Autism Issues at the Judge Rotenburg Center

A YouTube video on Autism Issues at the Judge Rotenburg Center in Canton, Massachusetts. Human rights abuses against autistics are investigated in this docu-short.



Electric Shock is used and Advocated by the Judge Rotenburg Center. We are of the opinion that Electric Shock is cruel and unusual punishment disguised as therapy. We feel that it should be banned.

The Judge Rotenburg Center has 900 employees and annual revenues exceeding $56 million, charges $220,000 a year for each student.

But how dis it get its name?

In 1985, after representations from the National Society for Autistic Children and other advocacy groups, the Massachusetts Office for Children sought to close the Institute. It was allowed to continue operation using aversion therapy under a settlement agreement approved by Chief Judge Ernest Rotenberg, and subsequently became known as the Judge Rotenberg Center.

But what is this thing called aversion therapy?

Until the late 1980s, aversion therapy was administered in the form of spanking with a spatula, pinching the feet, and forced inhalings of ammonia.

Later the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED) was invented to administer painful electric skin-shocks by remote control through electrodes worn against the skin at all times. More conventional treatments such as psychotherapy and psychiatric medication are not provided.

Concerns into the treatment regime prompted investigation by New York City Council[6] and an independent report was commissioned which was critical of both processes and oversight at the facility. In spite of these findings, and the deaths of six students enrolled in the school, the school remains open.

Furthermore, members of the autistic community have expressed great concern that the methods of treatment are ineffective, excessive, and possibly a human rights violation.

Many parents of difficult children are highly supportive of the treatment, especially as they can use the GED on home visits. Said one mother, "[All I have to do is show it to my son and...] 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,'... It's made him a human being, a civilized human being."

Wonderful, Terrorism as a form of parenting. Kids behaving based on intense fear, not based on education, example, or empathy. Didn't they try this at Abu-Grabe?

All of which sounds like the doctrine of "The beatings will continue until morale improves"

More Examples

Recently, the Center has come under fire thanks to the Mother Jones article "School of Shock, which publicized the questionable treatment used at the the Center.

Dr. Matthew Israel, founder of the JRC, has been known to utilize the GED on children who merely suffer from ADD. The article documents a case in which one of the childcare "professionals" (who don't even possess college degrees) shocked a young girl who sneezed for asking for a tissue.

More severe offenses are punished by strapping the child to the board and shocking them again and again for ten straight minutes. Also, their is a current lawsuit against the center filed by the parents of a former patient.

The Center petitioned the courts to give the plaintiff a court appointed guardian, who authorized the Center to use a GED on the child, thus bypassing parental consent.

Also, although Israel points to the theories of B. F. Skinner as evidence for the effectiveness of aversive therapy, Skinner himself denounced the treatment late in his life.

In light of this new publicity, many activists are now speaking out against the Center. Massachusetts teenagers have formed the group Massachusetts Students United Against the Judge Rotenberg Center, which is based at Brandeis University in Waltham, 20 miles away from the school's Canton campus. Currently, this group, along with others such as the Association of Retarded Citizens, is campaigning for harsher restrictions on the use of aversive therapy.