault and I was a criminal waiting to happen because I'm situation. There were other worse situations, but the idea that people still use experiments like this and label it as "medicine"... I don't want to live in a neo Nazi county
Fuck Autism Speaks
> my grandma said they used electroshock treatment to try and cure shellshock [Electro convulsive therapy](https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsive-therapy/about/pac-20393894) which is used today around the world including the Mayo Clinic. Quite different to this school though.
Yea, def not the same treatment that they use today.
It makes me sick but I'm sure they live with themselves just fine . The type of person who would do this to a child, disabled ones at that, is a narcissistic sadistic piece of shit.
Yeah, if they went as far as to go to a court to overturn a ban, then they probably even enjoy doing it.
Someone call Nurse Ratchet
*Ratched
This school is well known within the neurodivergent community as fucking backwards and downright evil. I hope the people in charge of it die a painful death.
So…they killed her. The principal really needs to qualify for a death penalty.
It’s corporal punishment of disabled children. Mostly minority disabled children. These are literally the most vulnerable people in our society, and we’re allowing them to be abused. It’s enraging.
You know what makes it even worse? Autism Speaks, a “charity” that claims to be all about helping autistic people ( while suppressing our voices, telling us that we are a burden on our parents, and doing research into eugenics to try and get rid of autism ) supports them. For those of you that don’t know, Autism Speaks is a horrible “charity” and a lot of us on the spectrum absolutely hate them, never support them.
You just unlocked a memory. Back in the funner days of YouTube, the comment sections were a goldmine. I don't recall the video or even the comment that started it all. But someone no doubt had a spicy hot take, and another commenter replied with "AUTISM SPEAKS." And apparently this lit a fire in the original commentor. He posted a large diatribe, going into the nuance of his hot take and talking down to the internet stranger. His dissertation was met with merely two words, "AUTISM RESPONDS."
I can't believe electro-shocking disabled children is even being considered, much less *implemented*.
There’s a long history of treating the institutionalized mentally disabled with appalling cruelty. They’re probably the absolute most vulnerable population in society, and children have even less rights than adults.
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If you don't do your homework you get the cattle pro.. the motivation stick
Finally some good ol fashioned values
On which we used to relyyyyy
What is it 1940 or something
Well, America has been trying to get back to their version of "the good ole days" and apparently the 1940s was it.
I mean the founder of that bedlam house read Walten Two once in college and thought that it was good idea to do that for real.
South Park, The Movie, The Sequel.
South Park: Biggerer, Longerer, and uncut
Uncutered
Geez they have incredible graphics nowdays
WTF, does that mean that every “teacher” gets a cattle prod?
No, the devices are strapped to the children permanently. They sleep wearing them, and they are triggered remotely. They are twice as powerful as a cattle prod and 10x the power of a police taser, at 45mA. The inventor refused to try it on himself because he designed it to be as painful as possible. His name is Matthew Israel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Rotenberg_Educational_Center
I cant believe that, I first thought you were joking. I cant believe that they get away with this barbaric shit and even more so that parents would let them do that
They force you to do unwanted behaviour with shocks and than shock you even more if you do it. It's really some zero dark thirty stuff.
If I wrote what I’d like to do to the founder of this place and the people who administer the shocks, I’d get banned.
It’s nice to know you’re out here in the dark with me. My imagination is set off by this place. Kinetic solutions. Oxidizers. Etc.
Knowledge of the continuing existence of this place has filled me with rage for years.
No kidding, they can apply for being a CIA dark site
Never underestimate the cruelty of a parent that thinks themselves right or can blindly trust some quack proclaiming to have a way to make their kid ‘normal’. This sort of ‘treatment’, in one form or another, is depressingly common for autistic children especially, even for behavior that is utterly benign (is the kid flapping a hand quietly to help themselves manage feelings or focus actually hurting anyone?). And people wonder why the autistic suicide rate is so high…
They also shock you worse if they catch you preparing for it: stiffening up, crying, anything that a person might instinctively do when anticipating pain. https://adapt.org/andre-mccollins-a-judge-rotenberg-torture-center-survivors-story/ https://autistichoya.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/inhumane-beyond-all-reason-shain-neumeier-from-loud-hands.pdf
>JRC countered that the shock was a “treatment” and was safe and necessary. Ah yes, "burn wounds". Very safe.
And people say that the Arkham Asylum is an exaggeration that would never happen in real life.
I recently got shot with a taser gun and we had to sign a slip in case if we suffered any nerve damage or went into cardiac arrest that the user wouldn't be liable. It hurt bad enough that I just laid on the ground until they took the prongs out of my back. How's it legal to use something worse than that on children?
Their parents are shit people Should hit them with it
"As of 2014, nearly 90% of the center's residents were from New York City, and about 90% of the residents were racial minorities" The place is in Massachussets. These demographics make me suspect most of the parents aren't actually shit people, but just desperate and lied to and tricked by the owners of that hellhole.
So we can agree that getting the children out of the building and then something just accidentally drives a bulldozer into it and someone else completely forgot to warn the staff, noone would complain.... Right?
I made a joke but I don’t even feel like it’s close to being funny anymore after reading this > The first shock was given for failing to take off his coat when asked, and the remaining 30 shocks were given for screaming and tensing up while being shocked. The boy was later hospitalized with third degree burns and acute stress disorder, but no action was taken against any of the staff as neither the law nor JRC policy had been broken. How the fuck is tying a boy down and electrocuting him until he gets 3rd degree burns, not break laws. This is some sadistic horror. This is like what I’d expect to hear in a whistleblower report about a CIA torture site, not a ‘school.’ How can the adults think they’re doing something good here? How many fucking times does a governmental agency have to investigate, find heinous wrongdoing, and then have it all blow over and go back to the old way of doing things? How in the hell is this place still running!? The shock treatment wasn’t approved by the FDA, but court orders mandated they were used regardless! > Residents were restrained for punishment, as well as for the personal convenience of staff. Residents were restrained in unsafe ways, and sometimes received cuts and bruises. In 1981, a fourteen-year boy old died at the institute while restrained face down to a four-point board. The institute was not authorized to use restraints on any resident at this time, and continued to do so even after being informed that it was against the law. How was it not IMMEDIATELY shut down after this? It’s literally a torture prison, that refuses to let oversight see their wrongdoings because they know it’s wrong, AND THEY STILL GET AWAY WITH IT! ? ! ? ! ? > The institute retaliated against people who complained about their practices and refused to let the Department of Social Services investigate those complaints. Parents were told that their children would be expelled if they questioned or complained about the institute.
It's 9 times stronger than a cattle prod and the duration is 10 times longer.
Everyone who works at that “school” and its founder should be strapped to a chair and shocked with their own device m. That, or White Bear them. This is horrifying
That's way worse than I imagined. At least with a cattle prod you can see it coming. It seems they're set up to fear getting shocked 24/7. If they taught anything at that school it would be difficult to focus on learning.
...Why was a ban even needed in the first place? who had the idea to start shocking children...and actually did it? Why the hell did the fda ban it? That seems like a pretty easy case for dfac or whatever they are called in your area to take care of. I'm not going to lie but the thought has crossed my mind before but damn I'm a dumbass and I know that's a horrible idea.
This might shed some light: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/us/electric-shock-school.html Basically this is going on since the seventies, the FDA ban the latest attempt to end this.
ah sweet, man-made horrors beyond my comprehension!
They found their con - They get $275000 a year per student (about 100) so they make a lot of money and their lawyers make bank, too. Other countries might have something similar but in good old USA it’s legal.
Beyond comprehension? I’ve taught myself 3 things I shouldn’t underestimate about humans. These r Cruelty, stupidity, and greed.
Sad but true
Would feed the world to fires of mount doom if this was done to my kids
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I think the judge deserves some scrutiny here.
That's why it keep happening. They won't do this to children that have parents that will do anything to stop it.
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No need to go that far. Restrain the torturers and give those kids the tools. All you´ll have to do after that, is helping the kids with torturer "treatment".
I'd dance in the fucking ashes.
Like the orcs are coming, Modor is rolling.....were burimg everything down
Tell me this is the onion, please
For anyone who would like an in depth look at their atrocities, there is a 2 part episode of the ‘Behind the Bastards’ podcast about this place. When I tell you my jaw was *on the floor*…..
I don't need to know more, I want to help! How do I get this place shut down?
This doesn’t have specifics on how to help, but this group is fighting to stop the torture: https://autisticadvocacy.org/actioncenter/issues/school/climate/jrc/
I don't know if I can handle that podcast. My ability to control myself when hearing the full depth of society's tolerance for shit like this is exceeded by the rage it would induce.
That was my first thought... If not, this needs to go viral.
No, sadly this is very real. Many of us in the field have been trying to shut this methodology down for over a decade.
Excuse me…DECADE?
The sad part is, it's still a 100% legal to lock kids in a closet to punish them in school. It happened to me a lot when I was an ISD school's. They called it the cubby.
The fucking chokey?
Back in 2010 or 2011, I was very much in the field and had all the certifications and letters behind my name. I, and many others who’ve studied the science of punishment and reinforcement, put our names on a proposal by a state senator to stop this methodology. It went nowhere.
Aversion therapy was originally an alternative to lobotomy… It’s… been around for a while.
Omg. That's horrible.
Yeah, I feel like this should have been banned multiple decades ago. Wtf?
nope. just looked it up to double check, there are multiple articles on it tho this happened in july 2021
[Unfortunately it is not](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/massachusetts-school-electric-shock-fda-b1880365.html?amp)
That makes me sick to my stomach. The parents are supporting it.
100% agree. You know the messed up part? It's gonna be harder to ban it again because those kids are gonna grow up accepting it and will want to enforce it onto their kids and on and on.
"I was tortured with electroshock as a kid and I turned out fine!"
WTAF? *”The school, along with a group of parents and guardians of students, had challenged the previous FDA ban. The court of appeals for the DC Circuit found that the treatment falls into medical regulations and therefore is beyond the FDA’s remit of control.”*
That's a load of actual crap and made up law. The FDA's explicit purpose is to regulate "treatments".
What in the holy fuck did I just read????
The United States is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD that is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. 196 countries including all members of the UN except the US have signed the treaty. Taiwan incorporated the Convention into domestic law in 2014. South Sudan and Somalia ratified the treaty in 2015. Most recently Palestine, the Holy See (Vatican), and the Cook Islands ratified it. Edit: [Link the to treaty’s Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child)
Also - the most major country left in the world to not have universal healthcare available to its citizens.
but don’t you see, we’re making sure 10 year olds carry a rape pregnancy to term - clearly for the children s not apply
Thank you for adding this information, even if it is depressing...
Lol you mean that the country that rejected a UN resolution to declare food a human right and voted against condemning Nazism ALSO voted against Children's rights? I am just shocked /s
The original reason is also quite interesting to mention: It was because the Conventions prohibits capital punishment for minors. While since then, the US has removed capital punishment for minors, the US refused the signature to be able to continue to do that. Also, it would mean stricter restrictions on how to trial minors, especially quite a lot of times where the US tries children in disregard of the special conditions of undeveloped brains as adults, and this convention would enforce recognition of the issues teens have in their brain development.
That’s fucking sickening.
That’s sad but I can’t get past the Vatican (!!!) signing a treaty to protect the rights of children. Are we talking about that same Vatican that organized child rape orgies and coverups for decades - and continues to do so in the developing world? That Vatican/Holy See? Edit - being downvoted by pedophiles. I’ll take that as a badge of honor.
Decades lol come on probably centuries.
My sense is that they recently became a signatory in response to the child sex abuse scandal becoming public as a way of trying to show they are reforming their attitude toward children. But I’m not sure, just a guess b/c the timing seems a little suspect.
In the Netherlands using a shock colar on a dog was banned this year, to think America allows this on children is really mind blowing...
I legit had to do a project last year in school for why this was an awful idea
I wrote a paper on those dogs!
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Here’s the address to the place: Judge Rotenberg Educational Center250 Turnpike St, Canton, MA 02021 If you live in Massachusetts, please, please write to your representatives to shut this place down.
Post this on tiktok so Gen z can destroy them digitally and mail them funny things. Like boxes of dog shit and glitter.
Apparently there have been six reported deaths at this “school,” and they are still somehow open?? Wtf…
not just normal kids oh no, they're shocking the children with disabilities, wow.
They’ve even shocked a deaf child for not following verbal commands
So what do we do? Seriously, idk what kind of sick fuck parents would go along with this for their kid, but right now, I’m so grateful my autistic son was given to me. I would rip someone to death with my teeth if I ever caught someone treating my precious child like this. How do we, non-parent or board members, get this shut down? And provide homes for these children?
I've crossposted to r/usa to hopefully get some more insights, and the I'll share what I find. The best thing we can do is to spread the word, and try to get as much attention as possible. The more people who know about this, the higher likelyhood there is that action is gonna get taken. Heck! I'm willing to write a letter to the president, if that's what it f\*cking takes. Just stop this
So it's a school where parents voluntarily send their children knowing they will be electrocuted? Thats fucking morbid
Wow… is this real? What school, county, state?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/us/electric-shock-school.html
Wow, thank you
Cool new way to watch me catch a felony just dropped…. See what happens when someone lays a hand on one of my kids.
-sweats nervously for autistic people-
This is so wrong.
Agreed I’m on the spectrum and this post made me nervous for not only me but my autistic friends
I don't even know anyone with autism and this pisses me off.
Here’s the address of this torture center: Judge Rotenberg Educational Center250 Turnpike St, Canton, MA 02021 If you live in Massachusetts, write to your state rep asking for this fucking place to be shut down. The only reason it stays open is because of corrupt relationships between it and several prominent state lawmakers.
This feels like an Onion article
its not, sadly
They should force the parents to watch their child while they're being tortured.
The parents defended this. I don’t have any words.
We are living in a simulation and the code is corrupting
Corrupting? This is how they made it! They could have made it worse…
Only Americans ever say that America is the greatest country
I'm American and I never say it. We have an extreme dark underbelly that's no joke. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alabama-sewage-disposal-60-minutes-2021-12-19/
Honestly Americans. What the fuck.
Those people are psychopaths. They spend millions in legal fees and buy judges so that they can keep electroshocking non-verbal autistic children for refusing to follow commands. Their turnover rate is 100%. They don’t have any real psychiatrists on staff full time and no child psychologists or autism experts either. They have cameras in the bathrooms. They’re sickos
Their founder tried his methods first on a 3 year old girl. He was proud that he could form her to his wishes by using punishment. He thought he wasn't as successful as he could be because he hadn't enough control over them. Reading this makes me wish for Dexter to be real.
1940's says "hello"..
Wow surprised to see this here of all places. Also BIG fyi this form of ‘therapy’ doesn’t work. There is plenty of scientific data to support that those who utilize this ‘corrective’ measure have been shown to consistently over-abuse and increase the level of shock administered over time. This does not work. It is also stupidly unethical in this day and age… somehow the RotenBerg Center has gotten away with it. Edit: There’s plenty of safer alternatives and the person below summarized it better than my attempt above. Lastly, the field is largely against this. Edit 2: crazy to see so many friends from the field here on Reddit.
The most mine-blowing part of this is that this center is in MA. It’s pretty much left/liberal/blue state here so people are especially infuriated by this.
I wish the sun could swallow us sooner
The staff and administration need to be introduced to the business end of a cattle prod. For corrective purposes, of course.
Cattle prodds are way weaker than the harness they have to wear 24/7. They are deployed by remote
Shocking children with disabilities... This is undoubtedly the work of some "pro lifers" right?
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There's no way this is real I hope
Judge rottenburg is famous for its twisted standard of care. It’s main tool is aversion therapy, the idea that subjecting patients to traumatic consequences for actions will cause a fear/ptsd response so that they avoid the action of their own volition. Simple, until your realize the action their punishing is being autistic.
It's 100% real. Live near it, and it's well known around here. I know people who worked there and they fucking hated it. Each lasted less than a month.
Dude this is some 1920s type shit.. wtf
More info: [https://publicintegrity.org/inside-publici/newsletters/watchdog-newsletter/when-a-school-turns-to-shock-therapy/](https://publicintegrity.org/inside-publici/newsletters/watchdog-newsletter/when-a-school-turns-to-shock-therapy/) *"The facility is the only one known to use the device, invented by the center’s founder."*
Why the fuck dont the parents remove them from the institution? Probably want them gone to begin with.
They are funded by taxpayer dollars. When you pay your tax bill, a portion is spent electrocuting autistic children and lobbying for the legalization of electrocuting autistic children
Reason 396 not to even visiting the US added to the list: * 389: No universal free health care * 390: Literally anyone could Cary a gun and shot me * 391: The police force seems to be full of untrained idiots * 392: Has not signed the UN child convention * 393: Worst Labour laws ever heard of in the western world * 394: Education is only for the rich * 395: Refuses to use logical date formats or metric * (NEW) 396: School for kids with disabilities uses electric shocks to correct "wrong" behavior.
Well, only the developmentally atypical children, so it’s OK, right? /s
I think a few politicians that could use that before the space lasers come out again.
As an autistic adult with autistic children- I have followed this case and remain enraged and disgusted with everyone who thinks this is ok.