Shock Therapy Being Used on Children at the Judge Rotenburg Center, Canton, Massachusetts

Before today, I connected aversive therapy (electric shock treatment) to the South Park movie. Every time Cartman swore, he would get a jolt of electricity zapped through his body. It made for good entertainment. However, the reality of the matter is that this treatment isn't just a behavioral regulator in the movies. It happens in real life too. And it shouldn't.

I'm ashamed to say that in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the state in which I live, this disgusting method, along with others, is being used. Granted, there are seven other states that contribute by sending their children to the Judge Rotenberg Center, 60 percent of them from NY as opposed to a quarter from MA, but I always thought of MA as one of the more progressive states. And to think that I live in the only state that has such an evil place is mind boggling.
Some might think that this method is harmless, but the truth is that it's not. Patients as young as 9-years-old who are diagnosed with autism, mental retardation, ADD, ADHD and emotional problems are sent to the Canton-based school, where half of the residents are not only punished with electric shocks to the limbs or stomach with a Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED), but are denied food as well. The purpose of this treatment is to deter the patients from misbehaving.

First of all, some 9-year-olds just don't know any better. And when that is coupled with a mental disorder, there is absolutely no point in the process. Luckily I am not the only one who believes so. "We [Joyce and Representative John W. Scibak] believe that it is government's fundamental duty to protect our most innocent and vulnerable populations," said Massachusetts Senator, Brian A. Joyce, noting that prominent behavior-modification experts, including some cited by Matt Israel, call the JRC ineffective and outmoded. When going to the site you see for yourself how effective this treatment is. Only 3% "are doing so well that the GED has been faded out and is no longer being used..."

You would think that this school would provide some sort of psychiatric counseling to help balance things out. You'd be wrong. One student recounts, "[the Center] is worse than jail", and the constant threat of being zapped led to thoughts "of killing [himself] a few times". If that isn't enough, how about the fact that in one day alone, a student at the center received more than 5,000 shocks. To me it seems as if these children need something more than searing pain being thrust into their bodies. A caring soul perhaps? If they didn't need psychiatric help before, they certainly will after this school is done with them.

Moreover, the device is not approved by the FDA, although the JRC claims otherwise. If that isn't bad enough, teachers are punished or fired if they don't administer shocks regularly to students. Students can also be accidentally shocked in a spontaneous activation, punishing students who have done nothing wrong.

Though Joyce and Scibak are calling for the immediate passage of legislation that would strongly regulate the use of "aversive" therapy on children in what is now infamously known as the "school of shock," it just isn't enough.

Massachusetts legislators have been working with disability advocates for over twenty years to ban the use of shock (aversive) therapy with little results. What makes Joyce and Scibak think that they'll fare any better?

They recently filed two bills to safeguard and delineate a narrow range of behavior problems where aversive therapy may be appropriate and would address many of the scenarios described in the article such as children being painfully shocked for swearing. But if the treatment is so outdated and brutal, why practice it at all?

In the September edition of the national magazine "Mother Jones", the reporter, who spent a year researching the article and interviewing JRC founder and director Matt Israel, refers to the schools where this happens as a high school version of Abu Ghraib. For those of you who are unaware of this analysis, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, "was one of the world's most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women-no accurate count is possible-were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits" (Hersh).

By now you might be asking yourself..."Why hasn't this place been shut down yet?" Though I can't come up with a definitive answer, I can tell you this: The Judge Rotenberg Center currently treats about 230 children and brings in annual revenues exceeding $56 million. Money has a way of corrupting the system.
Over its 36-year history, six children have died in the school's care. Though that is not a very high number, it is too high for my tastes. And if this school is really as horrible as that reporter says, which I have no doubt about, then it should be shut down altogether. There is no excuse for that kind of barbaric treatment.

Works Cited

Hersh, Seymour M. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa _fact
Joyce, Brian. Press release.
Judge Rotenberg Center Frequently Asked Questions. http://www.judgerc.org/