Update on Protests at the Judge Rotenberg Center #StopTheShock

As mentioned before, Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states: “No one has the right to inflict torture, or to subject anyone else to cruel or inhuman treatment.”  The United Nations (UN) declared in 2013 that the following are torture:

 …forced labor, punitive use of electric shock, prolonged restraint and isolation, rape and other sexual violence in detention, as well as and denial of maintenance medications like methadone or buprenorphine (Suboxone) in treating addiction.  It also reported on failures to provide adequate pain treatment as potentially constituting torture.  Even when these practices fall short of outright torture and are merely “ill treatment,” they should be banned in health settings because they “frequently facilitate torture,” the report says. (x)

Punitive use of shock treatment is used in only one place in the world:  The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC).  The JRC is located not just in the United States, not just in Massachusetts, but right here in Norfolk County in Canton.  Their use of electric shock as discipline is used on autistic children and adults.

On June 10th, a group of ADAPT protestors protested the continued use of electric shock at the JRC in front of the Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar’s home.  Twenty six protestors were arrested.  An ADAPT member, Cal Montgomery, was interviewed on Indiana Public Radio.

…But this one institution, the Judge Rotenberg Center, in Canton, Massachusetts, not only are these people institutionalized and put through a fairly rough behavioral program, that we oppose in general. But, one piece of the behavioral program still is, they strap electrodes to people’s bodies, up to four at a time. People then have a device in a backpack that they wear 24 hours a day – in the shower, in bed, at all times. And staff have remote control devices that they use to shock them if they violate the behavior plan. We’ve heard reports of people being shocked for closing their eyes for 15 seconds, or people being shocked for standing up before asking for permission to leave the room.

This is a group of people, it is primarily autistic people, enormously people of color, and almost entirely people from out of state. And this has been going on for 30 years. We – the disability community – have been fighting it for 30 years. And two years ago, in April of 2016, the FDA said, we have written regulations to ban it. It is dangerous, it is unsafe. It causes physical pain, it causes emotional suffering. And then we waited. And so we finally said, we’ve got to take this directly to Alex Azar – short of [President] Donald Trump – this is the man who has the power to stop it. Who we are fairly sure they’re at least hearing us and are aware of our concerns by this point.

On Monday the 11th, ADAPT MA members protested directly at the JRC in Canton, MA. According to WCVB “The state Massachusetts is also trying to stop this shock therapy. The state took the school to court more than two years ago to clear the way to ban the use of the shock therapy, but a probate court judge has yet to issue a decision.”

Like our Facebook page for daily urgent actions on other human rights topics, news, and more.  If you want to learn more about the JRC, Lydia X. Z. Brown’s site and Shain M. Neumeier are two of the best resources on this topic.