Shock Tactics

I can hardly imagine the fury and helplessness of these prank victims when they were subjected to non-fatal electrocutions. Makes me wonder who's really mentally disturbed here.

State officials are allowing a controversial special education school to use electric shock treatments on students for another year. ... The decision comes after an August incident in which two emotionally disturbed students were wrongly given dozens of shocks after a prank call from a person posing as a supervisor.

A state report found that staff made multiple mistakes when they followed the prank caller's directions. The report by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care said six staffers at a Stoughton residence run by the Canton-based school had reason to doubt the orders to administer the shocks, but did nothing to stop it. The six staff members and video surveillance worker on duty that night were fired on Oct. 1.

After the Aug. 26 call, the teens, ages 16 and 19, 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. The caller said he was ordering the punishments because the teens had misbehaved earlier in the evening. But none of the staffers had witnessed any problems.

The school, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, was the subject of a recent Mother Jones investigation.