In 2007, we ran a devastating exposé of the Judge Rotenberg Center, a "school" that took mentally and psychologically troubled kids from across the country and treated them by hooking them up to electrodes and shocking them whenever they misbehaved or displayed symptoms of their disorders, like autism. Reports from former students and staff were horrific, and Jennifer Gonnerman's extensive reporting helped launch or fortify state and local investigations in the school, and its founder Matthew Israel. Yet despite the investigations and ongoing lawsuits, the school managed to stay open open.
Graphic video of teen being restrained, shocked played in court: MyFoxBOSTON.com
Electric shocks are used as a method of torture, since the received voltage and current can be controlled with precision and used to cause pain and fear without physically harming the victim's body.
Electrical torture has been used in war and by repressive regimes since the 1930s:The US Army is known to have used electrical torture during World War II; Amnesty International published an official statement that Russian military forces in Chechnya tortured local women with electric shocks by attaching wires onto their breasts; Japanese serial killer Futoshi Matsunaga used electric shocks for controlling his victims.
Advocates for the mentally ill and some psychiatrists such as Thomas Szasz have asserted that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is torture when used without a bona fide medical benefit against recalcitrant or non-responsive patients—however such arguments do not apply to ECT when used after the patient has been anesthetized. See above for ECT as medical therapy. A similar argument and opposition apply to the use of painful shocks as punishment for behavior modification, a practice that is openly used only at the Judge Rotenberg Institute