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Canton Patch
Letter to the Editor:

A Former Judge Rotenberg Center Worker Speaks Out (http://http://canton.patch.com/articles/letter-to-the-editor-a-former-judge-rotenberg-center-worker-speaks-out?mid=51)
Greg Miller worked for the Rotenberg Center in Canton for three years and speaks about his experience.

September 13, 2011
By Greg Miller

Warning: Some of the content in this letter may be disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.[/list]

There is so much for me to share about my three years of experience as a staff in Judge Rotenberg Center that I wanted to share them in writing.

Please note that other former JRC teachers and staff and even psychologists have contacted me in the past to tell me that they appreciate my speaking on behalf of the students, and to tell me of legal threats that keep them from speaking out vocally against JRC's practices. I can share only my own experiences and opinions. No doubt JRC has attempted to discredit me and what I have to share.

My Background

I worked for the Judge Rotenberg Center (http://http://canton.patch.com/articles/readers-respond-to-judge-rotenberg-center-stories) for over three years, between 2003 – 2006. I worked as a Teacher's Assistant, and I turned down offers to work at JRC as a classroom teacher because I was too busy with my studies.

I have a Master's Degree in Elementary Education from Lesley University. I previously taught as a classroom teacher in Watertown Public Schools, Lincoln Public Schools, and Winchester Public Schools. I worked too many hours as a classroom teacher to be able to also study alternative medical approaches for the treatment of children with learning difficulties and autism, and JRC offered me an opportunity to continue to work with children and youth while putting myself through school with ideal work hours.

The reason why I remained at JRC for three years instead of leaving on my first day of training was that I liked JRC's commitment to getting students off of psychiatric drugs. Students were arriving at JRC looking very drugged up and in very rough conditions. I was a very dedicated worker and supporter of JRC at the start of my employment. JRC always treated me fairly as an employee.

Then my opinion of JRC started to change significantly to where I felt I needed to leave JRC and to speak out against its practices. I started to get signs of traumatic stress while working at JRC, and my doctor advised me repeatedly that I should leave JRC for my own health reasons. I became more aware of what was actually happening to individual students at JRC that parents were not permitted to see, and I wondered how many parents would actually be supportive of JRC if they saw what was happening to their children as I did.

My Opinion on the Use of JRC Shock Therapy

I believe that electric shocks (http://http://canton.patch.com/articles/massachusetts-to-hold-two-hearings-on-aversive-therapy-this-week) are harmful not only to the student receiving a shock, but to all other students in the room witnessing the traumatic shock incidences. Electric shocks are not necessary to help JRC's population of students. I saw much use of electric shocks that I felt were unwarranted to appear in student plans, and it seemed to me that individualized student plans were designed without proper oversight or adequate safeguards to prevent misuse of the shock devices.

I was having signs of traumatic stress including nightmares, night sweats, and elevated blood pressure, so that my doctor advised me that I needed to leave JRC. So imagine what it is like and what harm is being done to students who are actually on electric shock devices, who are committing no "wrong" behaviors, but who must witness their classmates getting shocked all day long!

I have witnessed the traumatic effects of electric shocks not only on the students receiving shocks, but also on other students in the room witnessing the shock "treatments" even though they have exhibited no behaviors. It was not uncommon to have incidences where I would reach for my pencil in my JRC apron pocket, on which hung the remote controls, to have students crying out and or jumping up, or throwing their task up in the air, and even grabbing me, because they thought I was going to shock them.

These were all behaviors that would cause students to be shocked depending on the individual student's plan, so groups of students would all get shocked together, all out of their reaction of fear due to myself or another staff reaching for a pencil in our pockets. If any staff chose not to shock students at such times, we would immediately lose our jobs for "refusing to follow student plans."

I have participated as required in following student plans to shock multiple students, including when they reacted to watching a fellow classmate tied up in a restraint chair getting attacked by a staffer with a plastic knife (being held) to the student's throat. This was a judge-approved Clockwork-Orange-type "treatment" for a student who swallowed a small X-Acto knife blade. A staffer, according to the plan, would run up to the student who had all four limbs tied all day long to a restraint chair, and pretend to force a plastic knife down the student's mouth while another staff pressed the remote control to give a shock to the student. The staff would repeatedly yell in a gruff voice, "Do you want to swallow a knife?"

Sometimes a number of students watching this would act out in fear and receive shocks for jumping out of their seat, crying out, or dumping their task in reaction to the violence. I highly doubt that the judge ordered all 40 plus other students in the same classroom to have to watch this violent "treatment" of their classmate with his arms and legs tied to a chair. This took place day after day for weeks, with their classmate unable to defend himself in any kind of way. I felt nauseated just being in the room during those treatments, and I was not one of the humans with electric shock devices strapped to my body, so I could only imagine what the students were going through.

I have witnessed terrible injuries including bloody scabs all over the torso, arms, and legs caused by the electrodes. While I have heard of Dr. Israel previously claiming that the injuries were due to staff not properly rotating electrodes after shocking a student, the reality was that some students exhibited behaviors resulting in up to 30 shocks in a day. Some students stopped their behaviors after receiving their maximum 30 shocks for the day. Most of the shock devices used two electrodes to pass current through a specific distance of human flesh to maximize the amount of pain from the same amount of current. Two red skin marks from electrodes per shock, times 30 shocks in a day, quickly adds up so that very soon electrodes will be placed over previous marks resulting in bloody scabs. In these cases, the multiple patches of bloody scabs have nothing to do with staff failing to rotate electrodes after shocking students. Rather it exemplifies that the electric shocks approach were not appropriate for the student, and that other approaches should have been found.

Dr. Israel has previously compared the electric shock devices to bee stings. I vividly remember nearly getting the wind knocked out of me during training at JRC back in 2003 when (I was) permitted to test out the weakest of JRC's electric shock devices on my own arm. That was no bee sting!

I have worked with a young lady who was so underweight while on electric shock devices that she had a feeding tube sewn into her stomach to feed her when she would not eat enough. Upstairs there was a photo of her on the wall near Dr. Matthew Israel's office from when she first entered JRC, looking comparatively plump.

I have witnessed a student with autism getting shocked for sitting at his desk with his eyes closed for more than 15 seconds because his mother didn't like the fact that he closed his eyes. I wondered what it might feel like for me to try to shut my eyes at night to go to sleep after I had been shocked several times during the day for closing my eyes! Initially in his behavioral plan, the student was shocked for closing his eyes while walking down the hallway with the reason that it was "health dangerous" to close one's eyes while walking down a short carpeted hallway.

Later, JRC added more and more places where this student would get shocked for closing his eyes. Students with autism characteristically see the world as over-stimulating and overwhelming. I saw a photograph of the student at a young age with his eyes closed while holding up a large fish on a fishing trip. I don't believe students should be shocked for having autism.

Besides shocking a student for the behavior of "closing eyes" while sitting at one's desk for more than 15 seconds, or while walking down the hallway, shocking students for reacting to their classmates getting shocked, or shocking a student with all four limbs tied to a restraint chair while a staff violently attacked the student with a plastic knife to teach him a lesson, there were many other behaviors for which students were shocked that felt absolutely wrong to me. Students during my time at JRC were shocked for tearing a paper cup or Kleenex while sitting and watching television during their break, shocked for standing up and raising a hand and asking to go to the bathroom, shocked for pulling apart a loose thread, shocked for going to the bathroom in one's clothes after signing that they need to use the bathroom for over two hours, shocking a blind, nonverbal girl with cerebral palsy for making a soft moaning sound in an effort to communicate and also shocking her for holding a staff's hand, to name a few examples of many.

I am still unaware of even one study done that demonstrates that student behaviors remain "changed" after leaving JRC, once off the shock devices.

I was told repeatedly as a staff member at JRC that not only were these student behavior plans permitted by the judge, but some of the plans were ordered by the judge. Looking back, I question what the judge knew. Certainly JRC had a huge lack of oversight and it seemed that there was inadequate protection for the students.

On more than one occasion, I remember arriving to work and being surprised by drastic changes to individual student plans, where many behaviors for which a student would be shocked were eliminated from the student's plan or else moved to a "minor" category for which the student would not be shocked. I remember being told by a student's case manager that the behavior plans were changed because the student had an upcoming court date to prepare for. I do not believe that the judges were given the full picture of what they were approving when approving electric shocks on students.

After looking back, and to summarize some of the atrocities I witnessed and participated in while working at JRC, it is difficult for me to understand how I could have done something so cruel to other human beings. No doubt I was operating on misinformation, and misled to believe many of the same arguments that I hear parents arguing today. I truly believed that JRC was the only school that could help this population of students without the use of psychiatric drugs that turned children into zombies and ruined their livers.

Some children, not all, do respond to the threat of pain as long as they are strapped up to electric shock devices. But it is my strong opinion that JRC used electric shocks for many behaviors when other alternatives were available, and to the exclusion of more effective treatments. Psychologists leaving JRC told me that they had other treatments based on real research in established psychological journals that they wanted to use, but they were not allowed to use those other methods because Dr. Israel favored exclusively the use of electric shocks.

Dr. Israel was out to prove the power of his electric shock devices, and in doing so, somewhere along the line the shock devices must have become more important to him than individual students. It is my opinion, as a former JRC teacher who later worked at another school serving a very similar student population as the JRC students with autism, that NO shocks are necessary to control student behaviors at JRC.

If I was given the opportunity, I would sincerely apologize to each and every student I shocked at JRC. I certainly applaud Senator Brian A. Joyce (http://http://canton.patch.com/announcements/senate-adopts-senator-joyces-amendment-banning-the-use-of-aversives-such-as-electric-shocks) and many others who have worked so diligently to end what I consider to be torture. Torture that is allowed and exists only in Canton, Massachusetts.

Copyright © 2011 Patch.

Comments (http://http://canton.patch.com/articles/letter-to-the-editor-a-former-judge-rotenberg-center-worker-speaks-out?mid=51) left for the above Letter to the Editor, "A Former Judge Rotenberg Center Worker Speaks Out (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=38163&p=408218#p408217)" (by Greg Miller; September 13, 2011; Canton.Patch.com):

Cathy Dalton · 10:14am on Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Wow. What a painful, powerful story. Please, stop this horrific practice. Senator Joyce continue what you are doing to stop this torture. Innocent children need a voice.AskMoMo · 12:09pm on Tuesday, September 13, 2011

AskMoMo · 12:49pm on Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Maria Angela · 2:49am on Thursday, September 15, 2011

Offenses like this against another human being -- ESPECIALLY CHILDREN -- is unforgivable. Dr. Israel and his chief goons should go to prison for this. It's despicable -- in this modern day and age that some of us have not grown out of the barbarism. It's like a new Dark Ages.mike terkeltaub · 8:40am on Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The story of these young people and adults brings tears of anger and sadness. Communities all over the country are working with young people with similar disabilities and strengths without using these "methods". Young people are leaving JRC to successful lives without shocks. Greg, be proud of your advocacy and best of luck in the future.Karen Henner · 4:04pm on Thursday, September 29, 2011

Why does this continue to go on?!? I just can't comprehend this! Thank you Greg for speaking out!Derrick Jeffries · 7:05pm on Monday, October 3, 2011

George Deabold · 9:28pm on Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Jay Rosenthal · 12:38am on Sunday, November 6, 2011

As a successful student of psychology at Mitchell College in New London, CT and having been through two different aversive free, psychotherapeutic based residential treatment centers (Andrus Children's Center in Yonkers,NY and The Learning Clinic in Brooklyn, CT), I have seen that benefits can be attained- even with the most troubling of cases. At JRC, the students appear to be treated as subjects of behavior instead of actual human beings. The students live in fear and could develop both psychological and physiological ailments later in life. Just because the behavior has ceased to exist does not mean the problem itself has also ceased to exist.Donna Downing · 6:47pm on Sunday, November 6, 2011

Why cannot the US government ban shock treatments? Even Amnesty International has condemned this institution and it's practices. Continue to write congress to tell them to outlaw shock treatment, seclusion, and greatly limit restraint except in an emergency in all settings where people live and learn. Learn from those with autism their needs and how to assist them to successful lives ON THEIR TERMS!Linda Rammler · 5:45am on Monday, November 7, 2011

All I can say, after many years of futile action as a member of various groups trying to close JRC/BRI, is that these revelations unfortunately are no surprise. EVERYONE -- from certain state representatives who parade their family members around the MA state house while they are getting shocked, to the Nazi-like suits that defend the practices publicly, to the parents who refuse to listen to truly evidence-based alternatives in the form of positive behavior supports -- should be held criminally accountable for these atrocities. War crimes with no war, except against the most vulnerable members of our society (yes, they ARE members) whose behaviors are merely indicative of the misery that exists when one cannot communicate, cannot have typical human relationships, and are abandoned and clearly not loved or respected at this horrid place.

Copyright © 2011 Patch.

The Letter to the Editor in the OP (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=38163&p=408226#p408217) was quoted from and summarized in the UK autism blog, "Left Brain Right Brain (http://http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/)," which I'm not gonna re-post here, although it did get a number of interesting comments. A few folk strove to repudiate Matthew Israel's methods by distancing them from those B.F. Skinner might have condoned, the end all being an apparent defense of Skinner?

Here are those comments (http://http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/11/letter-to-the-editor-a-former-judge-rotenberg-center-worker-speaks-out/) left for "Letter to the Editor: A Former Judge Rotenberg Center Worker Speaks Out" (by Sullivan, 14 Nov 2011, LBRB):

Shanna · November 14th, 2011 14:44:31

Is there anything we can do to help get this place shut down?Ruth/STL · November 14th, 2011 15:39:38

Occupy JRC!sharon · November 14th, 2011 22:54:49

David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E. · November 15th, 2011 04:26:03

sharon · November 15th, 2011 05:49:33

Thanks David N Andrews for expanding on my thoughts. I live with exhibit A as an example that punishment doesn’t work in the form of my autistic 3 yo son. If anything it tends to reinforce the behaviour, much to my chagrin.McD · November 15th, 2011 07:09:34

Yes, DNA, I would agree, Skinner would be absolutely revolted about what goes on in his name. – this was not his vision for behavior science.David N. Andrews M. Ed., C. P. S. E. · November 16th, 2011 04:06:19

Sharon: "I live with exhibit A as an example that punishment doesn't work in the form of my autistic 3 yo son. If anything it tends to reinforce the behaviour, much to my chagrin."

Well, I know parents of autistic kids who don't have the sense of shame to admit that punishment reinforces their behaviour: a functional behavioural analysis of both parts of the parent-child dyad and their behaviour always identifies the reinforcing effect on the parent's behaviour of punishing the child for her/her behaviour. At least, done properly, it does. Because we know that the sense of relief is the rewarding factor here. By teaching the child other ways of doing things that serve the same functions as the 'behaviours of concern', these behaviours can be directly almost eliminated. I started out kinda anti-ABA, but modified my view when I researched it a lot more. I'm anti-Lovaas' variant of it (which was also (to borrow from McD) 'not (Skinner's) vision for behavioural science'.

@McD: nods courteously What puzzles me (well, not that much, really) is that people will – in the name of education/care/treatment/etc. – elect to commit acts of violence on other people. Of course, it’s because – as Sharon notes – such acts reinforce themselves.[/list]
sharon · November 16th, 2011 04:55:52

# #

Still astounded that nobody, including the authorities, has forcibly emptied this place. The "No shocking of new students" should have happened twenty years ago, and spells its death knell; without the shocking, JRC has no reason to exist.

Makes me wonder what "Dr." Israel is doing in his retirement.

Building circuitboards, no less.

Quote from: "Pile of Dead Kids"

Makes me wonder what "Dr." Israel is doing in his retirement.

Consultant to the "compliance and corrections" industry, perchance? It's truly shocking, no doubt 'bout that...

( ... ;D )

Teen tied and shocked for hours; mom calls it "torture"
Read more: http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/und ... z1mxzPNrze (http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/undercover/teen-tied-and-shocked-for-hours-mom-calls-it-torture-20120219#ixzz1mxzPNrze)

Updated: Monday, 20 Feb 2012, 11:18 AM EST
Published : Sunday, 19 Feb 2012, 11:17 PM EST

Mike Beaudet
http://www.twitter.com/channel_mike (http://www.twitter.com/channel_mike)

Kevin Rothstein Producer http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/und ... z1mxzZMqC0 (http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/undercover/teen-tied-and-shocked-for-hours-mom-calls-it-torture-20120219#ixzz1mxzZMqC0)

(FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - Video of a disabled teen tied down and given painful electric shocks for seven hours should be made public, the youth's mother said, so everyone can see what she describes as the "torture" her son went through at the controversial school, the only one in Massachusetts that uses pain to treat its clients.

"This is worse than a nightmare," Cheryl McCollins said about her disabled son, Andre. "It is horrific. And poor Andre, who had to suffer through this, and not know why."

The ordeal began after Andre hit a staff member. Inside a classroom, as a camera was recording, he was tied to a restraint board, face down, a helmet over his head.

He stayed like that for seven hours without a break, no food, no water, or trips to the bathroom. Each time he screamed or tensed up, he was shocked, 31 times in all. His mother called the next day to check on him.

"I said, 'Andre.' I said, 'Hello.' And so he said, 'Help me,'" McCollins said.

After spending three days in a comatose state, not eating or drinking, Andre was taken to Children's Hospital, where he was diagnosed with "acute stress response" caused by the shocks.

"The doctors took all the shackles and all those things off of him. Andre's not talking to me. I'm just holding him and telling him how much I love him, and asking him please to talk to me, just tell me what happened," McCollins said.

What happened that morning in October 2002 became clear after the Rotenberg Center showed her the video of Andre's ordeal, recorded by the classroom camera.

"When I viewed the tape, I saw Andre walking into a room, someone asking him to take off his coat. Andre said no, they shocked him, he went underneath the table trying to get away from them. They pulled him out, tied him up and they continued to shock him," McCollins said.

"When you look at that videotape, what was the purpose of all those shocks?" asked FOX Undercover reporter Mike Beaudet.

"I have no idea," McCollins replied.

"Did you get an apology?" Beaudet asked.

"No, they felt what they did was therapy," McCollins replied.

"Does that look like therapy to you?" Beaudet asked.

"No, it was torture," McCollins said.

For now, the public can't see for themselves what Andre's treatment looks like because the Rotenberg Center asked a Norfolk Superior Court judge to seal the video tape, saying it would be unsettling for viewers who didn't understand the context. The judge agreed, and the video remains under a protective order.

"This is video they fought vehemently not to release, fought vehemently to keep quiet and I think now are very concerned that this tape is out there," said attorney Andrew Meyer, who represents Andre McCollins in a lawsuit against the Rotenberg Center.

"The Judge Rotenberg Center has consistently gotten away with being able to soft sell their treatment, to whitewash what they've done about it being therapeutic: 'It's not so bad, it helps these children.' But the eyewitness accounts that we now have about what actually goes on at this center puts to lie everything they've been saying," Meyer said.

But not everyone agrees. When asked about the perception that electric shock therapy is torture, school attorney Michael Flammia said, "Absolutely wrong."

Flammia would not talk about Andre McCollins.

"But I can tell you I'm familiar with every kid who has been at the school, who have been at the school over 20 years and I can promise you the treatment here is safe, it's effective, it's administered properly and every kid has benefited enormously from it," Flammia said.

"We talked with a parent who says, 'Put that video out there, let the public see what happened to my son here. Let them see what she calls torture,'" asked FOX Undercover's Beaudet.

"The matter is in the hands of the courts and we have complete confidence in the court system on that particular matter," Flammia replied.

"So you don't want us to see that video?" Beaudet asked.

"It's in the hands of the court," Flammia replied.

But McCollins says the public needs to see the video of what happened to her son.

"I hope this stops it. I hope this tape being exposed puts an end to this torture. Because I feel it. You watch it, you feel it," McCollins said. "How do we sit here and let this go on?"

It's certainly getting tougher for the Rotenberg Center to use these shocks.

New York and Massachusetts recently barred shocks on new students, though the school is fighting those restrictions in New York and is planning to do so here.

This is also not the first time this kind of video has become a problem for the center. Last year, the school's founder, Matthew Israel, was indicted on charges that he ordered video of improperly shocked students to be erased despite an ongoing investigation.

Israel agreed to a deal that gives him pre-trial probation in exchange for his stepping down from the school.

Read more: http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/und ... z1mxzjuJtI (http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/undercover/teen-tied-and-shocked-for-hours-mom-calls-it-torture-20120219#ixzz1mxzjuJtI)

That happened ten years ago. How has this place been open for that long? Why is the video not yet released?

Petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/clos ... ergcenter/ (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/closejudgerotenbergcenter/)

I know it has probably been posted already but thought it was best to repost.

Anonymous - A message to the Judge Rotenberg Center

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlSvDGGadHs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlSvDGGadHs)

Fornits

Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Ursus on November 15, 2011, 09:05:49 PM