Fornits

Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: hanzomon4 on May 10, 2007, 10:22:05 AM

Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on May 10, 2007, 10:22:05 AM
Read the 26 page report by The New York Department of Education that lead to the recent activity in New York that restricted, but inadvertently affirmed, the use of horribly abusive "aversive-therapy" on children with mental illness

The Report (http://http://nospank.net/jrc.pdf)
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on May 10, 2007, 10:30:06 AM
OMG!! I'm reading this and it's so fuck'in horrible. I cannot believe this shit..
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on May 10, 2007, 10:34:44 AM




I just cannot believe this....
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: psy on May 10, 2007, 12:26:08 PM
Ya know... When they do this to dogs, they call it inhumane...  shit.. I wouldn't do it to my dogs.

When i was like 16 or 17 this trainer lady tried to my dog to obey once (adopted it as a puppy)... She smacked the dog... tough love style... I was FURIOUS... I picked the puppy off the street, nursed it back to health when it got Parvo, and now some bitch is hitting my puppy...  I just snapped.  It was like an instinctual reaction.  I told her "BITCH!  do that again and I slap you"... My mom wasn't too pleased with her either, or the way i reacted, so she never came back.

The lady told us that you have to be firm with the dog, and if you spoil them, they will end up biting you...  That may be true (don't really know...  don't spoil my dogs), but you don't have to hit the dog, or shock the dog, or otherwise mistreat the dog...  Well... I don't spoil Puppy, but I do reward her when she is good, say "NO! BAD!" when she does something wrong, and she's turned out fine.

A while back an article was posted on fornits about Chinese treatment centres for video game addiction... They mentioned theses shock devices.  I thought "how draconic"...  they could never get away with that here.  Well.  They do.  No matter how cynical I am, it's always worse than I think.

no living thing deserves this type of treatment.  Jesus fucking christ.  it's evil.  evil.  very seldom do things shock me on this site.  this is one of those times.  What monsters.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on May 10, 2007, 02:01:18 PM
This stuff is pissing me off to an extream degree. Here's the findings on a procedure called BRL(Behavioral Rehearsal Lesson)

Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: psy on May 10, 2007, 02:17:26 PM
I'm just praying for a riot when the staff get strapped with all those "GEDs" and the kids mash all the buttons at once.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on May 10, 2007, 02:37:35 PM
Quote from: ""psy""
I'm just praying for a riot when the staff get strapped with all those "GEDs" and the kids mash all the buttons at once.

Truly, they fear that with a passion

Quote
Students in classrooms were docile and compliant and did not attempt to socially
engage, either verbally or with eye contact, anyone in the rooms. This was also
apparent in the residences visited by the team. Staff indicated, on at least three
occasions, that it was unsafe to allow students to socialize because in the past
students had plotted against staff.


I read the whole report.... brought me to tears and I'm no cream-puff

I'm gonna work everyday to take these bastards down..... ::mecry::
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on May 10, 2007, 02:45:00 PM
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: psy on May 10, 2007, 02:45:08 PM
Quote from: ""hanzomon4""
Quote from: ""psy""
I'm just praying for a riot when the staff get strapped with all those "GEDs" and the kids mash all the buttons at once.

Truly, they fear that with a passion

Quote
Students in classrooms were docile and compliant and did not attempt to socially
engage, either verbally or with eye contact, anyone in the rooms. This was also
apparent in the residences visited by the team. Staff indicated, on at least three
occasions, that it was unsafe to allow students to socialize because in the past
students had plotted against staff.

I read the whole report.... brought me to tears and I'm no cream-puff

I'm gonna work everyday to take these bastards down..... ::mecry::


I can pretty much say that I haven't heard anything worse than that before... in this country.  What the fuck is wrong with the state, with the people, that this is allowed to happen in their own goddamn back yard.

When the concentration camps were liberated, the local German population was forced to visit them, forced to see what they did with their silence and their compliance.  These kids are being flat out tortured.  There is really no other word for it.  It's torture.  The staff, and parents that allow this deserve a special place in hell for their crimes.  Did you read how the kids are sent home with the GEDs... and the parents are given the remote.  Is that what these parents want?  Remote control kids.  It's just so sick beyond words.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: psy on May 10, 2007, 02:49:44 PM
Quote from: ""hanzomon4""
  • A student interviewed stated that she had entered JRC at the age of 19 with the
    expectation that she would receive vocational training while she resolved her
    emotional and behavioral problems. She had not received any vocational training
    and still remained in the most restrictive settings offered by JRC. This student wept
    as she asked the team to bring her back to New York.
  • Student interviews revealed reports of pervasive fears and anxieties related to the
    interventions used at JRC. Students verbally reported a lack of trust, fear, feeling
    upset/anxious and loneliness.
  • One student’s behavior plan indicated that the student is to be rewarded when he
    does not react to a staff member preparing to or administering the GED to another
    student, implying that this student may be having collateral effects when peers
    receive skin shock consequences.
  • One student stated she felt depressed and fearful, stating very coherently her desire
    to leave the center. She is not permitted to initiate conversation with any member of
    the staff. She also expressed that she had no one to talk to about her feelings of
    depression and her desire to kill herself and told the interviewing team that she
    thought about killing herself everyday. Her greatest fear was that she would remain
    at JRC beyond her 21st birthday.


This is 21st century program.  They do literally what most programs only dare to do metaphorically.  Conditioning kids not to care about the suffering of others really strikes a chord here.

I'm at a loss for words.  The place is totally evil.  I've read some fucked up shit about some fucked up places.. but I think this takes the cake.  How could this have stayed off the Fornits radar?  What else are we missing?
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Deborah on May 10, 2007, 10:03:48 PM
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... 686#183686 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=183686#183686)
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... 851#201851 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=201851#201851)
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... 508#201508 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=201508#201508)

NY prohibits aversive techniques
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... 295#238295 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=238295#238295)

But you know those pilgrims. They loves their torture. Raping and pillaging, stocks, torture dungeons, burning people at the stake and all.

Primetime did a piece on it. Might be able to find it.
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... 740#247740 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=247740#247740)

Haven't followed up on this, but you may get some info from APRAIS
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=53648#53648 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=53648#53648)

A good aversion therapy story, aka "reparative" therapy
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... 020#208020 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?p=208020#208020)
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: ZenAgent on May 11, 2007, 11:55:39 AM
I've been reading over the report, it's gut-churning.  The arbitrary use of level 3 aversive procedures for swearing or looking sloppy is beyond abusive.

How strong is the electric skin shock?  Did I miss it?  In Nashville, the Metro cops killed a local songwriter's son with Tasers, not very long ago.  I'm wondering, based on the apparently unqualified staff, if anybody at JRC has a clue about using the shock.

Another grist mill that was hidden away, now the vermin are held up wriggling and squirming to the light.


Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on May 16, 2007, 06:16:42 PM
Bump
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Ursus on August 20, 2007, 01:21:22 PM
(http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/nagging_zap_swearing_zap.html)
By Jennifer Gonnerman
August 20, 2007

(http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock_2_280x200.jpg)  

In 2005, Yvonne Williams, an Amtrak waitress who lives in Brooklyn, needed to get her 15-year-old bipolar son Darryl into a residential school—fast. Darryl had been hospitalized, and the Rotenberg Center was the only facility Yvonne could find that would pick him up. To an overworked mom with no car, that was the deciding factor. "It was a last-minute decision," she recalls, "but it was a decision that had to be made at that moment."

New York state has been sending troubled kids to Dr. Israel since 1976, but its citizens now comprise nearly 60 percent of the Rotenberg Center's population. This is partly a matter of supply and demand: New York has a shortage of beds for troubled kids, while Israel has a policy of accepting anybody. It is also a matter of marketing. Israel has long sought referrals from New York's school districts and psychiatric hospitals; recently, he has begun courting the criminal justice system, sending promotional materials to judges and probation officers, picking up students from New York's juvenile jails and Rikers Island.

Sales pitches to judges, free door-to-door transportation, a "near-zero" rejection policy—all of this has helped to fuel the Rotenberg Center's rapid growth in recent years. Then, in June of 2006, a report produced by the New York State Education Department threatened to destroy the program's carefully cultivated image. A group of investigators, including three psychologists, spent five days at the Rotenberg Center and compiled a 26-page document packed with damning findings.

Israel denounced the investigators as "biased" and compiled a counter-report nearly three times the length of the original. He denied that residents go hungry, and clarified that only 20 percent of them are restrained on their way to and from school. And to the charge that shocks might hurt students' psychological well-being? "There are no negative side effects of the ged to consider," he wrote. Israel also hired lobbyists, lawyers, and Manhattan PR agent Ted Faraone (whose former clients include disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair). And while the number of New Yorkers shipped off to the Rotenberg Center slowed after the report's release, the facility's total population has remained constant—thanks in part to its increased marketing efforts in Virginia.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Ursus on August 20, 2007, 01:50:24 PM
Mother Jones
School Of Shock (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock.html)

News: Eight states are sending autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to a facility that punishes them with painful electric shocks. How many times do you have to zap a child before it's torture?

By Jennifer Gonnerman
August 20, 2007

(http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock_01_280x200.jpg)  At the Rotenberg Center, students as young as nine and ten receive shocks for misbehaving. Employees wear remotes bearing a picture of each child around their waist so they don't shock the wrong kid. Photo: Larry Sultan

ROB SANTANA AWOKE TERRIFIED.  He'd had that dream again, the one where silver wires ran under his shirt and into his pants, connecting to electrodes attached to his limbs and torso. Adults armed with surveillance cameras and remote-control activators watched his every move. One press of a button, and there was no telling where the shock would hit—his arm or leg or, worse, his stomach. All Rob knew was that the pain would be intense.

Every time he woke from this dream, it took him a few moments to remember that he was in his own bed, that there weren't electrodes locked to his skin, that he wasn't about to be shocked. It was no mystery where this recurring nightmare came from—not A Clockwork Orange or 1984, but the years he spent confined in America's most controversial "behavior modification" facility.

In 1999, when Rob was 13, his parents sent him to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, located in Canton, Massachusetts, 20 miles outside Boston. The facility, which calls itself a "special needs school," takes in all kinds of troubled kids—severely autistic, mentally retarded, schizophrenic, bipolar, emotionally disturbed—and attempts to change their behavior with a complex system of rewards and punishments, including painful electric shocks to the torso and limbs. Of the 234 current residents, about half are wired to receive shocks, including some as young as nine or ten. Nearly 60 percent come from New York, a quarter from Massachusetts, the rest from six other states and Washington, D.C. The Rotenberg Center, which has 900 employees and annual revenues exceeding $56 million, charges $220,000 a year for each student. States and school districts pick up the tab.

The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the program continues to thrive—in large part because no one except desperate parents, and a few state legislators, seems to care about what happens to the hundreds of kids who pass through its gates.

In Rob Santana's case, he freely admits he was an out-of-control kid with "serious behavioral problems." At birth he was abandoned at the hospital, traces of cocaine, heroin, and alcohol in his body. A middle-class couple adopted him out of foster care when he was 11 months old, but his troubles continued. He started fires; he got kicked out of preschool for opening the back door of a moving school bus; when he was six, he cut himself with a razor. His mother took him to specialists, who diagnosed him with a slew of psychiatric problems: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Rob was at the Rotenberg Center for about three and a half years. From the start, he cursed, hollered, fought with employees. Eventually the staff obtained permission from his mother and a Massachusetts probate court to use electric shock. Rob was forced to wear a backpack containing five two-pound, battery-operated devices, each connected to an electrode attached to his skin. "I felt humiliated," he says. "You have a bunch of wires coming out of your shirt and pants." Rob remained hooked up to the apparatus 24 hours a day. He wore it while jogging on the treadmill and playing basketball, though it wasn't easy to sink a jump shot with a 10-pound backpack on. When he showered, a staff member would remove his electrodes, all except the one on his arm, which he had to hold outside the shower to keep it dry. At night, Rob slept with the backpack next to him, under the gaze of a surveillance camera.

Employees shocked him for aggressive behavior, he says, but also for minor misdeeds, like yelling or cursing. Each shock lasts two seconds. "It hurts like hell," Rob says. (The school's staff claim it is no more painful than a bee sting; when I tried the shock, it felt like a horde of wasps attacking me all at once. Two seconds never felt so long.) On several occasions, Rob was tied facedown to a four-point restraint board and shocked over and over again by a person he couldn't see. The constant threat of being zapped did persuade him to act less aggressively, but at a high cost. "I thought of killing myself a few times," he says.

Rob's mother Jo-Anne deLeon had sent him to the Rotenberg Center at the suggestion of the special-ed committee at his school district in upstate New York, which, she says, told her that the program had everything Rob needed. She believed he would receive regular psychiatric counseling—though the school does not provide this.

As the months passed, Rob's mother became increasingly unhappy. "My whole dispute with them was, 'When is he going to get psychiatric treatment?'" she says. "I think they had to get to the root of his problems—like why was he so angry? Why was he so destructive? I really think they needed to go in his head somehow and figure this out." She didn't think the shocks were helping, and in 2002 she sent a furious fax demanding that Rob's electrodes be removed before she came up for Parents' Day. She says she got a call the next day from the executive director, Matthew Israel, who told her, "You don't want to stick with our treatment plan? Pick him up." (Israel says he doesn't remember this conversation, but adds, "If a parent doesn't want the use of the skin shock and wants psychiatric treatment, this isn't the right program for them.")

Rob's mother is not the only parent angry at the Rotenberg Center. Last year, Evelyn Nicholson sued the facility after her 17-year-old son Antwone was shocked 79 times in 18 months. Nicholson says she decided to take action after Antwone called home and told her, "Mommy, you don't love me anymore because you let them hurt me so bad." Rob and Antwone don't know each other (Rob left the facility before Antwone arrived), but in some ways their stories are similar. Antwone's birth mother was a drug addict; he was burned on an electric hot plate as an infant. Evelyn took him in as a foster child and later adopted him. The lawsuit she filed against the Rotenberg Center set off a chain of events: investigations by multiple government agencies, emotional public hearings, scrutiny by the media. Legislation to restrict or ban the use of electric shocks in such facilities has been introduced in two state legislatures. Yet not much has changed.

Rob has paid little attention to the public debate over his alma mater, though he visits its website occasionally to see which of the kids he knew are still there. After he left the center he moved back in with his parents. At first glance, he seems like any other 21-year-old: baggy Rocawear jeans, black T-shirt, powder-blue Nikes. But when asked to recount his years at the Rotenberg Center, he speaks for nearly two hours in astonishing detail, recalling names and specific events from seven or eight years earlier. When he describes his recurring nightmares, he raises both arms and rubs his forehead with his palms.

Despite spending more than three years at this behavior-modification facility, Rob still has problems controlling his behavior. In 2005, he was arrested for attempted assault and sent to jail. (This year he was arrested again, for drugs and assault.) Being locked up has given him plenty of time to reflect on his childhood, and he has gained a new perspective on the Rotenberg Center. "It's worse than jail," he told me. "That place is the worst place on earth."

ONE PUNISHMENT FITS ALL

THE STORY OF THE Rotenberg Center is in many ways a tale of two schools. Slightly more than half the residents are what the school calls "high functioning": kids like Rob and Antwone, who have diagnoses like attention-deficit disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other emotional problems. The other group is even more troubled. Referred to as "low functioning," it includes kids with severe autism and mental retardation; most cannot speak or have very limited verbal abilities. Some have behaviors so extreme they can be life threatening: chomping on their hands and arms, running into walls, nearly blinding themselves by banging their heads on the floor again and again.

The Rotenberg Center has long been known as the school of last resort—a place that will take any kid, no matter how extreme his or her problems are. It doesn't matter if a child has been booted out of 2, 5, 10, or 20 other programs—he or she is still welcome here. For desperate parents, the Rotenberg Center can seem like a godsend. Just ask Louisa Goldberg, the mother of 25-year-old Andrew, who has severe mental retardation. Andrew's last residential school kicked him out after he kept assaulting staff members; the Rotenberg Center was the only place willing to accept him. According to Louisa, Andrew's quality of life has improved dramatically since 2000, when he was hooked up to the shock device, known as the Graduated Electronic Decelerator, or GED.

The Rotenberg Center has a policy of not giving psychiatric drugs to students—no Depakote, Paxil, Risperdal, Ritalin, or Seroquel. It's a policy that appeals to Louisa and many other parents. At Andrew's last school, she says, "he had so many medicines in him he'd take a two-hour nap in the morning, he'd take a two-hour nap in the afternoon. They'd have him in bed at eight o'clock at night. He was sleeping his life away." These days, Louisa says she is no longer afraid when her son comes home to visit. "[For him] to have an electrode on and to receive a GED is to me a much more favorable way of dealing with this," she says. "He's not sending people to the hospital."

Marguerite Famolare brought her son Michael to the Rotenberg Center six years ago, after he attacked her so aggressively she had to call 911 and, in a separate incident, flipped over a kitchen table onto a tutor. Michael, now 19, suffers from mental retardation and severe autism. These days, when he comes home for a visit, Marguerite carries his shock activator in her purse. All she has to do, she says, is show it to him. "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,'" she says. "It's made him a human being, a civilized human being."

Massachusetts officials have twice tried to shut the Rotenberg Center down—once in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. Both times parents rallied to its defense, and both times it prevailed in court. (See "Why Can't Massachusetts Shut Matthew Israel Down?" page 44.) The name of the center ensures nobody forgets these victories; it was Judge Ernest Rotenberg, now deceased, who in the mid-'80s ruled that the facility could continue using aversives—painful punishments designed to change behavior—so long as it obtained authorization from the Bristol County Probate and Family Court in each student's case. But even though the facility wasn't using electric shock when this ruling was handed down, the court rarely, if ever, bars the Rotenberg Center from adding shock to a student's treatment plan, according to lawyers and disability advocates who have tried to prevent it from doing so.

Since Evelyn Nicholson filed her lawsuit in 2006, the Rotenberg Center has faced a new wave of criticism and controversy. (See "Nagging? Zap. Swearing? Zap," page 41.) And again, the facility has relied heavily on the testimonials of parents like Louisa Goldberg and Marguerite Famolare to defend itself. Not surprisingly, the most vocal parent-supporters tend to be those with the sickest children, since they are the ones with the fewest options. But at the Rotenberg Center, the same methods of "behavior modification" are applied to all kids, no matter what is causing their behavior problems. And so, while Rob would seem to have little in common with mentally retarded students like Michael and Andrew, they all shared a similar fate once their parents placed them under the care of the same psychologist, a radical behaviorist known as Dr. Israel.

DR. ISRAEL'S RADICAL BEHAVIOR

IN 1950, MATT ISRAEL was a Harvard freshman looking to fill his science requirement. He knew little about B.F. Skinner when he signed up for his course, Human Behavior. Soon, though, Israel became fascinated with Skinner's scientific approach to the study of behavior, and he picked up Walden Two, Skinner's controversial novel about an experimental community based on the principles of behaviorism. The book changed Israel's life. "I decided my mission was to start a utopian community," he says. Israel got a Ph.D. in psychology in 1960 from Harvard, and started two communal houses outside Boston.

One of the people Israel lived with was a three-year-old named Andrea, the daughter of a roommate. The two did not get along. "She was wild and screaming," Israel recalls. "I would retreat to my own room, and she'd be trying to pull away and get into my room, and I'd have to hold the door on one side to keep her from disturbing me." When company would come over, he says, "She would walk around with a toy broom and whack people over the head."

Through experiments with rats and pigeons, Skinner had demonstrated how animals learn from the consequences of their actions. With permission from Andrea's mother, Israel decided to try out Skinner's ideas on the three-year-old. When Andrea was well behaved, Israel took her out for walks. But when she misbehaved, he punished her by snapping his finger against her cheek. His mentor Skinner preached that positive reinforcement was vastly preferable to punishment, but Israel says his methods transformed the girl. "Instead of being an annoyance, she became a charming addition to the house."

Israel's success with Andrea convinced him to start a school. In 1971, he founded the Behavior Research Institute in Rhode Island, a facility that would later move to Massachusetts and become known as the Judge Rotenberg Center. Israel took in children nobody else wanted—severely autistic and mentally retarded kids who did dangerous things to themselves and others. To change their behavior, he developed a large repertoire of punishments: spraying kids in the face with water, shoving ammonia under their noses, pinching the soles of their feet, smacking them with a spatula, forcing them to wear a "white-noise helmet" that assaulted them with static.

In 1977, Israel opened a branch of his program in California's San Fernando Valley, along with Judy Weber, whose son Tobin is severely autistic. Two years later, the Los Angeles Times reported Israel had pinched the feet of Christopher Hirsch, an autistic 12-year-old, at least 24 times in 30 minutes, while the boy screamed and cried. This was a punishment for soiling his pants. ("It might have been true," Israel says. "It's true that pinches were being used as an aversive. The pinch, the spank, the muscle squeeze, water sprays, bad taste—all those procedures were being used.") Israel was in the news again in 1981, when another student, 14-year-old Danny Aswad, died while strapped facedown to his bed. In 1982, the California Department of Social Services compiled a 64-page complaint that read like a catalog of horrors, describing students with bruises, welts, and cuts. It also accused Israel of telling a staff member "to grow his fingernails longer so he could give an effective pinch."

In 1982, the facility settled with state officials and agreed to stop using physical punishments. Now called Tobinworld, and still run by Judy Weber, it is a $10-million-a-year organization operating day schools near Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Rotenberg Center considers itself a "sister school" to Tobinworld, and Israel makes frequent trips to California to visit Weber. The two were married last year.

Despite his setback in California, Israel continued to expand on the East Coast—and to generate controversy. In 1985, Vincent Milletich, an autistic 22-year-old, suffered a seizure and died after he was put in restraints and forced to wear a white-noise helmet. Five years later, 19-year-old Linda Cornelison, who had the mental capacity of a toddler, refused to eat. On the bus to school, she clutched her stomach; someone had to carry her inside, and she spent the day on a couch in a classroom. Linda could not speak, and the staff treated her actions as misbehaviors. Between 3:52 p.m. and 8 p.m., staffers punished her with 13 spatula spankings, 29 finger pinches, 14 muscle squeezes, and 5 forced inhalings of ammonia. It turned out that Linda had a perforated stomach. She died on the operating table at 1:45 a.m.

The local district attorney's office examined the circumstances of Vincent's death but declined to file any charges. In Linda's case, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation investigated and found that while Linda's treatment had "violated the most basic codes and standards of decency and humane treatment," there was insufficient evidence to prove that the use of aversives had caused her death.

By the time Linda died, Israel was moving away from spatulas and toward electric shock, which, from his perspective, offered many advantages. "To give a spank or a muscle squeeze or a pinch, you had to control the student physically, and that could lead to a struggle," he says. "A lot of injuries were occurring." Since shocking only required pressing a button, Israel could eliminate the need for employees to wrestle a kid to the ground. Another benefit, he says, was increased consistency. It was hard to know if one staff member's spatula spanking was harder than another's, but it was easy to measure how many times a staff member had shocked a child.

Israel purchased a shock device then on the market known as SIBIS—Self-Injurious Behavior Inhibiting System—that had been invented by the parents of an autistic girl and delivered a mild shock that lasted .2 second. Between 1988 and 1990, Israel used SIBIS on 29 students, including one of his most challenging, Brandon, then 12, who would bite off chunks of his tongue, regurgitate entire meals, and pound himself on the head. At times Brandon was required to keep his hands on a paddle; if he removed them, he would get automatic shocks, one per second. One infamous day, Brandon received more than 5,000 shocks. "You have to realize," Israel says. "I thought his life was in the balance. I couldn't find any medical solution. He was vomiting, losing weight. He was down to 52 pounds. I knew it was risky to use the shock in large numbers, but if I persevered that day, I thought maybe it would eventually work. There was nothing else I could think of to do...but by the time it went into the 3,000 or 4,000 range, it became clear it wasn't working."

This day was a turning point in the history of Israel's operation—that's when he decided to ratchet up the pain. The problem, he decided, was that the shock SIBIS emitted was not strong enough. He says he asked SIBIS's manufacturer, Human Technologies, to create a more powerful device, but it refused. "So we had to redesign the device ourselves," he says. He envisioned a device that would start with a low current but that could increase the voltage if needed—hence its name, Graduated Electronic Decelerator or GED—but he abandoned this idea early on. "As it turns out, that's really not a wise approach," he says. "It's sort of like operating a car and wearing out the brakes because you never really apply them strongly enough. Instead, we set it at a certain level that was more or less going to be effective for most of our students."

Thirty years earlier, O. Ivar Lovaas, a psychology professor at ucla, had pioneered the use of slaps and screams and electric jolts to try to normalize the behavior of autistic kids. Life magazine featured his work in a nine-page photo essay in 1965 with the headline, "A surprising, shocking treatment helps far-gone mental cripples." Lovaas eventually abandoned these methods, telling CBS in 1993 that shock was "only a temporary suppression" because patients become inured to the pain. "These people are so used to pain that they can adapt to almost any kind of aversive you give them," he said.

Israel encountered this same sort of adaptation in his students, but his solution was markedly different: He decided to increase the pain once again. Today, there are two shock devices in use at the Rotenberg Center: the GED and the GED-4. The devices look similar and both administer a two-second shock, but the GED-4 is nearly three times more powerful—and the pain it inflicts is that much more severe.

THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB

TEN YEARS AGO, Israel hung up a Mickey Mouse poster in the main hall, and he noticed that it made people smile—so he bought every Mickey Mouse poster he could find. He hung them in the corridors and even papered the walls of what became known as the Mickey Mouse Conference Room. Entering the Rotenberg Center is a bit like stepping into a carnival fun house, I discovered during a two-day visit last autumn. Two brushed-aluminum dogs, each nearly 5 feet tall and sporting a purple neon collar, stand guard outside. Giant silver stars dangle from the lobby ceiling; the walls and chairs in the front offices are turquoise, lime green, and lavender.

Israel, 74, still holds the title of executive director, for which he pays himself nearly $400,000 in salary and benefits. He appears utterly unimposing: short and slender with soft hands, rounded shoulders, curly white hair, paisley tie. Then he sits down beside me and, unprompted, starts talking about shocking children. "The treatment is so powerful it's hard not to use if you have seen how effective it is," he says quietly. "It's brief. It's painful. But there are no side effects. It's two seconds of discomfort." His tone is neither defensive nor apologetic; rather, it's perfectly calm, almost soothing. It's the sort of demeanor a mother might find comforting if she were about to hand over her child.

Before we set off on our tour of the facility, there's something Israel wants me to see: Before & After, a homemade movie featuring six of his most severe cases. Israel has been using some of the same grainy footage for more than two decades, showing it to parents of prospective students as well as visiting reporters. They've already mailed me a copy, but Israel wants to make sure I watch it. An assistant slips the tape into the VCR, Israel presses the remote, and we all stare at the screen:

1977: An 11-year-old girl named Caroline arrives at the school strapped down onto a stretcher, her head encased in a helmet. In the next shot, free from restraints, she crouches down and tries to smash her helmeted head against the floor.

1981: Janine, also 11 years old, shrieks and slams her head against the ground, a table, the door. Bald spots testify to the severity of her troubles; she's yanked out so much hair it's half gone.

Both girls exhibit autistic behaviors, and compared with these scenes, the "After" footage looks almost unbelievable: Janine splashes in a plastic pool, while Caroline grins as she sits in a chair at a beauty salon. "Most people haven't seen these pictures," Israel says, setting down the remote. "They haven't seen children like this, so they cannot imagine. These are children for whom positive-only procedures did not work, drugs did not work. And if it wasn't for this treatment, some of these people would not be alive." The video is extremely persuasive: The girls' self-abuse is so violent and so frightening that it almost makes me want to grab a GED remote and push the button myself. Of course, this is precisely the point.

Considering how compelling the "After" footage is, I am surprised to learn that five of the six children featured in it are still here. "This is Caroline," one of my escorts says an hour or two later as we walk down a corridor. Without an introduction, I would not have known. Caroline, 39, slumps forward in a wheelchair, her fists balled up, head covered by a red helmet. "Blow me a kiss, Caroline," Israel says. She doesn't respond.

A few minutes later, I meet 36-year-old Janine, who appears in much better shape. She's not wearing a helmet and has a full head of black hair. She's also got a backpack on her shoulders and canvas straps hanging from her legs, the telltale sign that electrodes are attached to both calves. For 16 years—nearly half her life—Janine has been hooked up to Israel's shock device. A couple years ago, when the shocks began to lose their effect, the staff switched the devices inside her backpack to the much more painful GED-4.

ROGUE SCIENCE

IN 1994, MATTHEW ISRAEL had just 64 students. Today he has 234. This astonishing rate of growth is largely the result of a dramatic change in the types of students he takes in. Until recently, nearly all were "low functioning," autistic and mentally retarded people. But today slightly more than 50 percent are "high functioning," with diagnoses like ADD, ADHD, and bipolar disorder. New York state supplies the majority of these students, many of whom grew up in the poorest parts of New York City. Yet despite this change in his population, Israel's methods have remained essentially the same.

Israel has long faced criticism that he has not published research about his use of electric shocks in peer-reviewed journals, where experts could scrutinize it. To defend his methods, he points to a bibliography of 110 research articles that he's posted on the Rotenberg Center website. This catalog seems impressive at first. Studied more closely, however, it is not nearly so convincing. Three-quarters of the articles were published more than 20 years ago. Eight were written or cowritten by Lovaas, the UCLA-affiliated behaviorist. One of America's leading autism experts, Lovaas long ago stopped endorsing painful aversives. And Lovaas' old studies focus primarily on children with autism who engage in extreme self-injury—not on troubled teens who have been diagnosed with ADHD or ADD.

But then, it would be hard for Israel to find contemporary research supporting his program, because the practice of treating self-abusive kids with pain has been largely abandoned. According to Dr. Saul Axelrod, a professor at Temple University and an expert on behavior modification, "the field has moved away from painful stimuli because of public outcry and because we've devised better techniques," including determining the cause of an individual's self-abuse.

Another expert Israel cites several times is Dr. Brian A. Iwata, a consultant on the development of SIBIS, the device Israel modified to create his GED. Now a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Florida, he's a nationally recognized authority on treating severe self-abuse among children with developmental disabilities. Iwata has visited the Rotenberg Center and describes its approach as dangerously simplistic: "There appears to be a mission of that program to use shock for problem behaviors. It doesn't matter what that behavior is." Iwata has consulted for 25 states and says there is little relationship between what goes on at Israel's program and what goes on at other facilities. "He may have gotten his Ph.D. at Harvard, but he didn't learn what he's doing at Harvard. Whatever he's doing, he decided to do on his own."

Paul Touchette, who also studied with B.F. Skinner, has known Israel since the 1960s when they were both in Cambridge. Like Israel, Touchette went on to treat children with autism who exhibit extreme self-abuse, but he isn't a fan of Israel's approach either. "Punishment doesn't get at the cause," says Touchette, who is on the faculty of the University of California-Irvine School of Medicine. "It just scares the hell out of patients."

Over the decades, Touchette has followed Israel's career and bumped into him at professional conferences. "He's a very smart man, but he's an embarrassment to his profession," Touchette says. "I've never been able to figure out if Matt is a little off-kilter and actually believes all this stuff, or whether he's just a clever businessman."

BIG REWARD STORE

AT THE ROTENBERG CENTER, an elaborate system of rewards and punishments governs all interactions. Well-behaved kids can watch TV, go for pizza, play basketball. Students who've earned points for good behavior visit a store stocked with DVD players, CDs, cologne, PlayStation 2, Essence magazine, knockoff Prada purses—anything the staff thinks students might want. But even more prized is a visit to the "Big Reward Store," an arcade full of pinball machines, video games, a pool table, and the most popular feature, a row of 42-inch flat-screen TVs hooked up to Xbox 360s.

Students like the "BRS" for another reason—it's the only place many can socialize freely. At the Rotenberg Center, students have to earn the right to talk to each other. "We had to wait until we were in BRS to communicate with others," says Isabel Cedeño, a 16-year-old who ran away from Rotenberg in 2006 after her boyfriend, a former student, came and got her. "That was the only time you really laughed, had fun, hung around with your friends. Because usually, you can't talk to them. It was basically like we had to have enemies. They didn't want us to be friendly with nobody."

Students live grouped together in homes and apartments scattered in nearby towns and are bused to the facility's headquarters every morning. They spend their days in classrooms, staring at a computer screen, their backs to the teacher. They are supposed to teach themselves, using self-instruction programs that include lessons in math, reading, and typing. Even with breaks for gym and lunch, the days can be incredibly dull. "On paper, it does look like they're being educated, because we have lesson plans," says former teacher Jessica Croteau, who oversaw a classroom of high-functioning teens for six months before leaving in 2006. But "to self-teach is not exciting. Why would the kids want to sit there and read a chapter on their own without any discussion?"

Croteau says teachers have to spend so much time monitoring misbehaviors there's often little time left for teaching. Whenever a student disobeys a rule, a staff member must point it out, using the student's name and just one or two rote phrases like, "Mark, there's no stopping work. Work on your task, please." Each time a student curses or yells, a staffer marks it on the student's recording sheet. Teachers and aides then use the sheet to calculate what level of punishment is required—when to just say "No!" and when to shock.

Employees carry students' shock activators inside plastic cases, which they hook onto their belt loops. These cases are known as "sleds," and each sled has a photo on it to ensure employees don't zap the wrong kid.

Behaviorism would seem to dictate that staff shock students immediately after they break the rules. But if employees learn about a misbehavior after it has occurred—by, say, reviewing surveillance footage—they may still administer punishment. Rob Santana recalls that Mondays were always the most stressful day of the week. He would sit at his desk all day, trying to remember if he had broken any rules over the weekend, waiting to see if he'd be shocked.

Employees are encouraged to use the element of surprise. "Attempt to be as discreet as possible and hold the transmitter out of view of the student," states the employee manual. This way, students cannot do anything to minimize the pain, like flipping over their electrodes or tensing their muscles. "We hear the sound of [a staffer] picking up a sled," says Isabel, the former student. "Then we turn around and see the person jump out of their seat."

Employees shock students for a wide range of behaviors, from violent actions to less serious offenses, like getting out of their seats without permission. In 2006, the New York State Education Department sent a team of investigators, including three psychologists, to the Rotenberg Center, then issued a scathing report. Among its many criticisms was that the staff shocked kids for "nagging, swearing, and failing to maintain a neat appearance." Israel only disputes the latter. As for nagging and swearing? "Sometimes a behavior looks innocuous," he says, "but if it's an antecedent for aggression, it may have to be treated with an aversive."

New York officials disagreed, and in January 2007 issued regulations that would prohibit shocking New York students for minor infractions. But a group of New York parents filed a federal lawsuit to stop the state from enforcing these regulations. They prevailed, winning a temporary restraining order against the state, one that permits the Rotenberg Center staffers to continue using shock. The parents' case is expected to go to trial in 2008.

When they talk about why they use the shock device, Israel and his employees like to use the word "treatment," but it might be more accurate to use words like "convenience" or "control." "The GED—it's two seconds and it's done," says Patricia Rivera, a psychologist who serves as assistant director of clinical services. "Then it's right back to work." By contrast, it can take 8 or 10 employees half an hour or longer to restrain a strong male student: to pin him to the floor, wait for him to stop struggling, then move his body onto a restraint board and tie down each limb. Restraining five or eight kids in a single day—or the same student again and again—can be incredibly time-consuming and sometimes dangerous.

Even with the GED, the stories both students and employees tell make the place sound at times like a war zone: A teenage boy sliced the gym teacher across the face with a CD. A girl stabbed a staffer in the stomach with a pencil. While staff have been contending with injuries ever since Israel opened his facility, the recent influx of high-functioning students, some with criminal backgrounds, has brought a new fear: that students will join forces and riot. Perhaps tellingly, among high-functioning kids most of the violence is directed at the staff, not each other.

"OUR STUDENTS HAVE A TENDENCY TO LIE"

ROTENBERG STAFF PLACE the more troubled (or troublesome) residents on 1:1 status, meaning that an aide monitors them everywhere they go. For extremely violent students, the ratio is 2:1. Soon after I arrived, right before I set off on my tour, a small crowd gathered—it seemed that almost the entire hierarchy of the Rotenberg Center was going to follow me around. That's when I realized I'd been put on 5:1. As I began to roam around the school with my escorts, my every move monitored by surveillance cameras, I realized it would be impossible to have a private conversation with any student. The best I could hope for would be a few unscripted moments.

Ten years ago, a reporter visiting Israel's center would have been unable to talk to most students; back then few of them could speak. These days, there are more than 100 high-functioning kids fully capable of voicing their views, and Israel has enlisted a few in his campaign to promote the GED. "If we had only [severely] autistic students, they couldn't talk to you and say, 'Gee, this is really helping me,'" Israel says. "Now for the first time we have students like Katie who can tell you it helped them."

In the world of the Rotenberg Center, Katie Spartichino is a star. She left the facility in the spring of 2006 and now attends community college in Boston. Around noon, a staff member brings her back to the facility to talk to me. We sit at an outdoor picnic table away from the surveillance cameras but there's no privacy: Israel and Karen LaChance, the assistant to the executive director for admissions, sit with us.

Katie, 19, tells me she overdosed on pills at 9, spent her early adolescence in and out of psych wards, was hooked up to the GED at 16, and stayed on the device for two years. "This is a great place," she says. "It took me off all my medicine. I was close to 200 pounds and I'm 160 now." She admits her outlook was less rosy when she first had to wear the electrodes. "I cried," she says. "I kind of felt like I was walking on eggshells; I had to watch everything I said. Sometimes a curse word would just come out of my mouth automatically. So being on the GEDs and knowing that swearing was a targeted behavior where I would receive a [GED] application, it really got me to think twice before I said something disrespectful or something just plain-out rude."

As Katie speaks, LaChance runs her fingers through Katie's hair again and again. The gesture is so deliberate it draws my attention. I wonder if it's just an expression of affection—or something more, like a reward.

"Do you swear anymore?" I ask.

"Oh, God, all the time," Katie says. She pauses. "Well, I have learned to control it, but I'm not going to lie. When I'm on the phone, curse words come out."

The hair stroking stops. LaChance turns to Katie. "I hope you're not going to tell me you're aggressive."

"Oh, no, that's gone," Katie says. "No, no, no. The worst thing I do sometimes is me and my mom get into little arguments."

For Israel, of course, one drawback of having so many high-functioning students is that he cannot control everything they say. One afternoon, when I walk into a classroom of teenagers, a 15-year-old girl catches my eye, smiles, and holds up a sheet of paper with a message written in pink marker: HELP US. She puts it back down and shuffles it into her stack of papers before anyone else sees. When I move closer, she tells me her name is Raquel, she is from the Bronx, and she wants to go home.

My escorts allow me to interview Raquel while two of them sit nearby. Raquel is not hooked up to the GED, but she has many complaints, including that she has just witnessed one of her housemates get shocked. "She was screaming," Raquel says. "They told her to step up to be searched; she didn't want to step up to be searched, so they gave her one." After 20 minutes, my escorts cut us off. "Raquel, you did a great job—thank you for taking the time," says Patricia Rivera, the psychologist.

Once Raquel is out of earshot, Rivera adds, "Some of the things she said are not true, some of them are. Our students obviously have a tendency to lie about things." She explains that a staff member searches Raquel's housemate every hour because she's the one who recently stabbed an employee with a pencil.

The Rotenberg Center does not have a rule about how old a child must be before he or she can be hooked up to the GED. One of the program's youngest students is a nine-year-old named Rodrigo. When I see him, he is seated outside at a picnic table with his aide. Rodrigo's backpack looks enormous on his tiny frame; canvas straps dangle from both legs.

"He was horrible when he first came in," Rivera says. "It would take five staff to restrain him because he's so wiry." What was he like? "A lot of aggression. A lot of disruptive behavior. Whenever he was asked to do a task that he didn't feel like doing, he would scream, yell, swear. The stuff that would come out of his mouth you wouldn't believe—very sexually inappropriate."

"Rodrigo, come here," one of my escorts says.

Rodrigo walks over, his straps slapping the ground. He wears a white dress shirt and tie—the standard uniform for male students—but because he is so small, maybe 4 feet tall, his tie nearly reaches his thighs. "What's that?" he asks.

"That's a tape recorder," I say. "Do you want to say something?"

"Yeah."

Unfazed by the presence of Israel, Rivera, and my other escorts, Rodrigo lifts a small hand and pulls the recorder down toward his lips. "I want to move to another school," he says.

THE EMPLOYEE-MODIFICATION SYSTEM

TO UNDERSTAND how the Rotenberg Center works, it helps to know that it runs not just one behavior-modification program, but two—one for the residents, and one for the staff. Employees have no autonomy. If a staffer believes it's okay to shock a kid who is smashing his head against a wall, but it's not okay to shock someone for getting out of his chair without permission, that could spell trouble. "There's pressure on you to do it," a former teacher told me. "They punish you if you don't."

I met this former teacher at a restaurant, and our meeting stretched on for six hours. At times it felt less like an interview than a confession. "The first time you give someone a GED is the worst one," the teacher said. "You don't want to hurt somebody; you want to help. You're thinking, 'This has got to be okay. This has got to be legal, or they wouldn't be doing this.'" At the Rotenberg Center, it's virtually impossible to discuss such concerns with coworkers because there are cameras everywhere, even in the staff break room. Staff members who want to talk to each other without being overheard may meet up in the parking lot or scribble notes to each other. But it's hard to know whom to trust, since Israel encourages employees to file anonymous reports about their coworkers' lapses.

In addition, staff members are prohibited from having casual conversations with each other. They cannot, for example, say to a coworker, "Hey, did you see the Red Sox game last night?" "We don't want them discussing their social life or the ball games in front of the students or while they're on duty," Israel says. "So we'll sometimes actually have one staffer deliberately start a social conversation with another and we'll see whether the other—as he or she should—will say, 'I don't want to discuss that now.'" Monitors watch these setups on the surveillance cameras and punish staffers who take the bait.

Former employees describe a workplace permeated with fear—fear of being attacked by students and fear of losing their job. There are so many rules—and so many cameras—it's not easy to stay out of trouble. Employees quit or are fired so often that two-thirds of the direct-care employees remain on the job for less than a year.

New employees must sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to talk about the Rotenberg Center—even after they no longer work there. Of the eight ex-employees I interviewed, most did not want to be identified by name for fear of Israel suing them; all were critical of how the GED is used. Maybe, says one, the use of shocks was justified in a few extreme self-injurious cases, but that's all. "Say you had a hospital that was the only hospital in the nation that had chemotherapy, and they were treating people who had the common cold with it," she says. "I think the extreme to which they abuse their power has outweighed what good they do."

THE HARD LESSONS OF CONNIE CHUNG

MATTHEW ISRAEL has been fielding questions from journalists since the 1970s, but few have examined his operation as thoroughly—and critically—as the producers at Eye to Eye with Connie Chung did. In 1993, they spent six months investigating the facility. They even found an employee willing to go inside with a hidden camera. But Israel ended up getting the last laugh. As he recounts the story for me, he can barely contain his glee. "We refused to meet with her unless the parents could be in the same room," he says, grinning. "She talked to the parents, and they really gave it to her." This is no exaggeration: When Chung tried to ask him tough questions, his parent-supporters shouted her down.

Throughout this raucous meeting, Israel had his own camera rolling, too, which turned out to be a brilliant move. Before CBS got its 40-minute story on the air, Israel launched a national campaign to discredit both Chung and her report. He accused her of being "biased" and "hostile," and to prove it, he distributed edited videotapes of her interview to media critics and CBS affiliates. It worked. A New York Times television critic savaged CBS, accusing it of using "shabby tricks of the trade." Suddenly the story was not about whether the school had abused students—but whether CBS had abused the school.

"I don't think it was a positive thing for her career," says Israel, still smiling. It's late in the day, right near the end of my visit, and I'm starting to wonder why he's brought up this topic.

By now I've spent 22 hours with Israel and his staff—wandering around the facility, meeting parents they've brought in for me to interview. But before I depart, there's one more place I want to see, the room where they repair the GEDs. Israel and Glenda Crookes, an assistant executive director, agree to take me there. It is just past 7 p.m. and drizzling as we climb into Israel's Lexus for a short drive to the maintenance building.

There, Crookes and Israel lead me down a hall, past storerooms filled with red helmets, GED sleds, batteries and their chargers. The room at the end of the hall looks like it could be a repair shop for any sort of electronics equipment: scissors, screwdrivers, industrial-grade glue, a Black & Decker Pivot Driver. On one desk, I spot a form called a GED Trouble Report. The report explains that someone dropped off Duane's shock device because it was "making rattling noises." Crookes explains, "Anytime a screw is loose or anything is wrong with the device, it's automatically sent back here."

A Trouble Report on another desk suggests a more serious problem: "Jamie Z was getting his battery changed, Luigi received a shock." "What does this mean?" I ask. Crookes picks up the paper, reads it, then hands it to Israel and walks away. Her gesture seems to say, I cannot believe we just spent two days with this reporter and now this is the last thing she sees.

Israel stares at the report, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of reading glasses. Nobody says anything. Outside, one car after another races by, the tail end of the evening commute.

After a minute or two, Israel says, "Well, I don't understand the whole of it." He is still staring at the paper in his hand. "But there was apparently a spontaneous activation." The GED, in other words, delivered a shock without anyone pressing its remote.

This moment reminds me of something Israel told me earlier about the premise of Skinner's Walden Two, that by changing people's behaviors you can help them have a better life. But, Israel was careful to add, "The notion was that you needed to have the whole environment under control. With a school like this, we have an awful lot. Not the whole environment, but an awful lot."

He was right; he controls nearly every aspect of his facility. But all of his surveillance cameras and microphones and paperwork and protocols had failed to protect Luigi, a mentally retarded resident who had done nothing wrong.


# # #
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anonymous on August 20, 2007, 02:04:27 PM
Someone empty this place.

Now.

Forcibly.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anonymous on August 20, 2007, 02:25:06 PM
How is this legal?

Why isn't this on the news?

Why do we care more about fucks in GITMO than our own kids?

 :flame:
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Froderik on August 20, 2007, 02:26:41 PM
Because, because, because, because, because......
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anonymous on August 20, 2007, 02:40:14 PM
So how much fuss do we have to make to get this on TV?
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Ursus on August 20, 2007, 04:33:54 PM
[li] [url=http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/06/19/a_shocking_form_of_therapy/]Massachusetts State Senator Brian A. Joyce Op-Ed. (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock_primary_sources.html)[/li]
[li] 1994 State of Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation's investigation into the death of Linda Cornelison (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/Mass_DMR_LC_investigation.pdf) (introduction and additional appendices here (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/Mass_DMR_LC_investigation_intro_leter_and_appendices.pdf)), a 19-year-old, severely retarded Rotenberg Center student who died of a perforated stomach; the two preceding days she was punished for acting strangely, clutching her stomach, and being listless.[/li]
[li] 2006 New York State Education Department investigation of the Rotenberg Center (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/NYSED_2006_investigation.pdf) by six investigators, three of them behavioral psychologists.
[/li][/list]

Court Documents and Testimony

Why Do Kids Self-Injure?
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Che Gookin on August 20, 2007, 06:28:51 PM
And NY is supposed to be considered a fairly progressive forward thinking liberal state.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Ursus on August 20, 2007, 06:50:30 PM
News:[/color] (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/why_cant_mass_shut_matthew_israel_down.html) Radical behaviorist Matthew Israel has a one-size-fits-all solution to all variety of troubled kids: Document their misdeeds and discipline them—using social isolation, food deprivation, and electric shocks.

By Jennifer Gonnerman
August 20, 2007


(http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock_3_280x200.jpg)  
 
In Massachusetts, Matthew Israel's critics have been trying to put him out of business for more than two decades. The first major battle took place in 1985—before Israel even started using shocks—after a 22-year-old student named Vincent Milletich died while in restraints at one of Israel's homes. The state Office for Children tried to close down Israel's facility, but he fought back with a lawsuit and a PR blitz. (For example, much as he does with journalists today, Israel showed videos of his methods to pioneering behaviorist B.F. Skinner, who was famously opposed to the use of painful punishments known as "aversives." Skinner then issued a statement saying that such extreme patients might require aversive therapy.) In the end, Judge Ernest Rotenberg, for whom the facility is now named, decreed that the program could stay open, though Israel would have to obtain court approval every time he wanted to use aversive therapy on a student.

In the mid-1990s, Massachusetts again tried to close down Israel's program—which by then had started to use electric shocks—and again he prevailed. This time, a judge declared that the state Department of Mental Retardation had waged a "war of harassment" against Israel, accused its commissioner of lying on the witness stand, stripped the agency of its power to regulate Israel's facility, and ordered the state to pay the $1.5 million in legal fees and other costs that Israel had racked up. The commissioner was forced to resign, a cautionary tale for any other state official thinking of taking on Israel.

Meanwhile, a parallel battle over Israel's use of aversives has been fought in the Massachusetts state Legislature. Since the late 1980s, a bill to ban their use has been introduced in every legislative session—and every time it has failed to become law. Emotional hearings on the pros and cons of aversives have become a regular ritual. Critics (professors, disability activists, mental-health experts) testify against the use of aversive therapy, while parents plead with lawmakers not to pass the bill, insisting that without aversives their children's self-abusive behavior will escalate.

In this battle, Israel has the perfect ally: state Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, whose nephew Brandon has been in Israel's care since age 12; Brandon, now 27, is one of Israel's most challenging cases, with a long record of extremely self-injurious behavior. This is the same Brandon who Israel once shocked more than 5,000 times, prompting him to make a new device that could deliver much more pain. Nevertheless, Brandon's parents credit Israel with saving their son's life, and his uncle has helped ensure that no bill banning aversives becomes law.

So in a bird-in-hand strategy, state Senator Brian A. Joyce, whose district includes the Rotenberg Center, has introduced two new bills that—while not proposing an outright ban on aversives—would regulate their use much more strictly. "The harsh reality is we're doing this to innocent children in Canton, Massachusetts," he says. "If this treatment were used on terrorist prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, there would be worldwide outrage."
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on August 22, 2007, 12:47:40 AM
Thanks for posting this,
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anonymous on August 22, 2007, 07:28:08 PM
Wow, this has started a nuclear shitstorm over at Mother Jones.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anonymous on August 22, 2007, 08:03:22 PM
Quote from: ""Guest""
Wow, this has started a nuclear shitstorm over at Mother Jones.




Mother Jones???
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Ursus on August 22, 2007, 08:07:36 PM
From the Comments section, School of Shock (http://http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock-2.html) article by Jennifer Gonnerman (in the August 20, 2007 edition of Mother Jones):

Comments:

They probaly should get Ceasar Milano in that place to teach how to handle dogs. They already have the leashes. Ohhh. Maybe not. I think that would be against the LAW. ANIMAL ABUSE. Lemme see. Dem drugs didn't work like the drug companies hoped. At least they got some free trials. Hey. Maybe we can do what they used to do. Yeah, that's it. Look at the behavior modifications. Wow. We're really smart. Then we can all pray to Jesus for the kids to be better HUMANS. May they all suffer similar fates!
Posted by: TheDude1369 on August 20, 2007 4:42:58 AM

When are they (the school and parents)going to open their eyes and stop hurting our children? Why hasn't this facility been shut down? This is barbaric!
Posted by: Lisa on August 20, 2007 10:19:58 AM

I tried to be objective reading the story as I understand what it is like to deal with violent patients. Yet I cannot understand how shocking someone 5000 times in one day is not criminal assault.Also what does it take before it is recognized something, or a technique is not working. I find the story frightening from the fact that this extreme form of behavior modification is allowed. I have to wonder if allowed what addtional steps would be taken to correct a behavior.
Posted by: Jim on August 20, 2007 11:03:37 AM

I am utterly horrified. I have worked with people with developmental disabilities and I understand the difficulty, however, I think that resorting to torture is wholly and completely unacceptable. If these "treatments" worked, they wouldn't have to be escalated constantly, and the students would change their behavior. Scientifically, the definition of punishment is an aversive that when applied reduces the occurence of a behavior. If the behavior is continuing, the punishment is ineffective. Currently, I train dogs, and many dog trainers feel that the use of electric shock is inhumane in nearly every instance. I certainly can't condone the use on human beings. Cinder Wilkinson-Kenner
Posted by: cinder Wilkinson on August 20, 2007 1:16:07 PM

they used to treat depression with shock therapy, who says throwbacks can't happen monkeys? Sounds like hell, glad my meds work
Posted by: victor on August 20, 2007 1:35:28 PM

electric shocks, if it taught lab rats then it must work for humans right? Someone just happened to miss that tiny little detail thatlab rats also infected with cancer and HIV, experimented on and mutilated. but thats incosequential right?
Posted by: kmk on August 20, 2007 1:42:50 PM

are WE shocked? we shouldn't be... its not as if the information isn't OUT THERE... the fact is... if we KNEW a couple who stuffed their kids into this "care"... how many of us would 'get their hands dirty' to help? worse yet, how many of us are *actively involved* in children in our neighbourhoods? with litigous parents, territorial 'professionals', domineering "I have ONE kid, an All-Terrain Carriage & I'm a Misunderstood GODDESS"-Preppy Mothers, & the general suspicions that ANY adult who wishes to even TALK to kids is a pedophile... who of us isn't too AFRAID of the old adage, "no Good Deed goes unpunished..." our VILLAGES' children are being taught by television & marketing... & little else as our communities become more & more 'privatized'... ...& we all suffer, not *just* the most vulnerable... Spread Love... ... but wear the Glove! BlueBerry Pick'n can be found @ ThisCanadian DOT com "Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
Posted by: BlueBerry Pick'n on August 20, 2007 2:00:35 PM

This place is just a training school for sadists.
Posted by: zak822 on August 20, 2007 2:20:49 PM

I find it distressing that children with RAD (as the two foster kids mentioned) can be subjected to this. That is the very last treatment a RAD child should receive.
Posted by: Possible Parent on August 20, 2007 2:36:01 PM

I am a teacher in the field of special education who works with students with emotional or behavioral disorders, as well as a manager of both residential and vocational programs for adults with developmental disabilities in the state of Oregon. I deal with some of the hardest and most violent students in my school district, as well as work to help adults with mental illnesses that can lead to many serious and dangerous behaviors. AT NO POINT, EVER, WOULD I EVEN THINK TO BEGIN A BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION PROGRAM THAT RELIES SOLELY, IF AT ALL, ON AVERSIVE TECHNIQUES THAT ARE MUCH MORE TORTURE THAN EFFECTIVE! In a state (MA) that is nationally heralded for an amazing public school system, I am shocked that this type of institution would continue to be tolerated ON ANY LEVEL! Not only is what Israel doing not in line with current research-based practices in the field, it seems sickenly obvious that he has decided to do what he likes because he enjoys the controversy, or worse, the control and power over beings more hapless than he. Please, if you have the time, write to the House of Reps and Senators from the state of MA (at the state and federal level) and encourage them to stand up for students with disabilities who are being abused!
Posted by: Erin on August 20, 2007 2:50:57 PM

Is the Bush administration running this place?! Sure sound like it. Torture the children to SAVE the children! What will Christians think of next!? Oh! I know, Water Boarding!
Posted by: john copeland on August 20, 2007 3:27:28 PM

This fellow Israel is a sado- masochistic sicko and needs to be shut down. Have we become so insensitive as a culture that we can allow our less fortunate citizens to be tortured at the hands of a mad doctor and just look the other way. We are a sick society and the medicalization of every little twitch is social control at the most hideous
Posted by: http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22929 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22929)[/color][/list]
To the lawyer: It's so nice that you are still ambulance chasing with no success. I am one of the parents who has a child that your fraudulant lawsuit has affected. Why don't you tell the bloggers where your client is now. Is Sagamore State Hospital still holding him down with meds and a straight jacket? What about the fact that he sexually assaulted his siblings. How about the area residents he robbed and harrassed during his stay at home. Let's not forget the fact that his "mom" put him there to keep him at of jail. And why did "mom" leave him alone with his siblings knowing he was dangerous. Oh that's right she was celebrating her birthday! Mr. Ken Mollins you are like all the other leeches who talk alot but don't really care. You hyped this up knowing it was bull. You and his "mother" had no idea what you were in for. Sure mom took him out of JRC but where is he now? NOT AT HOME!!!!!!! If his mother was so distraught about her son's treatment she would have took him home. That's not what she did and you are misleading the public by making them think this is some poor family we should feel for. The real deal: JRC uses skin shock as an additional form of treatment. There is no lasting effect on the child. They accept children that no other school will and they actually help them. Mr. Mollins client knew exactly what JRC was about when she brought him there and to say otherwise is a straight up lie. The enrollment process is two hours long and when you leave your child there you know everything about the school. This child's mother not only knew what was up she or one of her family members used it on her "son". Like Rob this kid didn't need JRC he needs jail. Mr. Mollins client was abused from birth and like anyone in his situation he fought back. His method was wrong because his "mother" did not re-direct him. I guess she had too many other foster kids to handle him. As a parent it is your job to maintain your child. If you know your child is trying to live the "thug life" then don't send them to a school drop them off at the police station. If you allow your child to grow up with a free rein don't complain later. JRC's treatment plan is not for everyone. They do not force anyone to enroll their child there. As a parent I would remove my child in a heartbeat if I found their treatment to be less than acceptable. This whole lawsuit is about the money it costs. The school has been there for years but somebody found out the cost and now they are upset. If they shut down the school where will these kids go? No answer! Why because there is no place. My child is ompleting her last year at JRC. Because of their help she will be coming home instead of going to a state facility. All you bleeding hearts should come to NYC and take a look inside OMRDD's group homes. The abuse and neglect is outrageous. But it's ok right? Don't use skin shock but it's ok to kick somebody in the head or push them down the stairs and break their leg.(see New York Daily News article Sunday Aug.19,2007 page 9) To Mr. Mollins and his bandwagon: Mind your own business. I don't see anyone jumping up to take any of these children into their home. But you think you have the right to dictate to us. Why don't you focus your energy on the kids walking the street doing what your client has done. And to everyone who feels the need to speak on this issue know what you are talking about. Lawyers are actors. They are supposed to spin the web but as thinking adults with some intelligence we are supposed to look past the script and look for the truth. Get off the bandwagon unless you can produce a viable alternative which to date nobody has done.
Posted by: Sue Handon on August 24, 2007 6:05:02 AM

This is a disgusting practice
Posted by: Marilyn Nathan on August 24, 2007 6:41:35 AM

This is against the law!!! If a parent tries to correct a child, is been called Child Abuse... Now, can someone explain to me what is this been call. THIS IS CHILD ABUSE, THIS IS CHILD ABUSE.The state should start looking on how to close this schools. STOP THE CHILD ABUSE!!!!!
Posted by: JESSICA on August 24, 2007 6:46:41 AM

This is against the law!!! If a parent tries to correct a child, is been called Child Abuse... Now, can someone explain to me what is this been call. THIS IS CHILD ABUSE, THIS IS CHILD ABUSE.The state should start looking on how to close this schools. STOP THE CHILD ABUSE!!!!!
Posted by: JESSICA on August 24, 2007 6:47:39 AM

Tale of Twin Brothers I have identical twin brothers and a daughter with autism. I am also a practicing psychiatrist who specializes in autism. One brother banged his head into sharp corners requiring surgery. He was in the hospital for five and a half months and despite having a staff member present with him around the clock he continued to need repeated suturing for repeated head banging. This all occurred despite a cocktail of five medications with their adverse effects of obesity, tardive dyskinesia, loss of ability to verbally communicate, drooling and excessive daytime sedation. The board of education told my mother that no educational facility would accept my brother and she was requested to waive his right to an education. Furthermore, the medical insurance was running out and my parents were told they could be held responsible for hospitalization costs. I remember my father wondering if the hospital could take our house. However, through my mother's physician she was informed about the Judge Rotenberg Center. He has been there for nineteen years and doing quite well on no medication. We have taken him on trips to other states but to all those positive behavior only enthusiasts when my brother was in the hospital, WHERE WERE YOU THEN? My other brother was functioning quite well and as an adult had a full time job for three years without any medication and was travel trained. He moved into a New York State OMRDD (Organization of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities) funded agency residence while holding this job. Well now he is obsessive with setting fires and has tried to set a peer on fire. He is frequent flyer in the hospital and has failed positive behavior supports with functional analysis and about fifteen medication trials but not without having obesity, tardive dyskinesia, sedation and seizures from them. This is the story of his current hospitalization: He was upset a staple was out of place on a chair, but after being reassured appeared calm for about fifteen minutes. Then he ran out and into the traffic and punched a stranger accross the street who wanted to call the police. Speaking of police, I just evaluated a girl with autism who is terrified of police. She wasn't afraid before her New York State public school called the police after she threw a chair but not at anyone. The police threatened her with pepper spray, handcuffed her, put her back in a squad car alone and told her to keep her head down and not move. So this is the way New York State handles agitation in an autistic child. Speaking of agitation, my parents are now quite agitated that they were told two days ago that they may be responsible for my brother's current hospital bill as the insurance is running out. His OMRDD funded residence is not comfortable taking him back. Perhaps one of these positive behavior only enthusiasts can take him home. I suggest this positive behavior enthusiast may sure his or her smoke detectors are functioning so between the positive behavior support and the smoke detectors we can be sure at least one method will work. However, if positive behavior only enthusiasts do not want my brother around can they at least help my parents pay his hospital bill?
Posted by: Ilana Slaff, M.D. on August 24, 2007 7:20:14 AM

There is no doubt in my mind that this school should be shut down and it's teachers prosecuted for assault. We are talking about human beings with human rights here. Apologists for this assault claim the only alternatives are drug treatments or other failed behavioural strategies. This is not true. All behaviours have meaning. Find out what the person is trying to communicate and respond to that. Listen to these children and treat them as human beings. The 'rewards' the school offers are all things that any child should have access to, opportunities to play and socialise are not a 'reward' they are the basic rights of any child. Finding ways to listen to people whose communication we find difficult to understand may be difficult and time consuming and requires creativity, and imagination. In the end however it is the only way to support people to find quality in their lives. Israels programme is the opposite of humanity, it has no intention of listening to or learning from the people it supports, it has no creativity, life or love, it does not allow individuality or self-expression but enforces strict, sadistic, fascistic conformity to arbitrary rules. It is horrifying that at the start of the 21st Century, we are seeing treatments that would have been unacceptable even in the worst of the 19th Century asylums.
Posted by: Max on August 24, 2007 7:30:08 AM

My child attends currently attends JRC. My child was in a mental hospital for a year and a half waiting for a school that best for him. His IQ was low and he had behavoir problems. I gave permission for the Board of Ed.to look outside of New York. Low and behold they presented JRC. I have tried the GED myself. And its not that painful. I would much rather use the GED than to have my son spaced out on drugs. That's not living. Of course, my son doesn't like it. What child would? That's only natural. Children complain when it comes to disipline. I just want to say that I read this articile. Please don't believe everything you read. If the school was half as bad as this article makes it out to be I would've taken my child out of it a long time ago.
Posted by: Loretta Harrison on August 24, 2007 8:22:40 AM

How the [deleted] is this school not shut down. How can the parents sit by while their children are abused day after day for something as small as getting out of their seat? Mr. Israel Is an evil EVIL EVIL man who needs to be stopped. His schools need to be shut down and the children who attend this torture centers need to be put in care that will actually help thim. A place where they will be loved and treated like HUMAN BEINGS not broken machines. Shock after shock after shock does nothing but terrify the student. This treatment is not helping them and the only reason that the small fraction of students that are being "helped" are behaving is because they are TERRIFIED out of their minds of the next shock. This man is a monster. This facility must be shut down.
Posted by: Jacob Parsons on August 24, 2007 9:52:21 AM

Just read with horror this article and related comments after sent word of this from relative with Flordia's Agency for Person's With Disabilities. Am appalled at what I have read. Why are the Regulatory Agnecies of MA not acting upon this in-humane treatment of patients? Where is the Department of Justice? DOJ shut down a MR-DD State operated facility in Indiana after reports and findings of patient mis-treatment. The Indiana findings were in no way as severe or restrictive as those noted in the report on JRC. As many commented, prisons do not treat even the worst criminals in this manner. Having worked throughout my career with Developmentally Disabled I understand how difficult it can be to treat our most challenging citizens, BUT this is unacceptable to me. Health care professionals are all taught Cardinal Rule #1: First DO NO HARM to the patient. Obviously, someone at JRC has forgotten that.
Posted by: C.Moon RN,C, MSN,MHA,QMRP on August 25, 2007 10:57:24 AM

Re. the evolution of JRC from Skinner: Something about that time, I'm not sure what it was, created a hotbed for these types of places. There were a lot of new ideas floating around about the human psyche, and people tried mucking around with those ideas, for whatever reasons... perhaps some of them were even good-intentioned. I guess some people thought they could apply these ideas to solving some of the "problems of the day," e.g., straightening up the "errant and wayward youth" and turning them into productive citizens. It would seem that the idea that one's teenage years are, by definition, turbulent times fraught with stress and filled with a modicum of experimentation, had not yet been accepted as not necessarily a bad thing. Apparently it still isn't. ...Matthew Israel appears to have escaped close scrutiny of his methods and ideology since he focused on a small subset of youth, namely, self-abusing and mentally disturbed individuals whose parents felt they had no other alternative. His target clientele in the early days weren't exactly able to speak for themselves. Now that the Judge Rotenberg Center has started to target more mainstream malcontents, be it for reasons of greed or myopia, we are starting to hear stories of what life is really like there. May the sunlight of this current exposure prove to be the requisite disinfectant needed to put these atavistic barbaric cruelties to rest.
Posted by: Ursus on August 25, 2007 12:14:02 PM

you folks only see Matthew Israel's school you don't see that his methods have been used in public schools. in the 70's and 80's special ed bd classes used many of his methods. now some of us get to try and live with the abuses. personally i would love to see Dr. Matthew Israel subject to his own work.
Posted by: ernie on August 25, 2007 6:27:35 PM

Mr. Matthew Israel.... good you are reading this.
Posted by: ernie on August 25, 2007 6:35:13 PM

Personal feelings and emotions have no place in the life of an individual who is mentally or physically impaired. The facts are as follows: Research has demonstrated that positive behavior supports and medication management are only sufficiently effective in some individuals with life-threatening behaviors. The children placed at the Judge Rotenberg Center have all been through an impartial court hearing presided over by a judge, have been represented by a lawyer and the parent or legal guardian has consented to the proceeding. I received the 2000 New York Medical College Award of Academic Excellence for my research in this area. I have posted elsewhere with respect to my identical twin brothers who have compulsive life threatening behaviors unresponsive to medications and positive behavioral interventions only.
Posted by: Ilana Slaff, M.D. on August 25, 2007 6:58:39 PM

I sympathize with the parents of these children. Those of you who scream, "This is child abuse!" don't have a clue. I agree with Dr. Slaff. If you're so appaled by this treatment, take one of the patients into your home for a month. Walk a mile in the parent's shoes, then come back to this forum and report your feelings. It's different when they hit your wife in the face, sexually abuse YOUR children, and attempt to set your house on fire. Dealing with that will change your pov.
Posted by: Matt on August 26, 2007 3:27:23 AM

Mr. Matthew Israel.... good you are reading this.
Posted by: ernie on August 26, 2007 8:55:40 AM

Mr. Matthew Israel.... good you are reading this.
Posted by: ernie on August 26, 2007 8:55:42 AM

I read with dismay the article written by Jennifer Gonnerman regarding the disciplinary methods employed by the Judge Rotenber Center, commonly known as JRC. I found her article to be unbalanced and rather a knee-jerk reaction to a very complex process. Her article was also written out of context. It contains emotional rather than factual solutions. I have a first-hand working knowledge of JRC because I deal with JRC almost on a daily basis and have done so for the past 4 years. I am a court-appointed attorney who is not employeed by JRC or the Trial Court system. I am completely unbiased and work only for myslef and in the best interests of the students that I represent. I found her story to be completely lopsided. Very little attention was paid to the positive aspects of the program but rather emphasized the negative aspects of the program. Following suit were the bloggers who probably never even visited JRC or had any working knowledge of its methods. If the aricle had been writted on a more positive note, bloggers would have in turn responded in a more positive fashion. My role is to assure that the behavioral treatment plans are appropriate to meet my students/client's needs. If there is a provision which is overly punitive than that provision is addressed and the applicable punishment is removed from the plan. If no middle grounds are met then several independent doctors are obtained and the independent doctors will also evaluate the treatment plan. The student also has some input into their treatment plan and allowed to make reasonable requests. Therefore, students are given the GED's after much forethought and planning has been established. The treatment plan must then be approved by Judges of the Probate Court system. I have yet to hear a Judge condemn the program in it's entirety. That is because the Judges have witnessed such overwhelming improvemnets and turnarounds that it almost boggles the mind. When I first meet some of my students they had to be kept apart from any human contact because of their agressive and dangerous nature. Some must be protected with staff personel around the clock. They are not able to matriculate into a traditional classroom setting. Some of these students have stabbed others or themselves with sharp insturments, some have set fires and I had one student who once head-butted a pregnant teacher. The list goes on and on. I might ask is this any way to exist? These students would never be able to socialize or be educated within the traditonal system. I have seen students who were restrained on a full time basis but whom after the GEDS were applied are now able to lead full and productive lives, are educated, have jobs and families. Without JRC these students would either be jailed for the rest of their lives with litte to no education or given a cocktail of the most potent drugs known to society. With the medications they usually suffer from the effects such as trembling, drooling, sedation, low white blood counts which is ofter fatal and many other side effects including diabetes and heart failure. I admire the fact that JRC will accept students who no other placement will accept. Without the JRC program where would these children go? Even without the use of the GEDs this is a highly structural and organized program that is dedicated to the turning around of some of the country's most worst behaved students. As the student's behavior is improved the Geds start being removed. Remeber, it is the decision of the higher functioning student whether they get an application or not. To behave appropriately means no applications. The decisons is theirs. In conclusion, Ms. Gonnerman reports other less structured disciplinary programs that are allegedly successful but I see no examples, data or articles documenting other behavioral approaches. She also states that students would rather be in jail than at JRC. This statement raises some red flags for me. In jail or DYS there is little education, the children don't have much of anything to do and there is little structure. I find that the more unstructured a setting is the more the children like it even though it is not in their best interest. I think Ms. Gonnerman should revisit her story and write a more balanced and positive viewpoint of this school. She should keep in mind that JRC has rehabilitated vast numbers of aggressive and violent children. Also, all the planning and different stages of the treatment plan can be viewed on the JRC website.
Posted by: Elaine Gerber on August 26, 2007 9:47:16 AM

really Dr.Ilana Slaff, M.D. what happens with the high function victims: when we grow up and move into the world? you folks don't know. you don't track us all. if you did we would see you and then you would have to deal with us and pray your key words worked. they might just slow us down for a moment as we process our fear of punishment: maybe we calm and just walk away or maybe our suppressed hate and anger burns out the conditioning and we attack you. pretty scary to think about; some of us are higher function and not even we know what will make us blow....................................................... as for you Matt. I have lived with those dangerous self destructive children. those parents and doctors think they only hurt them because they love them; same excuse rapists and abusers use all the time. I would suggest you get your face flicked a few thousand times while you are helpless and don't know the complex rule system that changes with every person you interact with; see how it feels.
Posted by: ernie on August 26, 2007 10:09:44 AM
Title: Reply to New York State Education Department Report
Post by: Anonymous on August 28, 2007, 02:51:09 AM
For the other side of the story, please see http://www.judgerc.org/ReplyToJuneReport.pdf (http://www.judgerc.org/ReplyToJuneReport.pdf)

Matthew L. Israel, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Judge Rotenberg Center
www.judgerc.org (http://www.judgerc.org)
Title: Re: Reply to New York State Education Department Report
Post by: hanzomon4 on August 28, 2007, 03:55:42 AM
Quote from: ""MatthewLIsrael""
For the other side of the story, please see http://www.judgerc.org/ReplyToJuneReport.pdf (http://www.judgerc.org/ReplyToJuneReport.pdf)

Matthew L. Israel, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Judge Rotenberg Center
www.judgerc.org (http://www.judgerc.org)


You will pay for the children you torture at your school. You're a sick sick human being and I hope that you and the parents that support you go through the torture you all have put those kids through.
Title: Re: Reply to New York State Education Department Report
Post by: Ursus on August 28, 2007, 08:04:23 AM
Quote from: ""MatthewLIsrael""
For the other side of the story, please see http://www.judgerc.org/ReplyToJuneReport.pdf (http://www.judgerc.org/ReplyToJuneReport.pdf)

Matthew L. Israel, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Judge Rotenberg Center
www.judgerc.org (http://www.judgerc.org)


To clarify for all:  the above link is Matthew Israel's 2006 reply to the NYSED report, pdf, 73 pages.  "JRC RESPONSES TO ALLEGATIONS IN NYSED JUNE 9, 2006 REPORT"

Here is Matthew Israels's 2007 reply to the Mother Jones article.  Shorter, pdf has been copied onto its own thread; said thread contains links to the pdf. http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22929 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22929)

@ Matthew Israel:  I do not personally agree with your conclusions, but I understand that this is a very difficult issue for all participants, and felt that airing it might generate some valuable discussion.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: deadinsaneorinjail on August 28, 2007, 11:35:42 AM
Quote
I read with dismay the article written by Jennifer Gonnerman regarding the disciplinary methods employed by the Judge Rotenber Center, commonly known as JRC. I found her article to be unbalanced and rather a knee-jerk reaction to a very complex process. Her article was also written out of context. It contains emotional rather than factual solutions. I have a first-hand working knowledge of JRC because I deal with JRC almost on a daily basis and have done so for the past 4 years. I am a court-appointed attorney who is not employeed by JRC or the Trial Court system. I am completely unbiased and work only for myslef and in the best interests of the students that I represent. I found her story to be completely lopsided. Very little attention was paid to the positive aspects of the program but rather emphasized the negative aspects of the program. Following suit were the bloggers who probably never even visited JRC or had any working knowledge of its methods. If the aricle had been writted on a more positive note, bloggers would have in turn responded in a more positive fashion. My role is to assure that the behavioral treatment plans are appropriate to meet my students/client's needs. If there is a provision which is overly punitive than that provision is addressed and the applicable punishment is removed from the plan. If no middle grounds are met then several independent doctors are obtained and the independent doctors will also evaluate the treatment plan. The student also has some input into their treatment plan and allowed to make reasonable requests. PLEASE STOP TORTURING ME! Therefore, students are given the GED's after much forethought and planning has been established. The treatment plan must then be approved by Judges of the Probate Court system. I have yet to hear a Judge condemn the program in it's entirety. That is because the Judges have witnessed such overwhelming improvemnets and turnarounds that it almost boggles the mind. When I first meet some of my students they had to be kept apart from any human contact because of their agressive and dangerous nature. Some must be protected with staff personel around the clock. They are not able to matriculate into a traditional classroom setting. Some of these students have stabbed others or themselves with sharp insturments, some have set fires and I had one student who once head-butted a pregnant teacher. The list goes on and on. I might ask is this any way to exist? These students would never be able to socialize or be educated within the traditonal system. I have seen students who were restrained on a full time basis but whom after the GEDS were applied are now able to lead full and productive lives, are educated, have jobs and families. Without JRC these students would either be jailed for the rest of their lives with litte to no education or given a cocktail of the most potent drugs known to society. With the medications they usually suffer from the effects such as trembling, drooling, sedation, low white blood counts which is ofter fatal and many other side effects including diabetes and heart failure. I admire the fact that JRC will accept students who no other placement will accept. Without the JRC program where would these children go? Even without the use of the GEDs this is a highly structural and organized program that is dedicated to the turning around of some of the country's most worst behaved students. As the student's behavior is improved the Geds start being removed. Remeber, it is the decision of the higher functioning student whether they get an application or not. To behave appropriately means no applications. The decisons is theirs. THE CHILD CHOOSES TO BE SHOCKED In conclusion, Ms. Gonnerman reports other less structured disciplinary programs that are allegedly successful but I see no examples, data or articles documenting other behavioral approaches. She also states that students would rather be in jail than at JRC. This statement raises some red flags for me. In jail or DYS there is little education, the children don't have much of anything to do and there is little structure. I find that the more unstructured a setting is the more the children like it even though it is not in their best interest. I think Ms. Gonnerman should revisit her story and write a more balanced and positive viewpoint of this school. She should keep in mind that JRC has rehabilitated vast numbers of aggressive and violent children. Also, all the planning and different stages of the treatment plan can be viewed on the JRC website.
Posted by: Elaine Gerber on August 26, 2007 9:47:16 AM


THIS BITCH IS A COURT APPOINTED ATTORNEY WHOSE JOB IT IS TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE DISABLED AND MENTALLY ILL CHILDREN SHE REPRESENTS.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on August 28, 2007, 12:02:08 PM
Quote from: ""deadinsaneorinjail""
Quote
I read with dismay the article written by Jennifer Gonnerman regarding the disciplinary methods employed by the Judge Rotenber Center, commonly known as JRC. I found her article to be unbalanced and rather a knee-jerk reaction to a very complex process. Her article was also written out of context. It contains emotional rather than factual solutions. I have a first-hand working knowledge of JRC because I deal with JRC almost on a daily basis and have done so for the past 4 years. I am a court-appointed attorney who is not employeed by JRC or the Trial Court system. I am completely unbiased and work only for myslef and in the best interests of the students that I represent. I found her story to be completely lopsided. Very little attention was paid to the positive aspects of the program but rather emphasized the negative aspects of the program. Following suit were the bloggers who probably never even visited JRC or had any working knowledge of its methods. If the aricle had been writted on a more positive note, bloggers would have in turn responded in a more positive fashion. My role is to assure that the behavioral treatment plans are appropriate to meet my students/client's needs. If there is a provision which is overly punitive than that provision is addressed and the applicable punishment is removed from the plan. If no middle grounds are met then several independent doctors are obtained and the independent doctors will also evaluate the treatment plan. The student also has some input into their treatment plan and allowed to make reasonable requests. PLEASE STOP TORTURING ME! Therefore, students are given the GED's after much forethought and planning has been established. The treatment plan must then be approved by Judges of the Probate Court system. I have yet to hear a Judge condemn the program in it's entirety. That is because the Judges have witnessed such overwhelming improvemnets and turnarounds that it almost boggles the mind. When I first meet some of my students they had to be kept apart from any human contact because of their agressive and dangerous nature. Some must be protected with staff personel around the clock. They are not able to matriculate into a traditional classroom setting. Some of these students have stabbed others or themselves with sharp insturments, some have set fires and I had one student who once head-butted a pregnant teacher. The list goes on and on. I might ask is this any way to exist? These students would never be able to socialize or be educated within the traditonal system. I have seen students who were restrained on a full time basis but whom after the GEDS were applied are now able to lead full and productive lives, are educated, have jobs and families. Without JRC these students would either be jailed for the rest of their lives with litte to no education or given a cocktail of the most potent drugs known to society. With the medications they usually suffer from the effects such as trembling, drooling, sedation, low white blood counts which is ofter fatal and many other side effects including diabetes and heart failure. I admire the fact that JRC will accept students who no other placement will accept. Without the JRC program where would these children go? Even without the use of the GEDs this is a highly structural and organized program that is dedicated to the turning around of some of the country's most worst behaved students. As the student's behavior is improved the Geds start being removed. Remeber, it is the decision of the higher functioning student whether they get an application or not. To behave appropriately means no applications. The decisons is theirs. THE CHILD CHOOSES TO BE SHOCKED In conclusion, Ms. Gonnerman reports other less structured disciplinary programs that are allegedly successful but I see no examples, data or articles documenting other behavioral approaches. She also states that students would rather be in jail than at JRC. This statement raises some red flags for me. In jail or DYS there is little education, the children don't have much of anything to do and there is little structure. I find that the more unstructured a setting is the more the children like it even though it is not in their best interest. I think Ms. Gonnerman should revisit her story and write a more balanced and positive viewpoint of this school. She should keep in mind that JRC has rehabilitated vast numbers of aggressive and violent children. Also, all the planning and different stages of the treatment plan can be viewed on the JRC website.
Posted by: Elaine Gerber on August 26, 2007 9:47:16 AM

THIS BITCH IS A COURT APPOINTED ATTORNEY WHOSE JOB IT IS TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE DISABLED AND MENTALLY ILL CHILDREN SHE REPRESENTS.


 :flame:
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anne Bonney on August 28, 2007, 12:05:10 PM
I just can't deal with those people.  They're too far gone and believe religiously (pun intended) in what they're doing.

Sick fucks.
 :flame:
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Ursus on August 28, 2007, 12:28:02 PM
Quote from: ""Elaine Gerber""
...the Judges have witnessed such overwhelming improvemnets and turnarounds that it almost boggles the mind.


Perhaps at first.  What are the long term effects?  I found the depictions of those two near catatonic patients who had been there 1-2 decades very disturbing.  These were "success stories," right?  See also:

The Effects of Anticipated Shocks on Thinking and Behavior
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22955 (http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22955)

Might this not impact the overall long-term picture?
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: hanzomon4 on August 28, 2007, 12:32:54 PM
Also remember the kids quoted in the NY report....
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anonymous on October 01, 2007, 12:55:28 PM
Zapped back to top. Hello, Mr. Israel. Let's play.
Title: The other side of the story
Post by: Anonymous on October 01, 2007, 01:09:39 PM
Ms. Gonnerman’s article “School of Shock,â€
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anonymous on October 01, 2007, 01:11:26 PM
Copypasta won't help you here, Matty boy.
Title: Re: The other side of the story
Post by: hanzomon4 on October 01, 2007, 04:04:07 PM
Quote from: "Matthew L. Israel"
Ms. Gonnerman’s article “School of Shock,â€
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Anonymous on October 03, 2007, 02:08:29 PM
FOXNEWS.COM HOME > U.S.
       
Survey: Foster Parents Paid Less Than Cost of Raising Children
Wednesday, October 03, 2007

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NEW YORK  â€”  Most states reimburse foster parents significantly less than the actual cost of raising a foster child, complicating the task of finding good homes for children who need them, according to a first-of-its-kind survey.

The survey analyzed regional living expenses and calculated on a state-by-state basis the minimum cost of adequately raising a foster child. Only Arizona and the District of Columbia pay foster parents more than this minimum amount, according the survey.

To adequately cover the cost of rearing a foster child, base payments in 28 states would need to be raised at least 50 percent, and five states — Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin — would need to more than double their current base rates, according to report. It was compiled by the University of Maryland School of Social Work, the National Foster Parent Association, and Children's Rights, a New York-based advocacy group, for release Wednesday.

Of the more than 500,000 U.S. children in foster care at any given time, about 75 percent live with foster parents, while most of the others are placed in group homes and institutions.

The report expressed concern that inadequate reimbursement rates would worsen a shortfall of foster parents, "potentially increasing the likelihood that children will be placed in institutions or shuttled from one foster placement to another."

"The bottom line is that when these rates don't reflect the real expenses that foster parents face, it's the children who suffer," said Karen Jorgenson, executive director of the Foster Parent Association.

Although child welfare agencies are required by federal law to reimburse foster parents for the cost of raising foster children, there is no national minimum, leaving states and localities free to set their own rates. The result is a huge disparity. The base rates paid for raising a 2-year-old foster child range from $236 a month in Nebraska to $869 in the District of Columbia.

The "minimum adequate rates" in the report represented the cost of providing basic needs — housing, food, clothing, and school supplies — as well as a child's participation in normal after-school sports and activities.

The monthly rates recommended by the report, averaged out on a national basis, were $629 for 2-year-olds, $721 for 9-year-olds and $790 for 16-year-olds. Currently, the average actual monthly base rates offered by states are $488 for 2-year-olds, $509 for 9-year-olds and $568 for 16-year-olds.

While Arizona and the District of Columbia were the only jurisdictions whose base payments exceeded the recommended minimums, 10 other states fell short by only small amounts: Alaska, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

In Nebraska, state officials had advance knowledge that the report would list it as having the lowest base rate, and the administrator of its Child Welfare Unit, Christine Hanus, sent a letter to Children's Rights expressing dismay.

Hanus noted that many Nebraska foster parents receive more than the minimum base rate, as well as extra payments for child care and other purposes. However, she acknowledged in the letter that two-thirds of the payments for foster children under 6 were at the base level of $236 a month — far below the minimum adequate rate of $636 which the report recommended for Nebraska.

In a telephone interview, Hanus said Nebraska's foster parents were meeting the needs of the children in their care.

"Foster parents do not leave because of the money or the care rates," she said.

In Missouri, Department of Social Services Director Deborah Scott noted the state recently increased subsidies to foster parents for the first time since 2001, but acknowledged the rates were still below recommended guidelines.

Julie Farber, director of policy for Children's Rights, said she hoped child welfare officials in states with low rates would use the report to press their legislatures for more funding.

In California, Farber said, the number of foster parents has been dropping, and child welfare officials already have cited inadequate reimbursement as a factor.

"They know it stands in the way of doing their job," she said.
Title: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Nihilanthic on October 03, 2007, 05:53:48 PM
Why is the news not covering this?

Why does America not care?

Why do we flip out and damn near jerk off about how we fight for freedom in that damn oily sandbox of the middle east and then do zip.shit for our own kids?

I'm as close as I've ever been to snapping or running away. I'm really, really, really fed up. There is just no excuse.

There is no accountability anymore - unless you're a kid.  :roll:
Title: Re: The other side of the story
Post by: psy on October 04, 2007, 04:18:59 AM
Quote from: ""hanzomon4""
Torture, no matter the reason, is wrong and no amount of spin will change that.

Ever seen Dr. Strangelove?
Title: Re: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: psy on September 16, 2008, 04:05:22 PM
bump
Title: Re: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: psy on September 10, 2009, 02:28:34 AM
figured i'd bump this again
Title: Re: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Che Gookin on September 10, 2009, 09:39:50 AM
Worthy bump is worthy bump.
Title: Re: Read the NYDE report on the Judge Rotenberg Center
Post by: Ursus on December 09, 2009, 12:48:28 PM
Interesting YouTube clip — Dr. John Breeding* discussing the Judge Rotenberg Center:

Brainwashing Children, Child Mind Control, School of Shock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCWuPxtIcS4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCWuPxtIcS4)[/list]


* Disclaimer: John Breeding has known ties to Scientology, which certainly has brainwashing issues of its own!  :D  ...Nevertheless, he makes some worthwhile points here.