It Will Not Go Away

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass., is once more in the news. This time it is the subject of an Urgent Appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture by an organization known as Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI). Similar appeals have been made to authorities in New York, Massachusetts and California; people have been upset with the Center almost since the day it opened its doors. But the Center has beaten all of these appeals back.

The Center treats those who can find no help in conventional settings. It is the last hope for parents whose children are really and sadly out of control through no fault of their own. The Center's approach is a rather unique form of behavior modification: torture. The MDRI is correct. What is done to these kids is torture. Yet, the Center has been able to stay in business for more than forty years despite its periodic resurgence in the news because of what seems like barbaric treatment of its patients. Why is that?