Prank Call Leads To Shock Treatments

State officials are investigating complaints that staff at a special needs residential school gave at least two teenagers unnecessary electric shock treatments after receiving a prank phone call from someone pretending to be from the office of the school's founder.

Initial investigations showed that a former student at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center allegedly called in orders for electric shock treatments on Aug. 26 and officials at the school self-reported the prank call and unnecessary treatments the day after they occurred, Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Early Education and Care, said Monday.

"There is still an ongoing criminal investigation," the school's senior counsel, Ernest Corrigan, said. "We are working very closely with investigators."

Nancy Alterio, executive director of the state's Disabled Persons Protection Committee, confirmed that her agency is investigating a complaint that a third victim -- an adult -- at the a residential facility in Stoughton run by the Rotenberg center also received unnecessary shock treatments after the phone call.

The complaints have also been referred to the state police and the Norfolk District Attorney's Office, Alterio said.

The school treats people with a wide variety of behavior problems, including autistic-like students who have aggressive, self-injurious or destructive behaviors and high-functioning students with psychiatric or emotional problems, according to a description posted on its web site.

"The so-called prank call ... was an isolated, unprecedented incident that occurred more than three months ago," Corrigan said in a statement released Monday. "We immediately reported it to the appropriate state agencies and the local police."

The state Department of Early Education and Care said it investigated a complaint about two youths -- ages 16 and 19 -- who were given unnecessary shock treatments on Aug. 26 after someone claiming to be on the staff of Dr. Matthew Israel -- the psychologist who founded the school -- called facility and ordered the treatments.

"We found that there were breaches of internal control procedures that happened in this particular case," Campbell said. "We take this very seriously."

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http://wbztv.com/local/shock.treatments.prank.2.612815.html

:sarcasm:

these shocks as a whim or on the word of one person is criminal in its stupidity.

And on kids! :mad:

--IMM

I have seen it used for severe depression when nothing else worked and there were amazing results. I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself on a close relative.

In this case, however, that is terrible!!

how such criminally stupid and incompetent people are running that place.

Throw them all out.

Pay very poorly for the most part. And there is not the type of training that should be requisite.

When I was working with the DD crowd, my co-workers (some with Master Degrees in Psychology) would get their panties in a knot when one of the clients went on a shoplifting spree.

Apparently they never read of the brain's inability to master executive functions once that portion of the brain goes haywire. Instead, they would react as though it were a moral issue.

Those in executive positions often are more interested in attracting yet another family and client for their rosters so that they can get more grant money to build more facilties, than in seeing that the day to day is carried out properly.

maybe they'll fall for it.