Electroshock by prank call - 'aversive therapy' strikes again

(cross-posted)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22347088/

This story actually happened last August. It took this long to make the news because of how oversight of this school (and others of its type) work.

The school has been in the papers before and we had a poster on Sheroes a couple years ago who was very unhappy with them and others that practice 'aversive' training by shocking the students.

But this story is not just about aversive training - it is also about social psychology and what people will do in the name of an authority figure without verifying it or sufficiently questioning the actions required. This is merely the latest and not the most egregious example of such reaction to ostensible authority.

Thurs., Dec. 20, 2007

BOSTON - Seven people have been fired over electrical shocks given to two emotionally disturbed teenagers at the direction of what turned out to be a prank caller, the operator of the group home where the incident occurred said Thursday.

A state agency concluded that six staffers at a residence run by the Judge Rotenberg Education Center had ample reason to doubt the orders to administer the shocks. The staffers and a video surveillance worker on duty the night of the incident have been fired, school spokesman Ernest Corrigan said.

On Aug. 26, a caller posed as a supervisor and said he was ordering the punishments for the two teens, ages 16 and 19, because they had misbehaved earlier in the evening. But none of the staffers had witnessed any problems, and other boys said the two teens had done nothing wrong. One boy suggested the call was a hoax.

The teens were awakened in the middle of the night and given the shock treatments, at times while their legs and arms were bound. One teen received 77 shocks and the other received 29. One boy was treated for two first-degree burns.

A report released to state lawmakers Wednesday by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care said the caller was a former resident of the center with intimate knowledge of the staff, residents and layout of the home.

No motive was given, and the caller's identity was not disclosed. Police are looking into filing criminal charges.

Unorthodox procedures
The center is believed to be the only school in the United States that uses two-second skin-shock punishments to change destructive behavior. The center says the treatments are used in a minority of cases and only with parental, medical, psychiatric and court approval.

The center has survived two attempts by the state to close it over allegations that its unorthodox methods amount to abuse.

At the time of the call, five of the six staffers had worked double or triple shifts, and most had been on the job less than three months. The staffers were described as concerned and reluctant about the orders, but they failed to verify them with the central office or check treatment plans to make sure the teens could receive that level of shock therapy, the report said. Staffers also did not know who the shift supervisor was that night.