Article in New York Magazine

An article in New York Magazine.

Sen. Joyce and the History of the Judge Rotenberg 'Educational' Center

Today the Unitarian congregation in Canton was enthralled by four speakers: John Randal, CEO of Omega, that supplies humane environments for emotionally disabled children/young adults, Mary Ann Kinnealey, who gave us the hideous history featuring six deaths by Matthew Israel, the Ph.D. who owns the JRC, Poly Cobb, a long term activist against the cruelty of this shocking place and Joan Lundgren, co-chair of the AAUW in Canton, Omsbudman, and teacher.
We moved to the chapel to view a presentation by Sen. Bryan Joyce, who has succeeded in getting many of the shocking instruments removed (for how long, who is to know).

Sen. Joyce's Presentation

State Senator Joyce speaks out

State Senator Brian Joyce explains a lot of the details of what's been going on, "profiting from the abuse of children," and "held in restraints while some 70 or so of these extraordinarily painful electric shocks were applied to him." and "one of those individuals ended up hospitalized as a result."

We heard a lot of testimony today at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Canton.  It's even worse than what I had seen so far.  I hope to get a lot of this information into this blog.

Eventually, when we reach a critical mass, I'd like to start publicizing the blog to get a significant number of readers.

This is a jaw dropping speech made to the Massachusetts State Senate:
State Senator Brian Joyce speaks out on the Senate Floor


Here's a CNN news segment interviewing Brian Joyce about the issue.  A very important issue that he brings up is that he says a huge amount of taxpayer money is flowing into this center and a large amount of that money is fed into lawyers and lobbyists (which should be public information... can we get a link to the documentation?).  This would be the fuel that keeps this whole thing going.

There were also allegations at the testimonies today, and people I talked to, that parents of the students are afraid to speak out against the center due to some sort of real or implied threats against the children.  Also, a lot of the parents supposedly fall victim to wanting it to be a good thing in order to not feel like a monster for putting their children through that.  Another claims is that many of the parents have reached wits end and are tired of dealing with the problems of their children.

I believe the best approach is sunlight: show everything that's going on and let people be horrified by it.

Here's a similar speach by State Senator Brian Joyce

Protest at the State House on the JRC's methods

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/06/02/advocates-push-for-law-ban-shock-treatment-canton-special-needs-school/erT3A59sSlLzBozLoSVzsN/story.html

Sen. Joyce and others addressed us in the pouring rain at the State House in Boston a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately several churches in Canton refused to allow the human rights workers from all over the country to park in their driveways for our march of protest at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center.

Boston Globe has long history of investigation into the JRC

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2012/06/05/aversive-therapy-outlier-not-those-serves/gcDkCmNxwKRQHL8tGPXtMI/story.html

This is just one letter of many in outrage about the torturous practices and lying practiced by the owners, lawyers and PR people they hire.

Mother Jones News sent in an investigative reporter

I have been following the horrible happenings at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton since 2007, when Mother Jones News did a cover story on this place.
I invite you to call them up and ask for a tour.  You'll get a 'dog and pony' show, but at least it will give you some context. 
Several follow-ups to the cover story were made during this year.

Here is a set of links for the shocking stories of the inhumane practices in this place, licensed by the state of Ma.  I thought we were through with torture when we quit dunking the old ladies for being witches, and pressing the old guys with stones for being warlords.

http://www.motherjones.com/search/apachesolr_search/Judge%20Rotenberg%20Educational%20Cente

Findings from a 2006 Review

The New York State Education Department Board of Regents and others conducted a review of JRC's program on April 25 and 26, and on May 16,17, and 18, 2006. The review was conducted by NYSED staff and three behavioral psychologists in the role of independent consultants. The April 25-26 review was an announced visit. The May 16-18 review was an unannounced visit.

F I N D I N G S

The integrity of the behavioral programming at JRC is not sufficiently monitored by appropriate professionals at the school and in many cases the level of background and preparation of staff is not sufficient to oversee the intensive treatment of children with challenging emotional and behavioral problems.

This makes sense to me.  In order to avoid abuses in the case of extremely difficult children and overseers who are given extraordinary power over those children, JRC would need to hire highly trained people with very high credentials.  The risk of losing those credentials due to abuse should be extremely serious.

JRC employs a general use of Level III aversive behavioral interventions to students with a broad range of disabilities, many without a clear history of self-injurious behaviors.

 and also

JRC employs a general use of Level III aversive behavioral interventions to students for behaviors that are not aggressive, health dangerous or destructive, such as nagging, swearing and failing to maintain a neat appearance.

This damages the argument that these measures are needed to stop the children from harming themselves.  It also reinforces my conjecture in the previous post about the center essentially being a dictator's attempt at having absolute control over a group of disabled children in order to create some world of his own imagination.

The use of electric skin shock conditioning devices as used at JRC raises health and safety concerns.

I wonder if it's possible to get any evidence to support this: emergency medical treatment of skin burns or other evidence of abuse. Would it be possible to get testimony from police or EMT workers who may have dealt with cases at JRC?

Video surveillance system monitoring includes most bathrooms and all bedrooms but no formal staff monitoring system is in place to ensure the privacy and dignity of students/consumers during intimate grooming/hygiene or personal sexual behavior (e.g., masturbation). For example, no procedures were in place to ensure staff was not observing opposite sex residents during showering.

[emphasis added]

It would be a gross understatement to say that I'm starting to form an opinion about JRC.

It may be that they have taken steps to address these issues.  But I believe in the "where there's smoke, there's fire" principle.  True evil is like feces in your food.  Once its existence is established, claims of its removal require an extraordinary burden of proof.