Reader Comments to the Boston Globe article:
http://www.boston.com/community/moms/ar ... ll#addCommJustWords wrote:
Anyone who chimes in to slam this guy: you ARE willing to open your home to these students, many of whom can and would smash your heads through a wall, or bash their own against the bricks until they knock themselves out cold, right? You DO have an effective alternative for these cases, no?
The option for these kids is to be heavily sedated and locked in an isolated, padded room. These kids aren't shocked because they spill milk, and the shocking isn't to 'punish' in the way you lay people think of the term. It's a last resort for the hardest of the hard behaviors to manage, and it DOES work. This is the last bulwark against resorting to a chemical lobotomy, or serious physical harm - if not both.
Think before you judge what you have never seen in person, or had the misfortune of experiencing as the destructive force of nature that it can be, visited upon the life of desperate parents. It’s like a Joplin storm in every home, every day.
The prank revealed an ugly side of human nature, but one that is hardly unique to the Rotenberg Center or its methods. Consider the Milgram experiment, or the case of the prank caller who convinced that McDonalds manager to have his female employee strip down naked for him in his office.
Take note of the amount of abuse that already occurs against kids with severe special needs in more mainstream institutions - especially against students who present the severe challenges posed by these hardest of the hard cases, to say nothing of the all too common sexual assaults against in the more defenseless.
The Rotenberg Center offers hope of progress. The obstructionists offer only the cynical alternative of doom. Elevate your concerns above your own sensibilities, or your preconceived notions of 'humane' - accept the reality of the situation, and understand that this is no more cruel than the infliction of harm that is radiation therapy for a cancer patient. Nothing in waters this deep is without risk or suffering.
It is nature itself who forces our hands. If they must suffer - and they do one way or the other - at least don't take away this last measure of hope that is the only one available to these families stuck in a living hell you are happy not to fully understand.
Please. Just stay out of the way.
Or consider the
5/26/2011 8:26 AM EDT Recommend (
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brainbark wrote:
Imagine each day, every day, having electrodes attached to your skin, and having to wear a backpack containing a battery and wires attached to those electrodes. Anytime a staff person observes you "misbehaving", the staff person can press a remote control which delivers painful electric shocks to your skin. This is life at the Rotenberg Center. Even though this story was fairly thorough, there was one glaring omission – it should have included quotes from people with disabilities who have had a firsthand experience of receiving these painful electric shocks, day in and day out.
5/26/2011 9:45 AM EDT Recommend (6) Report abuse Permalink
wimsy wrote:
Sick, sick, sick. One group of perverts watches on TV monitors while another gang of degenerates inflicts shock treatments on mentally-ill children. And it's all on tape, so they can go back and relive the fun anytime -- unless it's evidence, in which case, they erase it.
Does "adverse" treatment work? Sure, but it's just torture by a clinical name.
5/26/2011 9:57 AM EDT Recommend (6) Report abuse Permalink
148634 wrote:
shock therapy vs a bunch or thorizine shufflers. but i would bet it is much easier to deal with people if you just dope them up each day. shock has instant results, or just keep someone good and drugged and it does what? patient a i take all these drugs and i don't act violent at all. what do you do i drool thats about it. how is th4e shock therapy well when i start getting violent towards others i get shocked, do you continue to act violent, no i don't, i don't like shocks. I will say it is much cheaper and safer to just keep them drugged up to prevent inuries to themselves and others. As long as any person giving the shocks is required to also see hwat it feels like. Maybe if some of these drug happy medicate people were required to take the same drugs they wouldn't be so quick to drug up everyone they treat.
5/26/2011 11:51 AM EDT Recommend Report abuse Permalink
ssmith31415 wrote:
According to the article, there were 30+ parents there in the courtroom to support Matthew Israel -- surely some of them are willing to talk about why. Perhaps the Globe should do its job and write a story about the parents and their difficult choices.
5/26/2011 1:44 PM EDT Recommend (2) Report abuse Permalink
trills wrote:
Not only was Harvard's Dr. Matthew Israel spying on the children, he was also spying on the staff members to insure not a single infraction of his rules went unpunished.
Obviously, it is not unusual at Rotenberg to wake children in the night, restrain them with belts and straps, and spend three and more hours electrocuting them.
One boy was given 77 (admitted to) electro shocks on the same spots on his skin over and over again for three hours
as the result of a prank phone call from someone familar with Israel's mandates.
The boy's skin, nerves, and blood vessels must have been badly burned. His body must have been horribly disfigured. He must have cried out for mercy and for compassion.
Harvard's Dr. Matthew Israel ignored him.
While being filmed, other children died as a result of the electrocutions at Rotenberg. (Those are called "snuff" films in the porno market.)
Harvard's Matthew Israel is a psychosexual sadist who keeps multiple videos of his torture of special needs children.
Israel's Judge was Kenneth Fishmen who appointed Issac Borenstein to conduct an investigation into the practices at the center.
That's problematic. Isn't Isaac Borenstein handling the umpteenth appeal of Ben LaGuer. And isn't the basis of the retired Judge's appeal that the 59 yr. old white woman (who unwittingly opened the door to her attacker), was too mentally ill to identify the black male who bound, raped and tortured her for 8 hours and left her for dead in her own home.
And still, Israel, the sadist doctor, has access to the special needs child torture and videos. Shut that operation down.
5/26/2011 5:19 PM EDT Recommend (2) Report abuse Permalink
Lambs33 wrote:
To "Just Words"
I can understand the frustration you feel when you write:
"Anyone who chimes in to slam this guy: you ARE willing to open your home to these students, many of whom can and would smash your heads through a wall, or bash their own against the bricks until they knock themselves out cold, right? You DO have an effective alternative for these cases, no?"
--------
And, of course, the JRC, has had its successes (not to be discounted!) in such cases where a student is trying to gouge out his/her eyes, etc.-- those DIRE EMERGENCIES that a student can cause for himself/herself and for staff members. And we give you a lot of credit for dealing with this most difficult group and for all the successes.
I understand the use of "skin shock" better, but only in such cases as this, as I find the very idea of shock treatment totally inhumane and always will.
What disturbs and depresses so many of us greatly is the ABUSE of such a treatment where it is really not called for at all and also the DEGREE of pain inflicted on those afflicted by conditions they never bargained on in the first place, such as autism, developmental delays ...
YES, we have compassion for the families of these students and their suffering, and for the very real fear that staff members must feel about those students who have already displayed their violent tendencies, HOWEVER, to routinely zap a good portion of the student population for minor things IS ABUSE. No other word for it.
The 2 second sting (likened to a bee sting, which is painful enough) is far worse than expressed by the director and his staff members, so this is not so much about our own sensibilities, but about protecting those entrusted to your care in the best way possible, so that your school becomes more of a haven for the afflicted as well as a respite for their exhausted families. Is this possible? I hope so, as we all do.
If it becomes possible under a new director's leadership, the school will do well even with this recent bad publicity and will indeed earn the 6 digit figure per student who comes to your school.
Lastly, instead of the attitude, Please. Just stay out of the way," can that attitude be adjusted to incorporate both the good and the bad feedback, carefully consider it, and make the adjustments so that no child need feel needlessly terrorized. We all have a stake in this rightfully, as our tax dollars are paying your salaries, so PLEASE TRY TO UNDERSTAND WHERE WE ARE COMING FROM. We won't ever mind our own business as far as human rights abuses and tax dollars ill spent.
"Thank you for listening"
5/26/2011 5:24 PM EDT Recommend (1) Report abuse Permalink
GEORGEREM wrote:
IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE SCHOOL OR PROGRAM I DO NOT THINK YOU SHOULD COMMENT ON IT. IF YOU HAVE AND DO NOT AGREE THAT IS FINE. BUT TO ONLY GO BY WHAT YOU READ OF HOW OTHER PEOPLE FEEL IS WRONG.MANY KIDS AT THIS SCHOOL HAVE BEEN HELPED AND THERE LIVES SAVED.
THIS IS NOT THE BAD PLACE IT IS MADE UP TO BE, MANY GOOD THINGS HAPPEN HERE.
JUST THANK GOD YOU DO NOT HAVE AN OUT OF CONTROLL CHILD AND HAVE TO MAKE THE DIFFICULT CHOICE.
5/26/2011 5:47 PM EDT Recommend Report abuse Permalink
ParentsRights wrote:
I'm still trying to figure out why it took Attorney General Martha Coakley 4 years to get a "not guilty" plea? If Dr. Israel is such a risk to the safety of the students, why is he being allowed to stay until the end of the year? Obviously this was not a criminal case but a political one. For those who have followed the history of the Judge Rotenberg Center vs. some in the legislature (who are also supporters of the Attorney General), then that becomes clear.
I agree, it was too bad the newspapers and TV news did not show all the support from the parents and a former student of JRC. They made it clear that they feel less safe, NOT more, with Dr. Israel leaving.
As for State Senator Joyce, perhaps he will do more than ride by the school on his way to work and actually go inside before pushing unneeded legislation!
5/26/2011 8:05 PM EDT Recommend Report abuse Permalink
flana wrote:
Matthew Israel should be praised, not villified. These children are not welcome anywhere else in the country and their parents are at witts end. The parents are praising Mr. Israel, because their lives have been a living hell. I wish Senator Brian Joyce and Attorney General Martha Caokley would volunteer for a day at the Rottenberg center. They wouldn't last 10 minutes . These kids bang their heads against walls, most wear helmets, they chew their own skin and rip at their genitals, and throw feces. They eat the cork off of bulletin boards and have incredible physical strentgh and unlike the biased reporting in the Boston Globe today, they are not "punished" by electrical shock, they are "corrected" and jolted into reality, in an attempt to calm them down. It revolts the do-gooders, but it works!
Do these same do-gooders consider it "punishment", when their treasured family pets have an invisable fence placed around their yard? How come they consider it training and "behavioral" in that instance and "punishment" in the Rottenberg instance. This man, Matthew Israel, is a blessing, and all of the parents that have sent their kids from across the country, because their own states couldn't handle them, will vouch for him, as did the many he had in court yesterday to support him.
I say to the politician's, quit trying to make political hay over a very difficult situation. The people that work at Judge Rotteberg are heroe's. I live in Canton and I know people that give their heart and soul dealing with those kids every day. Again I say to the Senator and Attorney General, go volunteer and do good deeds for a day at the Rottenberg Center!
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