Ed Pilkington visited JRC

The Guardian's New York Correspondent, Ed Pilkington, visited JRC back in March of 2011 and wrote this report.  It's definitely worth reading.  The one part that really struck me was the description of the founder, Matthew Israel.  The school was essentially founded back in 1971.  Dr Israel was very much influenced by B. F. Skinner and his book Walden Two

...in which he envisaged a fictitious community of 1,000 people engineered to produce the happiest and most efficient society. Every activity in the community is shared, from child rearing to cooking and manual labour. Positive emotions are rewarded and negative ones discouraged; meanwhile, children are given rigorous ethical training to turn them into model citizens.

This would explain the bizarre nature of the school, such as the Wizard of Oz themed reward center.  If you haven't seen those photos, you should scroll through them to get a sense of the creepiness that I mentioned in an earlier post.

History is riddled with utopian idealists acting as dictators for the "good" of society

Note that Matthew Israel was forced to step down from his position at JRC.

...there was enough evidence that the grand jury indicted Israel Friday on two counts related to misleading a witness and destroying evidence. Cunha said his office ultimately decided to offer Israel a pretrial probation agreement, in which Israel had to permanently end his tenure at the center, which he founded 40 years ago, and serve a five-year probationary term. If he complied, prosecutors would drop the case in five years.

What bothers me is that just like the Andre McCollins case, nothing was actually resolved.

Unitied Nations Takes Aim at JRC

The Guardian reports that the UN's special rapporteur on torture has made a formal approach to the US government regarding the Judge Rotenberg Center.

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts, is believed to be the only institution in the world in which disabled and disturbed children are subjected to electric shocks to in a system known called "aversive therapy".

It certainly says something when the United Nations focuses on a single school in the town of Canton, Massachusetts.

...Mendez was himself subjected to torture by electric shock at the hands of the Buenos Aires police in 1975.

My own view is that it doesn't matter whether the method works or not.  You could easily get school children to obey the teacher if you had them all routinely waterboarded.  That doesn't make it a good idea.

This is the second time the UN has intervened over the school. Mendez's predecessor as torture rapporteur, Manfred Nowak, also called for a federal US investigation.

Former Student

Someone on Reddit, responding to the now-famous video, claimed to be a former student of JRC and offered this as proof (which seems to check out against the history of the place, but I have no idea about the authenticity of it).  Keep in mind that this would be very old, from the 1990s.

A user named "ganic" asked"

Did you see or experience punishment like what has been brought to light in the video? If so why did you not try to bring it forward to authorities? 

to which the alleged former student replied:

I saw this literally every single day for three years. The authorities in Massachusetts approve of this treatment.

I recommend reading the whole thing if you are skeptical (and being skeptical is always a good starting point).

It's worth pointing out that the alleged former student also wrote:

As a last resort for people who will perhaps kill themselves if not constantly sedated (people wo [sic] do not have the capacityh [sic] for reason), it is debatable as to whether or not this place is desirable. For anyone else: No fucking way.

Bruce

Former Employee Weighs In

A testimonial from a former JRC employee:

Hi, my name is Gregory Miller. I used to work at a school in Massachusetts named The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) where we used powerfully painful electric shock devices (45 – 91 milliamps, at 66 volts) on students to control their behaviors. These devices are much stronger than police stun guns (1-4 milliamps).... The United Nations is aware of JRC, has called these shocks at JRC “torture”....

To me, this next statement is particularly damning because it undermines the main thesis of JRC's argument:

Rather than shocking students for only severe behaviors, JRC also shocks students for minor behaviors, such as closing eyes for 15 seconds while sitting at the desk, pulling apart a loose piece of thread, tearing an empty used paper cup....

The site has a petition.

Thoughts

About a year ago, an acquaintance told me about abuses routinely occuring within the Judge Rotenberg Center.  My initial reaction was a healthy skepticism.  I went to the JRC website and found that they were, in fact, administering electric shocks to their patients/students.  I looked through the photos and was "creeped out" by the strange world they've created.  I couldn't shake the sense that this was pure evil.

I read through their justification papers and I found myself back to being skeptical.  The argument is that shocks are better than powerful drugs that simply deaden the mind.  That may be so, but the video does not strike me as an exceptional one-time case of abuse within the system.  If you haven't seen the video (including the news report supporting it), you should definitely watch it.  The trial ended in a settlement, which resolves nothing.

My current sense is that JRC is based on pragmatic ideas that make sense on paper.  The application is probably effective in some cases, maybe lots of cases.  But if there is widespread torture going on at the center, then even good results mean nothing.

There are rallies being held against the center, but I believe the best approach is to quietly gather all relevant information and determine what is really going on.

Here's a relevant article.

Bruce