Wednesday 1 June 2011

The Face of Evil

A follow-up from a previous post.

From the Grauniad:
The founder of a controversial school that treats severely autistic and emotionally disturbed children by shocking them into submission with the use of electrodes has been forced to quit the institution and serve five years' probation.
...
The criminal charges brought against Israel relate to an incident in August 2007 at one of the school's residential homes where students sleep at night. A call came in from someone posing as an authorised supervisor, who informed the carers on duty that two teenagers had misbehaved and should be given shock treatment.

At 2am, the boys were strapped on boards and given multiple shocks. One of the boys, aged 18, was shocked 77 times over a three-hour period and the other boy, aged 16, was shocked 29 times. It was later discovered that the initial call had been a hoax.

The Massachusetts attorney general, Martha Coakley, indicted Israel over allegations that he ordered his staff to destroy video evidence that revealed exactly what happened that night. Prosecutors had previously ordered that the video recordings from the home were preserved.
He knows what he's doing is wrong. He knew that what he did could have landed him in trouble - so like any evildoer, he tried to conceal the evidence.

Anyone who gave him the benefit of the doubt as being merely misguided must now admit that there's no doubt any more.
"I am now almost 78 years old, and it is time for me to move over and let others take the reins," he said in a resignation letter.

But his departure will not materially change the way the school operates, crucially its technique of disciplining children by meting out electric shocks as a form of supposedly therapeutic punishment. Of the school's 225 students, 97 are currently on the electric shock regime.

The terms of the plea deal struck between Israel and the prosecutors require the school to introduce additional monitoring to prevent a similar lapse of security happening again. But the shocks themselves can continue.
The Evil that men do lives after them....

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I agree with you that the evil men do does live after them. We still as inter-sexed or transsexual live with the falsehoods proclaimed by John Money. The proponents of electro-convulsive shock come up with new reasons to continue the destruction of human brains. It is not enough to show that these evil men are evil. They must be tried and imprisoned not allowed to merely retire. We must do what we can to label them as evil and to apply that label to all who follow or quote them as authorities.