The only thing that sets [the] students [of the Judge Rotenberg Center, a private boarding school for special-education students in Canton, Massachusetts] apart from kids at any other school in America – aside from their special-ed designation – is the electric wires running from their backpacks to their wrists. Each wire connects to a silver-dollar-sized metal disk strapped with a cloth band to the student’s wrist, forearm, abdomen, thigh, or foot. Inside each student’s backpack is a battery and a generator, both about the size of a VHS cassette. Each generator is uniquely coded to a single keychain transmitter kept in a clear plastic box labeled with the student’s name. Staff members dressed neatly in ties and green aprons keep the boxes hooked to their belts, and their eyes trained on the students’ behavior. They stand ready, if they witness a behavior they’ve been told to target, to flip open the box, press the button, and deliver a painful two-second electrical shock into the student at the end of the wire. (source)
More on corporal punishment here, here and here. More absurd human rights violations here.
Have other control tactics been tried but didn’t work? After all, these students are special cases. I am for appropriate punishment and consequences that yield appropriate behavior but this seems a little on the extreme side.