LOS ANGELES - Marylandian -- As the American Psychiatric Association (APA) holds its annual meeting in Los Angeles, a diverse coalition of human rights advocates, civil rights leaders, clergy, medical professionals, and attorneys gathered outside the convention center, calling for an urgent end to coercive psychiatric practices. Led by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), the demonstration highlighted restraint-related deaths of children, the use of involuntary treatment, and the lack of accountability in a mental health system that received $329 billion in federal funding in 2022.

Central to the protest were the tragic deaths of children subjected to restraint. Ja'Ceon Terry, 7, and Cornelius Frederick, 16, both African American foster children, died after being physically restrained in psychiatric or behavioral facilities. Most recently, 12-year-old Clark Harman died following restraint at a North Carolina behavioral therapy camp. Medical examiners ruled the deaths as homicides, yet legal consequences were limited.[1]

"These were preventable deaths," said Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International. "Psychiatry's continued failure to denounce and prohibit violent restraints, forced drugging, and electroshock treatment enables torture and human rights abuse to persist."

While the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations (UN), and the World Psychiatric Association have called for the elimination of coercive psychiatric practices—including forced drugging, electroshock, restraints, and seclusion—the APA has not adopted a formal position aligning with these standards. The WHO reaffirmed its stance earlier this year, classifying such interventions as incompatible with human rights protections.

Speakers at the rally cited data and documented cases indicating widespread issues:

• Over 37% of child and youth psychiatric inpatients in the U.S. have been subjected to seclusion or restraints—often for behavior not considered threatening.[2]
• A Cornell University study concluded these interventions are frequently triggered by "relatively benign behaviors."[3]
• In California, 17 deaths occurred in just 21 for-profit psychiatric hospitals across six years, with over 300 serious violations reported.[4]
• A Los Angeles Times investigation uncovered 100 preventable deaths, including suicides and homicides, in psychiatric facilities across the state in a 10-year span.[5]
• Major hospital chains have faced federal probes and civil litigation resulting in $580 million in jury awards for child sexual abuse cases within psychiatric facilities.
• Use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) increased 39% in California between 2021 and 2023, despite legal rulings requiring brain damage risk disclosures.

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CCHR questioned the continued rise in federal mental health funding, which increased 315% between 2000 and 2022, while the U.S. population grew just 18%. Advocates contend that despite the $329 billion invested in 2022, national outcomes have not improved:

• The U.S. remains one of the saddest nations globally, with record-high suicides and mental health-related deaths. Suicides are increasing.[6]
• Over 76 million Americans—including 6.1 million children—are prescribed psychotropic drugs with serious documented side effects such as emotional numbing, suicidal thoughts, and withdrawal complications.

"This is not healthcare—it's a $329 billion failure built on legalized abuse," Eastgate said. "Restrained children have died crying 'I can't breathe.' There must be accountability for this."

Addressing Racial Disparities

Rev. Frederick Shaw, Jr., president of the NAACP Inglewood-South Bay branch, spoke to the disproportionate impact on Black Americans:

• African American patients are more likely to receive higher doses of antipsychotics, which carry an increased risk of Tardive Dyskinesia, a debilitating drug-induced movement disorder.[7]
• More than 27% of Black youth in the U.S. are labeled with "oppositional defiant disorder," a diagnosis that has no medical test to substantiate it.[8]
• Shaw noted parallels to the 1960s, when civil rights activists were labeled with "protest psychosis" and drugged with antipsychotics. "Today's psychiatric labeling and drugging continues a pattern that historically has marginalized and drugged dissent—chemical racism."

Concerns for Veterans

Civil rights attorney and former U.S. Army captain Joseph J. Cecala, Jr., raised concerns about psychiatric drug prescribing within the military:

• Antidepressants—associated with increased suicide risk—account for two-thirds of the Department of Veterans Affairs' psychiatric drug budget.[9]
• Veterans make up nearly 13% of adult suicides in the U.S.—over 6,000 lives lost every year.[10]
• A Department of Defense-funded report cautioned that psychotropic prescribing trends in the U.S. potentially could be exploited by adversaries against America.[11] "If these drugs pose a national security risk, we must seriously question their widespread use on service members, children, and civilians alike," Cecala said.

Honoring Human Rights Leaders

Ahead of the protest, CCHR opened its traveling exhibit Psychiatry: An Industry of Death, and presented Human Rights Awards to:

• Amalia Gamio, vice chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, urges governments to prohibit forced psychiatric treatment. She stated, "There is an urgent need to ban all coercive and non-consensual measures in psychiatric settings."
• Dr. David Schneider-Addae-Mensah, a German attorney who successfully argued before the German Constitutional Court that some involuntary treatments constitute criminal assault.

Eastgate concluded: "Until coercive and deadly practices in mental health are prohibited, vulnerable individuals—especially children—will continue to suffer."

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About CCHR:

Founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, CCHR works to investigate and expose psychiatric abuses and promote human rights in mental health.

Sources:

[1] Tyler Kingkade, "Video shows fatal restraint of Cornelius Frederick, 16, in Michigan foster facility," NBC News, July 20, 2020; Deborah Yetter, "7-year-old died at Kentucky youth treatment center due to suffocation, autopsy finds; 2 workers fired," Louisville Courier Journal, 19 Sept. 2022; Stephanie Moore, "No involuntary manslaughter after boy's death at North Carolina camp," NBC WYFF News, 6 Nov. 2024

[2] Mohr, W, "Adverse Effects Associated With Physical Restraint," The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry—Review Paper, June 2003

[3] https://www.ctinsider.com/projects/2022/child-deaths-school-restraint-seclusion/

[4] "California is embracing psychiatric hospitals again. Behind locked doors, a profit-driven system is destroying lives," San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Mar. 2025

[5] "Their kids died on the psych ward. They were far from alone, a Times investigation found," Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec. 2019

[6] Laws, J, "US Plummets To Lowest-Ever Rank In World Happiness Report," Newsweek, 20 Mar. 2025

[7] "Best Practices: Racial and Ethnic Effects on Antipsychotic Prescribing Practices in a Community Mental Health Center," Psychiatric Services, 1 Feb. 2003

[8] https://www.samhsa.gov/data/report/2020-mental-health-client-level-data-annual-report

[9] https://www.cchrint.org/2024/11/08/veterans-day-cchr-calls-for-safeguards/

[10] https://news.va.gov/137221/va-2024-suicide-prevention-annual-report/; https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/

[11] https://www.cchrint.org/2013/01/23/cchr-exposes-psychiatrys-military-spending-to-create-drugged-out-super-soldiers-by-kelly-omeara/