The UN report to the USA on ABA as torture (2013)

Post Reply New Topic

I'm not sure if this has been posted on WP before. I am creating this thread in the hope that the information will be useful to anyone lobbying against ABA at state or higher levels now or at any time in the future. I am hoping to build up a file of resource material for opponents of ABA to use. The UN has warned the USA that what it is allowing is unacceptable.

This is a report from the Human Rights Council (part of the UN General Assembly). This title of the full report (which covers many many countries, including the USA) is

"Report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishments"

Date of Release: 12 March 2013

I am posting in full the part where the Special Rapporteur addresses the USA on ABA. (Not posting the link because the full report on all countries is about 200 pages long and this small part is embedded). So I have copied in full the relevant section of the report here:

United States of America
(a) JAL 11/06/2012 Case No. USA 6/2012 State reply: 02/01/2013 Alleged mistreatment
with electric shock of children and young adults enrolled in the residential
programme of the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts
149. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of the United States of America for
its response, dated 2 January 2013 to this communication concerning the treatment suffered
by children and young adults enrolled in the residential programme of the Judge Rotenberg
Center (JRC), including the use of aversive therapy by means of electric shock and physical
means of restraints. In its reply, the Government reports that the JRC uses Graduated
Electronic Decelerators (GED) to deliver contingent skin shocks as a form of aversive
behavior control, including two versions of the GED, namely the GED3A and GED4, that
are modified beyond what was approved for use by the United States Food and Drug
Administration (FDA).

The Government explained that the FDA has sent a warning letter
to the JRC on 6 December 2012, demanding prompt corrective action as regards the use of
modified GEDs and requesting a meeting to discuss discontinuing their use. The
Government also reported that “the use of aversive therapy by JRC has been challenged
through a variety of state and federal legislative and judicial actions,” including the
Department of Justice‟s (DOJ) investigation into possible violations of civil rights laws,
which remains open and ongoing. In this context the Government reiterates that it would
gladly provide additional information once that investigation is complete.

In Massachusetts a variety of measures that would regulate or ban the use of aversive treatment have been
introduced in recent years but failed to pass into law. However, the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts‟ Department of Developmental Services (DDS) amended its behavior
modification regulations in October 2011 in order to ban all schools in Massachusetts from
using certain aversive interventions unless a child had a court-approved treatment plan that
allowed for their use prior to 1 September 2011. The Government additionally stated that in
New York State, regulations have been enacted prohibiting all day or residential schools
from using aversive interventions, which also provide for annually renewable exemptions
in cases of children whose state-mandated “individualized education plans” approved the
use of aversive therapy prior to 30 June 2009. Furthermore, New York authorities expect
that by June of 2014, all (New York) residents at JRC, including those who remain subject
to court-approved aversive interventions, will be offered placements in New York State
where such interventions are not authorized.

The Special Rapporteur welcomes new information received indicating that in February 2013 the State of Massachusetts
announced it was seeking a reversal of the court order that had approved treatment plans
using aversive therapy. Although the Special Rapporteur appreciates the Government‟s
response, he expresses serious concern about the physical and mental integrity of the
students residing at JRC, in view of the continued use of electric shock therapy and
physical means of restraint as part of the JRC educational programme. He notes that
although in 2011 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts‟ Department of Developmental
Services (DDS) approved regulation changes that limited the use of Level III Aversive
Interventions (including skin shock), this new regulation does still allow the use of electric
shocks for those students who had an existing court-approved treatment plan as of
September 1, 2011 (115 CMR 5.14). Under the revised regulations, only new students in
Massachusetts are protected from Level III aversives, including electric shock or prolonged
restraints. The Special Rapporteur notes with great concern that many students at the JRC
are still eligible for the Level III Aversive Interventions, including electro-shock treatment.

The Special Rapporteur is also concerned that Massachusetts regulations would not apply
in other states. JRC, previously called the Behavioral Research Institute, was previously
located in California and Rhode Island. There is nothing to stop JRC from simply
relocating again to another state. Protections are needed at the federal level to ensure that
Level III aversives are brought to an end in the United States of America.The Special
Rapporteur understands that, under individualized court orders now in place for JRC
patients, the use of Level III aversives have been justified as form of treatment,
rehabilitation, habilitation, or education for persons with disabilities.

The Special Rapporteur would like to draw attention to mandates‟ recent report on the applicability of
the torture and ill-treatment framework in health-care settings (A/HRC/22/53, 1 February
2103). As the report states in paragraph 18, authoritative interpretations of international
human rights law by international bodies have established that a violation of the
Convention against Torture may occur “where the purpose or intention of the State‟s action
or inaction was not to degrade, humiliate or punish the victim, but where this nevertheless
was the result.” The report calls into question the concept that medical necessity may ever
be used to justify a treatment practice that induces severe emotional or physical pain (see
paras. 31-35), “This is particularly the case when intrusive and irreversible, nonconsensual
treatments are performed on patients from marginalized groups, such as persons
with disabilities, notwithstanding claims of good intentions or medical necessity” (para.
32).

The Special Rapporteur reminds the Government of paragraph 7a of Resolution 8/8 of
the Human Rights Council, according to which corporal punishment, including that of
children, can amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or even torture. The
Special Rapporteur further reminds of his report to the 60th session of the General
Assembly, in which he determined that any form of corporal punishment is contrary to the
prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and
that States cannot invoke provisions of domestic law to justify violations of their human
rights obligations under international law, including the prohibition of corporal punishment.

The Special Rapporteur also reiterates that in paragraph 5 of General Comment No. 20, the
Human Rights Committee stated that the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment must
extend to corporal punishment, including excessive chastisement ordered as punishment for
a crime or as an educative or disciplinary measure. Therefore and in the absence of
evidence to the contrary, the Special Rapporteur determines that the rights of the students of
the JRC subjected to Level III Aversive Interventions by means of electric shock and
physical means of restraints have been violated under the UN Convention against Torture
and other international standards. The Special Rapporteur calls on the Government to
ensure a prompt and impartial investigation into these continued practices. He calls on the
Government to provide information on the Department of Justice‟s (DOJ) investigation into
possible violations of civil rights laws and to take measures to prohibit the use of Level III
Aversive Interventions for all students on a national level, including those students who had
an existing court-approved treatment plan as of 1 September 2011 in Massachusetts.

End.

Aversive shock therapy treatment on kids is ret*d. You want to create an angry violent autistic kid. This is a good way to do it.

I think sound ABA relies on positive reinforcement, not negative. Based on what I have read, there are perhaps some sound ABA treatments out there, but there are also some bad ones....

Sometimes I read things by parents saying their autistic child is getting more and more violent. I sometimes have to wonder.... why? Are they being abused without their knowing??? It just makes me wonder....... you read all these sympathy stories from parents saying their autistic kid is violent.... but whyyy???

This goes beyond ABA and extends to parenting and societal effects. I mean if I were to have a meltdown I think I would direct the rage into inanimate objects. It makes me think that some of these autistic violent kids we hear about really are angry at specific people and for a good reason.

Well, what do I know. It just makes me wonder

This is mainly about the JRC (a school in Massachusetts that uses electro-shock aversion "therapy" on autistic students and students with other mental health issues). The issue of the UN calling the "treatment" at the JRC torture has been posted about in a number of threads on WP before.

I think I was excessively chastised.

I can't believe people are still being treated with electric shock therapy. That's awful.

The issue has been raised, as you say, many times, (including by me) previously. That is not why I posted this thread. Despite that it has been a topic of many threads, I was unable to find actual text of the UN's report itself on WP, and have posted the actual report here, as I mentioned obliquely above, in the hope that it will be a reference/for resource for lobbyists, specifically I have in mind people actively making submissions to senators and committees on ABA, as AspieUtah has recently done. For these greater specificity re references is very useful in making submissions more compelling.

I hope we will soon have a "bank" of references that future lobbyists can use, if you have some good ones referencing the unsoundness et al of ABA, please post them here. I wasn't really thinking of debating ABA all over again here - as you say there are 3 million threads that do that! Obviously I am totally opposed. I've heard all the "for" arguments a zillion times.

This one is intended for people who want to be activists or already are.

Still hoping to build this into a resource and reference bank, here is a potentially useful link for ABA activists to ponder:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/2 ... 72554.html