The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) has been of concern to advocates nationwide for many years. One of the problems with the JRC is the practice of “aversive” treatment for students at the center. One of the most troubling of these “aversives” is the use of GED skin shocks. Recently, advocate, and former employee of the JRC, Mr. Gregory Miller, wrote a petition and letter that autism and disability advocates are requesting be passed around to the greater community. Here is the letter from Mr. Miller:
Hi, my name is Gregory Miller. I used to work at a school in Massachusetts named The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) where we used powerfully painful electric shock devices (45 – 91 milliamps, at 66 volts) on students to control their behaviors. These devices are much stronger than police stun guns (1-4 milliamps). Unlike stun guns, the electrodes most commonly used at school are spaced 3 – 4 inches apart so that the electrical volts passing through the flesh create the maximum amount of pain with those amps and volts. The United Nations is aware of JRC, has called these shocks at JRC “torture”, and says that “The prohibition of torture is absolute.” Please see the attached video of a student named Andre getting shocked at JRC, covered by Fox News.
Rather than shocking students for only severe behaviors, JRC also shocks students for minor behaviors, such as closing eyes for 15 seconds while sitting at the desk, pulling apart a loose piece of thread, tearing an empty used paper cup, going to the bathroom in one’s clothes after signing that they need to use the bathroom for over two hours, standing up and raising a hand to ask to go to the bathroom, blowing small bubbles in saliva between one’s lips, and shocking a non-verbal nearly blind girl with cerebral palsy for making a moaning sound and for attempts to hold a staff’s hand (her attempts to communicate and to be loved).
I would greatly appreciate your help to protect my former students by petitioning Massachusetts legislators to make these shock procedures illegal. These students are among Massachusetts’ most vulnerable citizens and have no voice of their own to describe their pain. They need YOUR voice!
Whether you are an American, or are from elsewhere within the United Nations, I urge you to please CLICK on the Petition Letter tab to carefully read the petition that is based on what I have personally witnessed at JRC, and sign the petition. Then please invite as many friends as you can through www.Change.Org, email, Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere, to sign this petition. Please value these student lives enough to let Massachusetts know that Americans do not condone shock procedures in this country. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Gregory Miller
JRC saved my autistic son’s life, and those around him, peers, teachers, and his family.
He went thru 6 special needs school placements, and the last one, League School of Boston asked us to get him out of there after he sent a teacher to the ER, (biting her).
He attacked my grandmother, and came close to killing his brother on the highway.
After entering JRC, my son went from 80 aggressions a day, to one a day, and then to one every 6 months. He was able to learn computer skills, and he became civilized. I now can take him to a restaurant, and he behaves awesomely.
We tried the drug therapy before JRC, it either had no effect, or sedated him excessively.
He had bad side effects.
So I appreciate JRC.
He graduated from there at age 22, is now in the May Institute, and is doing wonderful.
JRC is needed for certain individuals, my son being one of them.
Pretty sad to see someone claim their own child “needed” to become “civilized”.
Wow. Maybe what your child needed was a parent who accepts him, loves and respects him enough to work through therapies and supports with him to help him learn instead of thinking it is either drugs or torture. Shame on you. Seriously.
Mean to say “needed JRC to become civilized”.
Also, if you really are a parent and not some JRC hack sent to write on websites like this, then think about your differences. what if our culture found it needed to torture you with skin shocks based on you being make, female, fat, white, black, stupid, needing glasses, or whatever your difference is. Think it would be “needed” to make you more civilized? No, skin shocks are not “needed” for any humans beings. If they were, why can’t we use them on terrorists? Did you know in some states you can’t even use this technology in dog collars because it is “inhumane”? What about people with disabilities? we just don’t care about them or what? Massachusetts home of Kennedies that Americans worship for their so called great ideals. Well, where have they been for forty years on the torture in their own state?
I am apaled to learn of this horrific pratice of GED shocks for disabled children and adults. I plan on writing to all members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and State Senate when I have learned more. Thank you Gregory Miller and International Coalition for Autism and All Abilities.
Mary — You ask why the Judge Rotenberg Center has styled open so long. Paet ofge answer is that a Assachusetts state senator named Jeffrey Sánchez sent his nine-year-old nephew there thirty years ago. The boy — now a man — is still on the rolls there as a “student.” When he was sent there, he could talk and walk. Now he can’t.
When parents/guardisns of Center inmates get worried about how their child Is treated there, the school staff tells them: “If you disapprove what we’re doing, just Lexus know and we’ll ship your child back home this very minute — exactly as s/he is.” (Yes, girls and women are in there too.)
those of us who didn’t know about this til just now are shocked. i signed the petition but now what. why has it not been shut for so long??? i am sick to my stomach.