Tag Archives: electroshock

U.N. investigating Judge Rotenberg Center’s Use of Electroshock of Kids as Torture

Powerful video of a Judge Rotenberg Center student shocked and restrained for hours continues to reverberate on Beacon Hill and beyond, with opponents of the treatment stepping up efforts to ban the shocks as the United Nations expert on torture says he’s investigating the school. The video has helped fuel a renewed lobbying effort to ban the long-controversial shocks. Several opponents of the shocks, including the mother of the student in that video, visited lawmakers’ offices today to press for the ban.

“We’re going to continue to let our children be tortured? I just hope that they come to their senses are realize this is wrong and it’s been wrong for the last 27 years,” said Cheryl McCollins, mother of former Rotenberg Center student Andre McCollins.

Human Rights Group CCHR Gets Brave New Voice with Rapper Chill E.B.

The rap artist Chill E.B. is bringing the message of freedom from abuse to the masses, in his latest video. One of the rappers main causes is the group CCHR.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a nonprofit mental health watchdog, responsible for helping to enact more than 150 laws protecting individuals from abusive or coercive practices. CCHR has long fought to restore basic inalienable human rights to the field of mental health, including, but not limited to, full informed consent regarding the medical legitimacy of psychiatric diagnosis, the risks of psychiatric treatments, the right to all available medical alternatives, and the right to refuse any treatment considered harmful.

Internet Users Rise Up Against Electroshocking Kids—Change.org Petition Seeks to End Torture

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton is the only place in the country where kids with severe behavioral problems are shocked when they misbehave. You read that right. After the release of a video depicting such a shock session, the Internet is rising in opposition to the practice, which the school claims to use as a clear disincentive to bad behavior — especially for kids who have difficulty with regular comprehension. It’s sort of like blasting your dog with a spray bottle when he tries to eat something off the table. Except replace dog with human, spray bottle with battery powered electric shock device, and eat something off the table with anything contra to what staff members instruct.

The Rotenberg Center, which administrated over 30 Electroshocks to teen in 7 hours—is being sued

Following a year in the cross-hairs of state officials critical of its controversial electric-shock methods, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton is on the defensive again, this time fighting off a civil lawsuit in Norfolk Superior Court that has quickly attracted national and international media coverage. Andre McCollins, now 26, and his mother, Cheryl McCollins of Brooklyn, N.Y., is the plaintiff in the negligence lawsuit against the Rotenberg Center and three of its psychologists. The lawsuit says that in 2002 Andre received 30 electric shocks over a seven-hour period while he was also restrained face-down.

Graphic Video of Teen Being Restrained, Electroshocked Played in Court

Video of a student restrained and shocked for hours at the Judge Rotenberg Center was played in court on Tuesday after a years-long battle by the center to keep it from the public eye.
The video, which shows former resident Andre McCollins screaming, writhing in pain, and begging for help, was played at the start of McCollins’ trial against the Canton-based Judge Rotenberg Center.

“I never signed up for him to be tortured, terrorized and abused,” Cheryl McCollins told the jury. “I had no idea, no idea, that they tortured the children in the school.”

The Rotenberg Center convinced a judge eight years ago to seal the video, and the battle continued up until Tuesday morning when their attorneys asked Superior Court Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara to bar FOX Undercover’s camera from recording the video as it was played.

Dortch-Okara denied the center’s request, clearing the way to give the public the first look at how these controversial electric shocks are used. The video was taken by one of the center’s classroom cameras.

McCollins, then 18 years old, was shocked 31 times that day in 2002. Lawyers for the center and its clinicians say it was part of the treatment he needed to quell his aggressive behavior.