The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Ma was founded by Matthew Israel in 1971. The JRC houses people with developmental disabilities, emotional disorders, and autistic-like behaviors. Despite corporal punishment being illegal in Massachusetts, the Department of Children and Families allowed the JRC to use aversives (defined as unpleasant stimuli that induce changes in behavior via negative reinforcement). At that time, he used aversives such as pinches, spanks, muscle squeezes, water sprays, vapor sprays, ammonia capsules, unpleasant tastes, white noise, denial of food and bedding, long-term restraints, sensory deprivation, etc.

In 1988 Matthew Israel began using a cattle prod to administer skin shocks to autistic students. He then purchased a Self-Injurious Behavior Inhibiting System (SIBIS) which was the only skin-shock device on the market. Soon, Matthew Israel designed the new Graduated Electronic Decelerator, or GED, shock device, for use as a more powerful aversive which is still in use today!

The Shocks are given in the form of 2 second electric shocks to various parts of the body through a remote control at the discretion of staff. Residents can wear up to 5 devices at a time 24 hours a day 7 days a week including while sleeping and showering.

While the JRC contends that they only use the shock device for dangerous behaviors their own literature states they can predict a dangerous behavior and will shock for things as simple as raising a hand, standing up, making noises or stimming, a self soothing behavior used by people on the spectrum such as flapping their hands.

This battle to protect our most vulnerable citizens has been fought by state agencies, politicians, human rights orgs, and hundreds of advocates, spanning across not only the USA but the world for decades. In 2013 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture concluded that the GED violates the UN Convention Against Torture. The Association For Behavior Analyst International (ABAI) stated “we strongly oppose the use of contingent electric skin shock (CESS) under any condition”. Regardless of these statements, over the past few years, many attempts have been hit with roadblocks by our state courts and politicians.

Most recently, in Feb of 2024, Massachusetts House Bill H.180 an act regarding the use of aversive “therapy”, that would have made this practice and all institutional abuse illegal, was sent to study by the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons With Disabilities effectively killing the bill. JRC spent $500,000 in lobbying last year which included money paid specifically to lobby against this bill, some of which was paid directly to committee members who made the decision to send the bill to study.

JRC, currently operates under the protection of a thirty-six year old consent decree. That decree was entered, and has remained in place, after State agencies resorted to bad faith regulatory practices to disrupt JRC's operations in the 1980s and 1990s preventing the Dept. from banning the device for 36 years since the Consent Decree was implemented. The State agencies that remain bound by the decree have since moved for its termination without success.

We now ask the Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts to step in and take action!!