This article was written by Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint volunteers Dr. Arielle Silverman and Amy Kriewaldt.
There is a school in the United States where students are literally shocked into submission. These students are children and young adults with disabilities or mental illnesses, most of whom are Black or brown. At this school, called the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), staff are permitted to give the students painful skin shocks to change their behavior. And this is legal. But working together, we can change that and stop the shock once and for all.
History of the Judge Rotenberg Center
A century ago, “behaviorism” was becoming the dominant school of thought in psychology. Behavioral psychologists experimented with animals and discovered that animal behavior could be manipulated through rewards, like food, and punishments, like skin shocks. But even as early as 1938, Dr. B. F. Skinner, an American behavioral psychologist, discovered that shocking animals only temporarily changes their behavior. In his experiments, after rats were induced to press a lever through food rewards, they predictably avoided the lever when it gave them a shock instead. Critically, though, when the shock was turned off, they started pressing the lever again. Skinner concluded that, even with small animals, shocks were an ineffective tool for behavior change. He began to warn about the perils of punishment in general, calling it a “primitive principle of control.”
One of Skinner’s students, Matthew Israel, founded the Behavior Research Institute (BRI), which had locations in Rhode Island, California, and Massachusetts. At the BRI, they routinely applied corporal punishments to autistic and other disabled students. The punishments included withholding food, sensory deprivation helmets, being subjected to noxious smells or tastes, prolonged physical restraints, and solitary confinement. In 1985, after a student named Vincent Milletich died from a stress-induced seizure at the BRI (he was not the first student to die of abuse or neglect there), the Massachusetts Office for Children tried to shut down the BRI, but a judge named Ernest Rotenberg defended the institute, which later took his name. Matthew Israel developed the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED) skin shock device in 1988. The device can administer a shock strong enough to cause permanent skin damage. Today, the JRC still administers corporal punishments, including food deprivation and shocks.
Evidence Punishment Doesn’t Work
We now know that Skinner was right when he suggested that corporal punishment doesn’t work. A 2002 meta-analysis of 88 studies found associations between corporal punishments and a whole host of negative outcomes: children who had been subjected to physical punishments from their parents showed more aggression and criminal or delinquent behavior, both as children and later as adults; had worse mental health than those who were not physically punished; and were more likely to be both victims and perpetrators of abuse. According to Dr. Alfie Kohn, punishing children models power-based problem-solving, erodes relationships between caregivers and children, teaches children to dodge blame for their actions, and distracts children from learning and growth.
The JRC claims its methods will “treat” behaviors like self-harm and aggression. Some parents have sent their children there because they are desperate to protect their children from harming themselves and others. These kids may have been expelled from other schools or programs before coming to the JRC. Their desperation is understandable. However, when we examine the nature of self-harming and aggressive behaviors, it becomes clear that shock and other punitive methods are ineffective and, in fact, counterproductive.
Getting to the Root of Behavior
As numerous psychologists and autistic writers alike have articulated, behaviors like self-harming and aggression are almost always unintentional and involuntary stress behaviors. These behaviors often arise from a “fight, flight, freeze” stress response. These responses are essential for our survival in unsafe situations. However, people with some disabilities, trauma, or other medical conditions may experience threats and danger from seemingly ordinary circumstances. People may self-harm or aggress when they experience sensory overwhelm or physical pain or if they cannot communicate in ways others around them understand.
The use of punishment doesn’t work to change behaviors that arise from survival-based stress responses. Instead, the use of corporal punishment creates additional fear and stress, which makes the cycle far worse. Far from being a “treatment,” as ex-student survivors have described, the JRC inflicts emotional and physical trauma on its residents. This is likely to reverse students’ progress toward their individual goals.
It is also worth noting that while the JRC claims to use shock only as a last resort to mitigate physically harmful behaviors, students have reportedly been shocked for such trivial “behaviors” as talking or standing up without permission.
In 2002, a student named Andre McCollins was tied to a restraint board when he refused to take off his coat when asked. He was subsequently shocked 31 times. JRC staff claimed they continued to shock him to punish him for “tensing up his body” while being shocked.
Students have been shocked for other behaviors completely out of their control, like incontinence, and “behaviors” done while sleeping. One survivor was shocked while sleeping and was never told the reason, causing them to develop a severe fear of falling asleep. Even if one believes in the efficacy of corporal punishment, there is no clinical justification to punish someone for acts done while unconscious.
United Nations Torture Ruling
The United Nations Special Rapporteur condemned the use of the GED skin shocks “as a form of behavior control” on students with disabilities and labeled it as torture in 2013. The report called on the U.S. Government to provide information from the Department of Justice’s investigation into violations of civil rights laws. Further, the U.S. was urged to ban the device federally since the Behavior Research Institute has been located in three states; it could quickly be re-established in other locations should the device be banned in one state.
Most damning in the report is the following excerpt:
“…the Human Rights Committee stated that the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment must extend to corporal punishment, including excessive chastisement ordered as punishment for a crime or as an educative or disciplinary measure. Therefore, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the Special Rapporteur determines that the rights of the students of the JRC subjected to Level III Aversive Interventions by means of electric shock and physical means of restraints have been violated under the UN Convention against Torture and other international standards.”
Survivors Speak Out
One survivor details how the device easily malfunctions, which happened repeatedly to her and several of her peers. She also tells how it is used as a mechanism of abuse by those who wield it as a means of sadistic control:
“Then there are the times when staff intentionally misuse the GED. I have had a staff who became angry with me and started pushing more than one remote at a time, shocking me several places on my body at once. I have had staff intentionally give me shocks for things I didn’t do in places like the bus where there was no camera to prove it.”
One of the reasons electric shock is favored is due to its ability to inflict excruciating pain and damage throughout the nervous system but leave minimal traces on the skin. In fact, in one study, a survivor from South Africa recounts his experience of having been shocked with a picana, a modified version of a cattle prod. There were only minor marks left on his skin years later, but he was left with long-term neurological damage. The study emphasizes that his description of torture is consistent with other survivors of electric shock torture.
“In this case report, PG recalled that the shocks were very powerful and painful, causing his entire body to jump. This is consistent with reports from other survivors of electric torture who describe severe pain, loss of muscle control, convulsions, fainting, and involuntary defecation and urination.”
The Psychological Impact
What is most alarming is the idea that electric shock is being applied to people with disabilities in the name of shaping their behavior or even “saving their lives.” No human can learn or function reliably when their nervous system is being subjected to severe pain. The GED is used at the Judge Rotenberg Center on nonspeaking students, as borne witness by this survivor:
“Staff can and do use the GED to scare non-verbal students into doing what they want them to by pretending they are about to shock them. Some even laugh when they do this.”
Imagine not being able to communicate, and every tiny thing touching you is painful because of your sensory processing differences. You have no way of expressing that; your body is the only voice you have, but someone has connected you to an electric shock device against your will. You have no opportunity to consent; you are punished for being uncomfortable and expressing that in the only ways you know how. Any time you move your body — the only voice you have — you are brought to your knees with an ever-increasing voltage from a Level III aversive device condemned by the United Nations.
Your family or guardians are insisting this is your only hope. They have been convinced by the Judge Rotenberg Center, who believe the use of electric shock is necessary to control your behavior.
What the Research Tells Us
We know from our research that using a torture device on a disabled person is not a “last resort” but rather cruelty, plain and simple. Many animal behaviorists and trainers will not go near an electrical current with animals. The general population will protest by the thousands to prevent animals from being shocked. Yet, we are allowing our most vulnerable citizens to be subjected to an inhumane act in the name of “treatment.”
It is past time for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban the GED and Stop the Shock once and for all. When the United Nations has to weigh in on a device used to control the behavior of our disabled citizens because it is deemed too similar to those used on prisoners of war and a violation of human rights, we have a duty to protect those whose voices are silenced and end the torture.
Take Action
The FDA has proposed a rule that would ban the GED federally. They are seeking public comments until May 28, 2024. Leave a comment explaining how important it is for the FDA to pass the ban!
You can submit your comment here
Anybody can submit a comment. Need help? Check out the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network’s super simple comment form.
References
Brown, L. (n.d.). Judge Rotenberg Center Survivor’s letter. Autistic Hoya – A blog by Lydia X. Z. Brown (2011-2020). https://www.autistichoya.com/2013/01/judge-rotenberg-center-survivors-letter.html
Declaration on the protection of all persons from being subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment | OHCHR. (n.d.). https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/declaration-protection-all-persons-being-subjected-torture-and
Justo, L. (2003). Argentina: Torture, silence, and medical teaching. BMJ, 326(7403), 1405–1405. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7403.1405
Liu, C., Weintraub, J., & Weintraub, M. (2021). Torture by administration of electric shocks: The case of pg. Torture Journal, 31(3), 113–116. https://doi.org/10.7146/torture.v32i3.129471
Media release: Video: Activists protest tucson rodeo animal cruelty. IDA USA. (n.d.). https://www.idausa.org/campaign/farmed-animal/latest-news/media-release-video-activists-protest-tucson-rodeo-animal-cruelty/
Mendez, Juan E. (2013). Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Human Rights Council, Twenty-second Session. Agenda item 3: Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development. 4 March 2013.
Mitchell, C. (2022, January 28). The U.N. says it’s torture. judges ruled this school can use shock therapy anyway.Center for Public Integrity. https://publicintegrity.org/inside-publici/newsletters/watchdog-newsletter/when-a-school-turns-to-shock-therapy