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Prank Call Led To Shock Treatment
Disabled Persons Protection Committee Investigating
December 18, 2007
BOSTON -- State officials are
investigating complaints that staff at the Judge Rotenberg Education
Center gave three people -- including two teens -- 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 school allegedly called in orders for
electric shock treatments on Aug. 26 and the Rotenberg center
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.
Nancy Alterio, executive director
of the state's Disabled Persons Protection Committee, confirmed that
her agency is investigating a complaint that an adult at the a
residential facility in Stoughton run by the Rotenberg center
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 so-called prank call ... was
an isolated, unprecedented incident that occurred more than three
months ago," the school's senior counsel, Ernest 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 the
residential 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."
Two state legislators called on
Gov. Deval Patrick to take quick action to put strict regulations in
place for the use of shock therapy.
"In a word, this incident is
horrifying and it would be immoral for the Legislature and the
executive branch not to react strongly and swiftly," said Sen. Brian
A. Joyce, who has previously sponsored legislation to ban electric
shock therapy.
"This incident has already been
addressed and resolved through changes made to JRC's security and
operating procedures. Those changes were reported to JRC's state
licensing agency as part of their investigation," Corrigan said. "We
have modified procedures to assure that an incident of this type
cannot occur ever again."
Campbell said the school has
submitted a corrective action plan that is now being reviewed by the
agency.
Kenneth Mollins, a New York
attorney who has filed several lawsuits against the Rotenberg center
alleging the mistreatment of children at the Canton-based school,
sent a letter Monday to Patrick and various state agencies, calling
on the state to investigate the complaints, which were first
reported by The Examiner newspaper, of Washington.
"The governor needs to take a look
and see what's happening here. There is nobody overseeing the store.
If somebody can just call and ask that somebody be shocked, there is
a significant problem," Mollins said.
The center, believed to be the only
school in the nation that uses skin-shock punishments to stop
violent behavior, is no stranger to controversy. It has survived two
attempts by the state to close it amid allegations that its
unorthodox methods amount to abuse.
Massachusetts was required to pay
the center $580,000 after it unsuccessfully sought to close the
school following the 1985 death of a 22-year-old student who
suffered a seizure while restrained and forced to listen to static
noise.
More recently an investigation was
ordered to determine if a shock device malfunctioned, causing burns
to one student. The center also agreed to stop referring to staff
members as psychologists if they have not been licensed with the
state.
On Monday, the center defended its
use of the intensive treatment methods.
The procedures are applied "only
after obtaining prior parental, medical, psychiatric, human rights,
peer review and individual approval from a Massachusetts Probate
Court," Corrigan said.
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