Heard of Matthew Israel? Killer of autistics

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Holy sh!t is usa f u c k e d! I just read the intro to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Rot ... nal_Center and I'm already sick. This MF killed 6 and tortured hundreds! And courts decide that his punishment is to resign his position?!?! If he's not jailed he should be killed himself!

It's like one sickening thing after another I discover in this world, I swear... keep thinking I want to just shut off everything and know nothing of this corrupt existence... life should have never came into being.

There are a lot of threads on Wrong Planet about the Judge Rotenberg Center.

I guess I wasnt paying attention either...until I saw it brought together into one Wiki article like this before.

Shocking.

Unfortunately, literally.

If this was done to Guantanamo Bay prisoners it would be a national scandal. When its done to black autistic Americans decades of efforts by disability rights groups have not been able to stop it.

If this were done by parents, the children would be removed from the home. Parents whose children died would be charged with murder or manslaughter.

The thing I find the most perplexing are the parents who are supportive of the institution, advocate for it, and want to keep it open.

Florida had an institution where children died from time to time, not from torture per se, but general neglect. Like being restrained in bed and then forgotten about. Florida - Florida mind you - closed this institution.

For $275,000 (the quoted annual cost of the JRC) Florida can provide a home-like intensive behavior home where adversive use is minimal and never ever is physical harm or humiliation or torture used. When I was working, I monitored care in some of these homes and it was good to excellent.

This is Florida mind you, home of the "Florida man" and where any adult can carry a concealed gun without permit or training, not even safety training. Surely if Florida can do it, there is no need for something like the JRC.

Because, if JRC is closed, or if New Yorkers are no longer allowed to send their severely disabled children there, then the only other place that would likely accept their children is Sunmount, a large prison-like facility that the parents regard as far worse than the JRC. See:

- Sunmount at center of OPWDD controversy
- New York parents of disabled youth may see a 1-year reprieve from OPWDD

So the problem would seem to be a lack of good alternatives.

IMO, activists who want to close down the JRC need to advocate for better local alternatives as well. That's the only possible way to get the parents on board.

Does NYS have medicaid waiver funding for behavior intensive group homes?

Some years ago I was in contact with the man in charge of the JRC, he is in my view a deeply unpleasent person.

I do not know if you are aware of this but the best data for radium in humans is as the result of a deranged experiment at the Elgin asylum in the USA where some "genius" had the bright idea of trying to cure mental illnesses with injections of radium. This is what lead to the Norris function for radium retention in people.

https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/105 ... 93-16A.pdf

Now you might ask why I mention the radium experiments at Elgin, the reason is that at Elgin someone was allowed to try out their ideas and use the paitents as experimental animals in what I regard as dangerous experiments. I hold the view that the JRC was a place where some people were able to experiment on people putting them in a "Skinner Box" in what I regard as an immoral experiment.

He argued that his "treatments" had no adverse side effects, I think that he was a foolish man who had deeply horrible and disturbing ideas. I was trying to gather information from him which was then to be used in a blog article which I hoped would add to the case for closing or reforming the place. However I could not devote myself 100 % to the blog article writing project. While I was gathering information in my spare time the criminal case brewed up and then he was forced to take early retirement. I think he got off lightly.

I don't live in NY but your probably right, we have had similar scandals in the UK, usually involving adult homes for severely autistic and ID people.

There`s usually a big media event, the place closes down & the problem moves somewhere else, but is not talked about there and is quietly forgotten.

The problem is severe ID or profound autism is an ugly thing to most people, including among many more capable autistic people themselves. This sentiment is more so for kids, as in contrast to the elderly & dementia, society can at least take comfort in the fact that it usually occurs at the end of life.

With kids there is usually a sense of helplessness and injustice that makes society shy away from confronting. This is why when you hear stories about autism on the news its more likely to be the autistic kid that writes a book rather than the ones more disabled.

Its just human nature, the only solution is more medical research to increase people to a minimum level of functioning where they don't end of locked away in these places or any place.

I am of the opinion now the society, in general, would rather kill us disabled off, rather than look at us. My parents, when they were more than pissed off at me, would tell me, to my face, we should have left you die as an infant. I’m still waiting for sweet death to come and take me, as I’m no longer worth a tinker’s damn.