Watchdog Reviews Milestones in Exposing Psychiatric Human Rights Abuses in 2024

LOS ANGELES - Amzeal -- The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) recapped key events in 2024, spotlighting its own efforts and those of other groups to investigate and expose psychiatric human rights violations in the U.S. and worldwide. The organization also reaffirmed its commitment to eliminating coercive psychiatric practices in the year ahead. In September, Amalia Gamio, an expert consultant to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, emphasized the significance of a recent CCHR court victory in Spain, stating it had "set an international precedent in disseminating the abuses that occur in psychiatry to the world…."[1]

The very next month the international group, Human Rights Watch, wrote of the need to "confront a troubling reality: the mental health landscape is shifting in harmful ways in parts of Canada and the United States with the prospect of more coercive measures such as involuntary treatment and the elimination of vital support services." The group further noted, "These coercive measures would violate rights to liberty and nondiscrimination and infringe on people's autonomy."[2]

Those worsening outcomes are particularly evident in for-profit residential psychiatric hospitals, "troubled teen" behavioral facilities, and wilderness treatment camps. Senator Ron Wyden, who led a Senate Finance Committee investigation into the warehousing of youths in such facilities, wrote to the Department of Justice last year, urging an investigation into four of the nation's largest operators of youth residential treatment facilities for civil rights violations and fraud.[3]

In June 2024, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) under the Department of Health and Human Services issued a damning report on the inadequate protection of foster care children in residential behavioral treatment centers. The report said, "Policymakers, news media, and advocacy groups have raised concerns about the effectiveness of oversight efforts to protect children in these settings."[4] The American Bar Association notes: "Every day, thousands of children in foster care are administered powerful psychotropic medications," pointing to the lack of oversight of psychotropic drugs that harm children.[5]

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CCHR has consistently exposed the harm to youths treated in behavioral facilities, including psychotropic drug use and potentially lethal restraints. The closure of 10 "wilderness therapy camps" for youths between 2023 and 2024 marks a promising and necessary trend. One such camp in North Carolina came to national attention when, on February 3, 2024, a 12-year-old was fatally restrained. This prompted swift government action: all children were removed from the facility, admissions were halted, and by May 17, the camp's license was revoked, leading to its closure.

In December, Psychiatric Times published the article, "The Horror of Unjust Psychiatric Hospitalization" commenting on a hard-hitting series by two New York Times reporters in 2024 that exposed abuses and fraud at residential psychiatric facilities. The psychiatrist writing in Psychiatric Times conceded that "Keeping a well person locked in a hospital and taking away their privacy and autonomy" is something to which "we psychiatrists ought to stand up and demand better…." It is the duty of all psychiatrists to demand accountability, he said but there has been little if any, outrage shown within the ranks of psychiatry: "I wonder: How will psychiatrists… respond? More fundamentally, will psychiatrists respond at all?"[6]

CCHR and other external advocates have consistently demanded stronger patient protections. Last year, UN agencies reiterated their condemnation of mandated psychiatric treatments, including electroshock and involuntary detainment in mental hospitals. Electroshock without anesthesia, forcibly administered to children in New Zealand, was officially recognized as "torture," leading to apologies in November from seven government agencies and the country's Prime Minister to the survivors.[7] The recognition follows a 40-year battle led by CCHR, other advocacy groups, and the survivors themselves.

Building on these important victories, CCHR says some psychiatrists are now recognizing a decline in the use of electroshock treatment is imminent. CCHR is reinforcing its campaign to ban the procedure due to its long-term adverse effects and lack of clinical trials that have proven its safety and efficacy.

This growing momentum against electroshock is further supported by recent governmental scrutiny. Senator Rand Paul's 2024 Festivus Waste Report criticized nearly $11 million in Department of Defense spending on electroshock experiments, portraying it as a prime example of government waste and questioning the ethics and necessity of such expenditures.[8]

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CCHR concurs with Human Rights Watch, which said better solutions are needed "that are consent-based, trauma-informed, and focused on human rights."

UN advisers proclaimed the importance of CCHR's impact with the Spanish Supreme Court determining "The debate on certain psychiatric practices and, in particular, on involuntary institutionalization, use of psychotropic drugs, especially when the patients are children or adolescents, or surgical or electroconvulsive treatments, is of particular importance in today's society."[9]

CCHR was co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry, Thomas Szasz who stated: "I have never [involuntarily] committed anyone. I have never given electric shock. I have never, ever, given drugs to a mental patient." It is a legacy that the mental health system today needs to be reminded of, which CCHR is committed to doing throughout the new year.

Sources:

[1] Letter to CCHR from Amalia Gamio, Independent Expert in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 27 Sept. 2024

[2] Samer Mascati, "Championing Support Over Coercion on World Mental Health Day," Human Rights Watch, 10 Oct. 2024, www.hrw.org/news/2024/10/10/championing-support-over-coercion-world-mental-health-day

[3] Tyler Kingkade, "Senator urges DOJ to investigate youth treatment centers after probe uncovers 'rampant abuse," NBC News, 9 Oct. 2024, www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/senator-urges-doj-investigate-youth-treatment-centers-rcna174340

[4] "Many States Lack Information To Monitor Maltreatment in Residential Facilities for Children in Foster Care," June 2024, oig.hhs.gov/documents/evaluation/9920/OEI-07-22-00530.pdf

[5] Elizabeth Pitman Gretter, "Too Much, Too Many, Too Young," American Bar Association, 12 October 2021, www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/empowering-youth-at-risk/too-much-too-many-too-young/

[6] "The Horror of Unjust Psychiatric Hospitalization," Psychiatric Times, 5, Dec. 2024, www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-horror-of-unjust-psychiatric-hospitalization

[7] Adam Pearse, "$150k redress payments for Lake Alice survivors unveiled," NewstalkZB, 18 Dec. 2024, www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/redress-payment-scheme-for-lake-alice-torture-survivors-revealed-by-govt/

[8] "Senator Rand Paul Unveils 2024 Festivus Waste Report," The Pinnacle Gazette, 25 Dec. 2024, evrimagaci.org/tpg/senator-rand-paul-unveils-2024-festivus-waste-report-112471

[9] www.cchrint.org/2024/07/19/spanish-court-upholds-cchrs-campaigns-as-vital/