Judge Rotenberg Educational Center

The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC, formerly known as the Behavior Research Institute) is a special needs school serving children and young adults with autistic-like behaviors, conduct, emotional, and/or psychiatric problems located in Canton, Massachusetts. JRC is currently approved by the New York State Education Department. It caters for students who exhibit serious behavioral disorders that interfere with learning, and provides an intensive 24/7 behavioral treatment program. It has 900 employees and annual revenues exceeding $56 million, charges $220,000 a year for each student.

The Center was founded as the Behaviour Research Institute in 1971 by Matthew L. Israel, a psychologist who trained with B. F. Skinner Dr. Israel came up with the idea for the center from living with his roommate and his roommates daughter. The girl frequently misbehaved, so Israel hit her, which caused her to calm down. Israel was so pleased with his success that he made it his mission to hit, or shock, his current method, as many children that he can in an effort to help them. In 1985, after representations from the National Society for Autistic Children and other advocacy groups, the Massachusetts Office for Children sought to close the Institute. It was allowed to continue operation using aversion therapy under a settlement agreement approved by Chief Judge Ernest Rotenberg, and subsequently became known as the Judge Rotenberg Center.

Until the late 1980s, aversion therapy was administered in the form of spanking with a spatula, pinching the feet, and forced inhalings of ammonia. Later the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED) was invented to administer painful electric skin-shocks by remote control through electrodes worn against the skin at all times. More conventional treatments such as psychotherapy and psychiatric medication are not provided.

Concerns into the treatment regime prompted investigation by New York City Council and an independent report was commissioned which was critical of both processes and oversight at the facility. In spite of these findings, and the deaths of six students enrolled in the school, the school remains open. Furthermore, members of the autistic community have expressed great concern that the methods of treatment are ineffective, excessive, and possibly a human rights violation.

Many parents of difficult children are highly supportive of the treatment, especially as they can use the GED on home visits. Said one mother, "[All I have to do is show it to my son and...] he'll automatically comply to whatever my signal command may be, whether it is 'Put on your seatbelt,' or 'Hand me that apple,' or 'Sit appropriately and eat your food,'... It's made him a human being, a civilized human being."

Recently, the Center has come under fire thanks to the Mother Jones article "School of Shock, which publicized the questionable treatment used at the the Center. Dr. Matthew Israel, founder of the JRC, has been known to utilize the GED on children who merely suffer from ADD. The article doccuments a case in which one of the childcare "proffessionals" (who don't even possess college degrees) shocked a young girl who sneezed for asking for a tissue. More severe offenses are punished by strapping the child to the board and shocking them again and again for ten straight minutes. Also, their is a current lawsuit against the center filed by the parents of a former patient. The Center petitioned the courts to give the plantiff a court appointed guardian, who authorized the Center to use a GED on the child, thus bypassing parental consent. Also, altough Israel points to the theories of B. F. Skinner as evidence for the effectiveness of aversive therapy, Skinner himself denounced the treatment late in his life.

In light of this new publicity, many activists are now speaking out against the Center. Massachusets teenagers have formed the group Massachusets Students United Against the Judge Rotenberg Center, which is based at Brandeis University in Waltham, 20 miles away from the school's Canton campus. Currently, this group, along with others such as the Association of Retarded Citizens, is campaigning for harsher restrictions on the use of aversive therapy.