The Rotenberg Center

I've been in Massachusetts for 10 years now, and I'd never heard of this place. It appalls me that, living in one of the most liberal states in the country, we allow this sort of thing to exist. There must be some way we can regulate it out of existence even if we as a state can't manage to shut it down in the normal way.

clipped from www.motherjones.com The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the program continues to thrive—in large part because no one except desperate parents, and a few state legislators, seems to care about what happens to the hundreds of kids who pass through its gates.