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WHAT’S WRONG WITH FURTHER
PROTECTIONS FOR OUR CHILDREN?
With all due respect to my good
friend Joe DeFelice, it’s clear from his August 7th
edition of MAN ABOUT
CANTON: “Senator Joyce is Wrong About JRC,” that he’s
been suckered by the well-funded public relations machine of the
Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC). But Joe’s not alone. I was fooled
at first, too.
Aversive
therapy, also known as shock therapy, is the deliberate and
controlled induction of some form of physiological state of
shock (pain or discomfort) in an individual for the purpose of
psychiatric treatment. Today, this practice is being used on
children and adults at the JRC, a special needs school in Canton
for students with conduct, behavior, emotional, and psychiatric
problems, including students with autism.
Upon my first
visit to JRC 11 years ago, I too was “enlightened” to their
successes using aversive therapy. However, my view of the JRC
rapidly changed upon further research into the center’s long and
troubled existence. The JRC is the only school in the United
States known to use electric shock punishment as a means of
controlling violent or otherwise undesirable behaviors. Before
turning to electric shock punishment, JRC used water squirts,
pinching, spanking, “aromatic ammonia,” mechanical restraints,
and helmets with visual screens and white noise masks to punish
students.
In 1989, the
JRC began using skin shocks. However, students began to adapt to
the pain from the original shocking device, evidenced when
shocks began to number close to 5,000 in one day with little
effect. In response, the JRC created a more powerful machine to
shock more locations on the body with stronger voltages and a
shock that lasts ten times as long. The shocks are not
“mini-shocks” as Joe described them, but rather intense electric
pulses which, as a former employee testified, can send you to
your knees in pain.
It’s not
surprising that Joe and I (along with many others) were fooled
by the JRC. They are a sophisticated, $56 million operation
whose gross revenue has increased by almost $36 million in the
last seven years, thanks, in large part, to a hefty $220,000 per
year student tuition, paid largely with tax dollars. Since 2000,
the JRC has spent approximately $4,740,416 on various legal and
public relations services to convince visitors, officials and
judges that the electric shocking of students is in the
patients’ best interest. Never mind that this type of
punishment, if inflicted upon people without disabilities, would
be considered a violation of our Constitution’s 8th
Amendment, which prohibits the use of cruel and unusual
punishment on even the worst criminals, including murderers,
rapists, and terrorists. Indeed, if we were practicing the sort
of “treatment” permitted upon autistic children in
Massachusetts, on our prisoners in Guantanamo, there would be
world-wide outrage.
Beyond the
smoke and mirrors there lies a lengthy trail of disturbing
practices and incidents. Since its founding, the JRC has had six
children die while in its care. In 2006, the Massachusetts
Division of Professional Licensure fined the JRC for falsely
identifying 14 staff members as “psychologists” when they were
unlicensed. A 2007 article in
Mother Jones
magazine detailed how employees were encouraged to use the
element of “surprise” when shocking students so the students
couldn’t brace themselves for the pain and that shocks were
given for minor behaviors such as swearing, nagging, or failing
to keep a neat appearance. Last August, a prank phone call to a
JRC facility resulted in the staff shocking three students while
acting on false orders. One young man was shocked 77 times in
less than an hour, sometimes while restrained, despite his
assertions that he was having trouble breathing. Of the eight
staff members present the night of the prank phone call, the
only person to repeatedly question the validity of the call was
the student who would later be tied down and shocked. Three
state agencies investigated this incident and all cited evidence
of severe abuse and neglect. How many more incidents will need
to occur before we provide meaningful protection for our
children?
In his column,
Joe suggests that I am not an expert in the field. And while he
is correct, he fails to mention that my views are supported by
many who are. My research has consisted of hundreds of hours
meeting with disability advocates, behavior analysts,
psychologists, parents, and civil rights and human rights
advocates. The legislation I filed this session to provide
further oversight of aversive therapy was co-authored with
Representative John Scibak, former director of psychology at
Belchertown State School. An overwhelming majority state that
JRC’s use of aversive therapy runs contrary to peer-reviewed
research and is not an effective or safe form of long term
behavior modification.
It is most
interesting to note that none of JRC founder Matthew Israel’s
work over the past 40 years has been peer reviewed, as is
standard practice in the fields of science and medicine. He
hasn’t published anything, allowed for public scrutiny, or taken
the opportunity to justify his practices with quantified
research. He cites only anecdotal evidence. And although
numerous studies discredit the long-term use of shock therapy as
an effective treatment, JRC continues to implement methodology
virtually unchanged for over 35 years.
I still
support an outright ban of aversive therapy. However, some have
argued that there are cases — albeit rare — when it may be the
only effective short-term treatment for self-injurious
behaviors. Now, I recognize that we will not all agree whether
the use of aversive therapy is ever appropriate. Nevertheless,
we should all
agree that government has a fundamental duty to protect
vulnerable populations and that the disabled children and adults
being subjected to this treatment deserve the highest level of
protection we can provide. Anything less is not only
unconscionable, it is just plain wrong.
Senator Brian A. Joyce
(D-Milton) represents the town of Canton in the Massachusetts
Senate as part of his Norfolk, Bristol and Plymouth district.
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