#StopTheShock: A Campaign Exposing the Dangers of Aversive Shock Conditioning at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Massachusetts and Supporting Legislative Action!

Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC):

The JRC is the only facility in the United States, Canada, and Europe that continues to use electric skin shock devices on Autistic and Disabled Individuals as a form of behavior modification. These devices subject residents to painful experiences leaving lasting physical and psychological scars and has been condemned by the United Nations as a weapon of torture.

Electric Shock Device:

The Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED) is a device that delivers a powerful and painful shock to Autistic & Disabled individuals who behave in ways that are deemed inappropriate by staff at the center. Behaviors that the JRC has used GED shock to discipline include but are not limited to:

• hand-flapping,
• making noise,
• not removing a coat, and
• screaming in pain from the administered shock.

The GED has been known to burn skin and is traumatic for individuals exposed to the device. The use of aversive conditioning through electric shocks is not only ineffective but also a violation of basic human rights.

• The GED is designed to be six times stronger than a police taser,

• Shock therapy has been found to reinforce self-injurious behaviors,

• Shock therapy lacks an effective method for withdrawal, and it is highly likely that residents are unable to connect their behavior to the shocks, leading to unwanted side effects.

Cost & Funding

Individuals are sent to the JRC through DCFS, DOJJ, DMH and DESE.

• It costs $291,414 per year to keep ONE resident at the JRC, paid for in tax $$.

• For the fiscal year 2021 the center got $89 million or 98% of its total public support and revenue from state government agencies.

Recent Attempts to #StopTheShock:

In 2020 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally put a ban on the GED but the school appealed the ban on July 6 2021. The D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the ban allowing the JRC to continue using the device.

• In December 2022 the FDA was legally granted the right to ban the device in an end of year ominous bill. As of yet they have taken no action!

• Most recently on September 7, 2023 the Judge ruled in favor of the JRC in regards to the consent decree stating "If the department seeks to get out from under the decree, it must wait for a legislative solution"

MASSACHUSETTS IS TAKING ACTION

H.245 An Act Regarding the Use of Aversive Therapy

• No program, agency, or facility funded, operated, licensed, or approved by any agency or subdivision of the Commonwealth shall administer or cause to be administered to any person with a physical, intellectual, or developmental disability any procedure which causes obvious signs of physical pain, including, but not limited to, hitting, pinching, and electric shock for the purposes of changing the behavior of the person.
  

  No such program may employ any form of physical contact or punishment that is otherwise prohibited by law, or would be prohibited if used on a non-disabled person.

  No such program may employ any procedure which denies a person with a physical, intellectual, or developmental disability reasonable sleep, food, shelter, bedding, bathroom facilities, and any other aspect expected of a humane existence in the Commonwealth.

Bill H.245 An Act Regarding The Use of Aversive “Therapy”, currently in the house, if passed will FINALLY put an end to this BARBARIC practice!

Please ask your House Leaders to vote for passage of this bill and finally #STOPTHESHOCK!

History of the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC)

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, MA provides behavioral treatment to Autistic and Disabled residents using the methodologies of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). JRC's behavior modification program relies heavily on aversion therapy. Aversives that are used to modify behavior include: food deprivation, restraint, solitary confinement, and GED skin shocks. While the center often claims that it uses aversives only as a last resort against self-harm and aggression, their own website claims differently and these claims have been refuted by Government Investigations.

Matthew Israel opened The Judge Rotenberg Center under its original name, the Behavior Research Institute, in Providence, Rhode Island in 1971. He Later opened a sister school in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California despite not having licenses to run a group home, practice psychology or use aversives.

California state’s investigation found that residents of the BRI were beaten, restrained (cuffed to chairs), severely bruised, starved, refused bathroom access, and humiliated. Based on this investigation they were no longer allowed to use physical aversives stronger than water spray. Matthew Israel was kicked out for "practicing as a clinical psychologist directing both day and residential programs in the state of California without obtaining a professional license." Judy Weber, whose child was a resident, took over the center, renamed it Tobinworld, continued abusing residents, and married Matthew Israel.

Israel then opened 3 residential homes in Attleboro, Massachusetts, followed by a residential home in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Despite corporal punishment being illegal in Massachusetts, the Department of Children and Families allowed the Behavior Research Institute to use aversives and approved the hierarchy of aversives.

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. He later invented his own skin shock device called the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED).

The Graduated Electronic Decelerator was roughly three times stronger than SIBIS. Its shock lasted two seconds, not two-tenths of one. In 2013 a Special Rapporteur concluded that the GED violates the UN Convention Against Torture. The most updated device is currently at least 6 times stronger than a police taser and is a tool of institutional violence and intimidation.

Before introducing the decelerator in 1990, teachers and clinicians programmatically handcuffed students, pinched their feet, squeezed their muscles, dumped buckets of cold water on their heads, sprayed ammonia vapor in their faces, and withheld food.

Medical examiners autopsied the bodies of students who died under suspicious circumstances. But no criminal liability was attached to the school until 2011, when Matthew Israel was indicted on charges of obstructing justice for destroying evidence of a resident being strapped to a board and shocked 31 times over 7 hours for not removing his coat. A deferred prosecution agreement secured his resignation instead of prosecution.

By then the school operated under a consent decree that continued to allow the JRC to use electric shocks on disabled people. The center changed its name to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center "to honor the memory of the judge who helped to preserve the program from extinction at the hands of state licensing officials in the 1980s by issuing the consent decree.

The most recent ruling on September 7, 2023 the Judge ruled in favor of the JRC in regards to the consent decree stating "If the department seeks to get out from under the decree, it must wait for a legislative solution"

Please ask your House Leaders to vote for passage of this bill and finally #STOPTHESHOCK!