As we tootle about our lives we are sometimes unaware of the full horror of the human experience and how barbarity often exists justs out of sight. For people who are adjudged as needing to receive ‘treatments’, barbarity is in plain sight all the time.
The Judge Rotenberg Centre (note the happy colours) describes itself as:
The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC) is a special needs school in Canton, Massachusetts serving both higher-functioning students with conduct, behavior, emotional, and/or psychiatric problems and lower-functioning students with autistic-like behaviors
Wait for the animated gif to revolve a few times. Note the happy faces of the students. Note the lovely grounds.
The JRC achieves its results by administering an electric shock to its students when they are in need of corrective action. Students carry around backpacks to ensure they are close to the source of the corrective action. The device/process is called ‘GED’ – Graduated Electronic Decelerator.
Massachusetts Division of Public Licensure is investigating reports of burns to the skin of at least one student. A former worker claimed that JRC staff failed to move the electrodes each day as required to keep from burning the boy’s skin. Director Matthew Israel states that:
Our skin shock device does not cause burns when it is applied. Very, very occasionally, a device might cause a superficial mark on the skin, from which the skin recovers quickly.
A ‘superficial mark’. Right. I guess ‘superficial’ might be in the eye of the beholder Mr Israel. Or, in this case, the skin of a young man.
The JRC also has an interesting take on diet – from its ‘foods to avoid’ section:
1. Avoid all red meat, including beef, pork, and lamb. All are rich in fat, cholesterol, and other harmful constituents.
2. Avoid all poultry and fish. Poultry has about the same amount of cholesterol as red meat, while fish varies, depending on type. Some fish are higher in cholesterol than red meat, others lower.
3. Avoid all dairy products, including milk, yogurt and cheese. Low-fat dairy products are not recommended because of potential health hazards including allergies, childhood diabetes, arthritis and lactose intolerance.
4. Avoid all oil, including olive, safflower, peanut and corn oil. Oil is simply a liquid form of fat.
5. Avoid eggs. Eggs are abundant in fat and cholesterol.
6. Avoid nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and soybean products (including tofu, soy cheese, and soy milk). Soybean products are high in fat, unless they have been specially processed (low-fat varieties are also not recommended).
7. Avoid all dried fruit and fruit juices. (Eat the whole fruit instead).
8. Avoid all flour products, such as breads, bagels and pretzels. The less a food is processed the better it is for weight loss. Flour products are composed of fragments of grain, or relatively small particles, which increase absorption and slow weight loss.
And then from an ex-employee:
A 12-year-old autistic girl wasted away to a “bag of bones†under a harsh dietary regime imposed by the controversial Judge Rotenberg Center for troubled kids, a former employee charges.
The JRC has also made the news recently by lying about its staff.
The Boston Herald reported Wednesday that the Massachusetts Division of Public Licensure is investigating at least 10 JRC therapists for allegedly practicing psychology without a license. The allegations were initially made by New York lawyer Kenneth Mollins, who complained last week that 14 of the 17 clinicians listed on the residential school’s website are not licensed psychologists. After Mollins’ allegations became public, JRC removed the title of psychologist from the names of all of its therapists that do not have licenses. “We have acknowledged we were giving the incorrect title,” JRC attorney Michael Flammia told the Herald. A district court magistrate will decide next week whether criminal charges will be filed against the 10 therapists and possibly four others that are also under investigation.
These are just the things that have been discovered.
My fellow Brit, Mike Stanton blogged about the JRC back in April. Amongst the commenters was someone calling themselves ‘Jackie’. Jackie had the following to say:
The director of JRC encourages staff members to use electroshock to quitting smoking, makes staff members watch slaughter house movies as a condition of their advancement, and is starving some of the patients who can not thrive on his radical vegetarian diet.
and
The worst shock punishment is when staff straps a child to a board and tell her that she will be shocked randomly five times in the next hour. Here the ultimate punishment is not the shock but the hour long terror.
and
However, the worst punishment is when food is withheld from a child for bad behavior. Every child’s behavior deteriorates when food is withheld so JRC becomes directly responsible for the behavior for which the child is being punished.
Director Matthew Israel seems to be a fairly typical quack. When challenged to present evidence for his aversive-based regime he says:
Our mission is to function as a school, or service agency, and not as a research agency. Indeed, the funds we receive for our services are not supposed to be spent on research.
Which is a fairly standard altie method of avoiding the necessity for validating quackery. Israel goes on to cite the NIH ‘Treatment of Destructive Behaviors in Persons With Developmental Disabilities’ statement from 1987 as supporting his practices. However upon visiting the page in question one finds a large disclaimer in bold, red, emphasised, uppercase type:
THIS DOCUMENT IS NO LONGER VIEWED BY NIH AS GUIDANCE FOR CURRENT MEDICAL PRACTICE.
I can find next to nothing in Pubmed regarding aversive based treatments.
However, one of the most disturbing aspects of the JRC is the readiness with which it is embraced by its students parents. the JRC maintains a blog in which it posts messages of support from students parents. None of the students views are represented. A typical example is below:
_”Before placing my daughter Julissa at JRC, I suffered tremendously because of her behaviors. She did not obey my rules, she did not listed to me, and she used to go out without permission. When she returned home and I tried to talk to her, she used to get very angry and hit me. When she did something wrong and I tried to give her advice, it was for nothing because she did not listed. One time, she even took money from me without me knowing. She took my ATM card, and since she knew my pin number, she took out $700.00 dollars that I was saving for that month’s rent. At home, we hardly ever slept. My other daughter, my granddaughter, and I were very nervous because of Jusissa’s behaviors.”_
_”Julissa was admitted to the Metropolitan Hospital in two occasions. Also, she was admitted once at Holewood Hospital in Queens. Every time she left the hospitals and returned home, she exhibited the same behaviors.”_
_”Even though my daughter was admitted into two different hospitals and was placed into different treatments, and many prescribed medications, nothing really helped her. I give my testimony of faith that nothing has been better than the treatment or better said the discipline that JRC school has.”_
This sounds (to me) like a naughty girl. But a girl deserving of the sort of regime described above? Electro therapy because a child wouldn’t follow her mother’s rules? On what grounds are these good criteria for this regime?
When I first heard about this, I thought it was a joke. Unfortunately its not.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Ann: “From an article in the Boston Globe: ‘Flammia noted that New York inspectors had given the Judge Rotenberg Center high marks for safety last September, but he believes they turned against the school after the publicity surrounding a lawsuit filed this spring by the mother of a New York student.'”
My question would be centred on how much of what went on in the JRC were the visiting panel *allowed* to see. I think that – if anything – the case taken out against the JRC may have informed the visiting panel of things to be more keen to note on this occasion.
That *should* answer your question, Ann. I know it won’t, since you’re obstinate in your refusal to accept that there may be other ways of dealing with the issues that the kids there bring with them. Flammia’s comment is purely an attempt to build up a conspiracy theory to protect teh financial intereasts of the institution, and looks to me to be very little else. The JRC has, historically, a track record of failing to accept responsibility for what goes wrong there, and all I see here the same behaviour continuing.
Here is a case in point: you asserted that the GED was *approved* by the FDA. (Ann: “The GED device is a medically approved device.â€) This is, in fact, a false claim, as the report shows. What bugs me here is that a *former staff member* was under the impression that the GED was FDA-approved (presumably because she was told so) when the contrary is true. Either you *knew* it was a false claim, or the JRC were engaging in dishonest (and therefore unethical) behaviour with *you*, Ann.
You still support the place now? If the second was true in a hypothetical case involving me (i.e., that *I* had been lied to by the JRC about the GED and its – non-existent – FDA approval), I could not in all conscience support the place any longer. I shall assume that if you *knew* the claim was false, your support would reflect an unethical element to your practice both there and possibly elsewhere; so my questions here are:
1) Ann, did you know that the claim was false?
2) If yes, why did you lie? If no, how can you support the JRC given its own engagement in highly unethical deceit against its own staff? Or do you simply not care?
Generally, with inspections of that nature, they’re not done very closely unless the inspectors know what to look for. Often, they do not. And often, the institution finds ways of hiding things during inspection, in ways that you really can’t see how bad things are unless you know what to look for.
I have, as an inmate, been made to take part in efforts to make institutions look better than they were, for inspection. I think I have also been hidden from view during some kinds of inspections of some places, and I know that I have definitely been hidden from view at times of anyone, within a particular institution or without, who could report what was being done to me.
This is Institution Knowledge 101, not rocket science. Heck, it’s Doing Things Wrong 101: People who are doing something wrong, will almost always conceal, lie, hide, deceive, fail to divulge, and anything else it takes to make sure that people won’t find anything out. That can even include failing to divulge the existence of certain people at all. And inspectors do not always pry too deep.
So it makes total sense to me that until instructed to pry in that manner, they would not find things. It’s very difficult for someone who doesn’t live in an institution to note the telltale signs of something being very wrong. That includes me at this point, I’ve now been living on the outside for many years, so while I know more what to look for (or at least what not to trust) better than the average person (including possibly the average inspector) would, I don’t know any particular institution’s methods of hiding things and would never presume to declare a place “okay” based on an inspection. There’s too many ways of hiding.
You have it absolutely accurate there, Amanda.
Part of my PgCertSpEd training was to do with organisational quality assurance assessment for accreditation with the NAS in London. The sorts of things we were told to look for were evidence for *everything* we could find regarding the philosophy and practice policies of a place, and their staff training policy and so on. Without specific information about anything going on in some institution, it is – quite frankly – bordering on impossible to ascertain that there is nothing untoward occurring there; which is why I commented to Ann about the comment given by the JRC lawyer in the part of the newspaper article she quoted (you obviously know that things I said, since your post is relevant to what I said).
Me: “Flammia’s comment is purely an attempt to build up a conspiracy theory to protect teh financial intereasts of the institution,”
Should be: *Flammia’s comment is purely an attempt to build up a conspiracy theory to protect the financial interests of the institution,*
I should add that the JRC is clearly a place that tries very hard to distract and cover up what is going on there, just from the decorations they use.
Interesting, Amanda…. I’m interested to know how such places do this…. with current practice in Finland not lagging far behind places like JRC, I could do with some ideas on what to look for.
The pictures of JRC look very nice. Also, they are only using “skin shock” so it must be superficial and harmless — it’s just on the skin! But wait. Where else would you administer electric shock but on the skin? Probably even the electric chair is a “skin shock” device.
Anyway, this latest report resulted from two visits, the first announced and the second unannounced. It isn’t clear whether unannounced visits were used in the past.
Anne (with the ‘e’): “Anyway, this latest report resulted from two visits, the first announced and the second unannounced. It isn’t clear whether unannounced visits were used in the past.”
Yes. I think that much of it rests with the two issues of recent matters in the news and the fact of there having been an unannounced visit.
And the chair…. yeh, could contain something linked to the GED.
Just read through that report in detail.
There is so much of the “behavioural science” that they use which is entirely out of step with Skinner’s principles (which is very poor evidence of learning on the part of Matthew Israel, given his claim to have studied under Skinner: Skinner would have strongly disapproved of this institution, with their current and past practice record).
Given the practice of provoking challenging behaviour in order to administer the GED shock, I can only describe some of their practices as systematic abuse of children.
Given that there is evidence of increased frequency of challenging behaviour from at least *some* of the children there as a result of the application of GEDs, I cannot in all seriousness call the GED anything other than a rather sophisticated cattle prod.
I am appalled that this place exists. There is no real learning happening there. It is a dead end, and it has been designed to be such.
It is inappropriate.
It needs to be shut down.
By the decorations they use, I mean they are totally, ludicrously over the top, I have never seen even most bad institutions that are trying to look good go to such ridiculous lengths to look child-friendly. They claim this is to make it an inviting place to students, but one of the real reasons is good PR. It would create cognitive dissonance in some people to look at all the “wonderful” toys and then think that anything bad could be going on there. So they would fixate on the toys and think it is a good place. At least that is the theory.
If I see a place that goes that far in getting all these all-new expensive toys and equipment and stuff, in order to look child-friendly, I’d say it’s worth another look. It seems over-the-top for me, like the way I once read an autistic woman describing her (abusive) parents as buying tons and tons and tons of toys to display to visitors, who never noticed that she wasn’t using them, and just went “What a lucky girl this is.”
Another thing, by the way, not specific to the JRC but something that can be a real giveaway about a place, is if a place tries to show you all kinds of nice shiny state-of-the-art equipment (recreational or otherwise), look at it to see if it’s actually being used or not. If it’s being used, and it’s not extremely new, it’ll be showing at least some sign of wear. Try to find out how long they’ve had it, and see whether the amount of wear and the amount of people there seems to correlate at all.
A lot of places have absolutely beautiful grounds, or enclosed outdoor areas. Check to see whether anyone actually goes on them. If you never see anyone, ever, outside, there’s a problem. Also check how pale people are relative to their normal skin color. Including people who might be brought outside (for the only day that year) for inspection day. If possible, check afterwards to see if anyone got a serious sunburn, especially if they should not have gotten a sunburn at all if they’d have normally been outside on a regular basis.
Look behind every door in the place, no matter what excuse they give, and whether or not they tell you that something is only a closet. Also look inside any storage containers large enough to hide any size of person (including extremely short people). Some institutions tie people up inside storage containers and leave them there pretty much their whole lives.
Do not believe a word of the written records on anyone. Those are so easy to falsify it’s ridiculous. Do not take anyone’s word for why someone is receiving a particular torture-technique-described-as-treatment. Even if it’s passed a court order or two. Courts can be fooled too.
Of course, look for injuries on people. Do not take anyone’s word for it that these injuries are self-inflicted. They may be, but they may not be. (I at one point had bruises on pretty much every part of my body, and nobody did a thing.) Or some of them may be, but some may not be (easy to cover up injuring someone if they injure themselves regularly in the same spot….). And be aware that some techniques of hurting people are particularly designed not to leave any marks, so never take the absence of marks as the absence of hurting people.
Take note of anything bad an inmate might say about a place, however far-fetched (even if someone says something in a way that sounds “delusional”, there may be a truthful aspect to it somewhere). Also keep a close eye on how that inmate is treated and protect their identity at all costs. If someone says something bad to you, there is a good chance they could be punished for it later.
On the other hand, if an inmate says something good about a place, take it with a grain of salt. You may be dealing with a case of lowered expectations (“Wow, they tie us down on our backs instead of our stomachs here, cool!” is one of my own classic examples of that), Stockholm syndrome, or intimidation. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you know what these things could look like and what they couldn’t, a person can be very, very convincing in arguing these points (I say this from personal experience). I know this sounds like a double standard, but the institution itself is weighted towards producing these responses as the “desired” responses, so any deviation from “This place is good” is noteworthy, while conforming to “This place is good” may be just what people are expected to say. Some places will not even let people out of the isolation rooms until they “admit” to everyone that they “should” be there and that the place is “helping” them. Never underestimate the possible danger of dissent.
Those are just a few things, and I’m sure you know some of them already. But they’re off the top of my head.
Oh, and I should note:
Do not ever be swayed by:
The paint and decorations of a place.The cleanliness of a placeThe architecture of a placeThe grounds of a place (including whether or not the place has things like animals and gardens and stuff)The social skills of staff
(That should have come out as a bulleted list but it didn’t for some reason.)
Amanda, thank you very much for that long list of pointers and clues. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve printed it out for my own reference. You might wish to put that list on your blog too, so that people reading that can see this list.
Again, many thanks indeed….
Another thing, I don’t know if this is possible (or legal), but if there’s a way to do “pop inspections”, that’s way better than giving advance notice, and also good not to allow oneself to be held up at the door too long by reception people. I’m reminded of the air-quality testing that was done in my apartment building after serious air quality problems became publicized. The housing authority was given over two weeks notice, which gave them ample time to clean out the air and shift their construction schedules to make it look like it had been this way all along. Institutions can do the same thing.
When someone died at one institution I was at, all inmates immediately were put to work cleaning up any and all “dangerous” objects like barbed wire, painting the house, fences, and barn, hosing down the driveways and exterior of the house, neatening everything up, etc., so that by the time inspectors came, the place looked a lot better than it had just a short time before. I have no idea if the inspectors were fooled or not, but they certainly tried to fool them. (The place did get shut down later that year.)
Thanks, Amanda…..
I don’t really know what the crack is on such inspections, although that is the sort of thing that seems to have been the undoing of the JRC (I *so* fucking hope!)… because there is no time to prepare one’s lies. I would imagine that there are ways…
Thing is, in Finland there is no really strong emphasis on quality assurance for a great many sectors of social/health care and for education. This is something that needs to be rectified, but the way things are done here is rather peculiar, and such controls on quality that exist are pretty poor.
It’s not enough to shut down one place (and given the current political climate, that will be far more difficult than should be compared to other bureaucratic efforts). We have to understand how such things come about, and continue to pop up. Otherwise we’re just picking off mushrooms and not addressing the fact that the entire structure is rotting and permeated with fungal mycælium. One of the biggest challenges we face is providing viable alternatives to replace the vacuum left behind.
andrea
Agreed entirely, Andrea…
This means changes in policy at national level.
The New York Dept of Education has decided not to pull funding from JRC at this time.
State Won’t Stop Funding Shock Therapy School
The New York Dept of Education has decided not to pull funding from JRC at this time.
I’m so glad to hear that. I guess they are not out of the woods yet. Seems as if they will have to make some changes.
If the courts say that certain behaviors can’t be treated with shocks, I’m okay with that. I know the reasons why they do what they do, unlike a lot of people in here who seem to believe every bad thing they read about JRC, but if the courts say it is so, then I guess it is so.
Anyway, JRC’s fight isn’t over yet. However, they are very good at fighting. People have been trying to get them shut down before and they are still here.
Ann: “Anyway, JRC’s fight isn’t over yet. However, they are very good at fighting. People have been trying to get them shut down before and they are still here.”
Doesn’t mean that they’re an ethical place or that they are right…. might actually mean there’s more idiots than enough willing to send kids there.
Now that the NYS report is out, my immediate fear is that NYS prohibits the use of GED devises without removing the students. The report finds there are no psychiatric drugs. No trained staff. No education. No socialization. Nothing but punishment.
Aversives make people angry and many of these students were dangerous when they arrived. The staff has been told that they are never to call police, and police have been told not to go on the campus. There was a situation about a year ago when there was a riot on one of their buses and the police waited outside the bus for over 15 minutes while both staff and students were injured.
This is a formula for catastrophe.
I just read an article regarding JRC and their use of GED, etc.
My adopted son was born with dual addiction, is now 20 years old and was at JRC for 4 years and unfortunately, he is worse than ever. JRC used the GED on my son for over a year after they convinced “him” that this is what he needed to improve his behavior problems. One day he was not only shocked multiple times, but was also shackled on his feet and hands, like a criminal at which point I said enough and sent a stern letter to Dr. Israel, demanding they remove all devices off my son. Needless to say, he called me at work and told me to pick up my son if I am not in agreement with their methods. He gave me 24 hours to pick him up. Unfortunately, JRC did not help my son with his numerous behavioral problems, but rather treated him as if he was Mentally Retarded or Autistic. My son has ADHD, ODD, Bipolar Disorder, OCD and more. At no time did he receive required Psychiatric treatment, and now reading about the lack of licensed practitioners, this really upsets me, especially after repeatedly requesting psychiatric care for my son while at JRC. You see, since, my son has been in jail, on drugs, unable to hold a job and might end up back in jail as soon as next week for violating probation. How sad I am as a parent to have trusted JRC to help my son with his learning and behavior disabilities and he ended up worse than before. Every time I see my son struggle through life it just breaks my heart that 4 years was wasted in JRC, not to mention the costs involved. How we suffer as parents and feel as if we failed him somehow. Many times, we considered suing JRC for the lack of help and the amount of money we spent trying to get my son on the right track. Unfortunately, JRC made matters worse, he came out of there with so many more behavioral problems that we could not and still cannot help him. JRC did not help my son, they destroyed my son’s life and his future! How sad we are regarding his hard times at JRC and what this caused for my son. Stay away from JRC!!!
This is seriously all true? Talk about DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!
I live about five minutes away from JRC and I literally didn’t even know it EXISTED until last week, when I decided to look at the school that a girl who I once called one of my closest friends is now going. My dad saw her at the store a couple of months ago, and he said she was literally SO THRILLED to see him. I thought this was a bit odd… I mean she lives right across from us, can’t she come over whenever she wants? I thought she was living right across the street from us the entire time. Well, apparently not…
She told him she goes to “Canton”, but she is coming back to my school next year. My dad assumed she meant Canton High School, which I knew she wasn’t going to (as one has to be a resident and taxpayer to the town of Canton, and her parents are neither) so she obviously doesn’t want to let on where she is actually going to school. Knowing her mother, I also suspect this is the school, since for quite some time before it she had been in and out of mental hospitals. Then again, there is hope that she WILL be returning to my school next year. But you seriously have no idea what this is like for me, knowing that the girl I once knew and loved could soon become one of the casualties of this Nazi concentration camp… erm, school.
And JESUS… do you know why most of the people send their kids to this school? Certainly not because they think it’s the best thing for their kids… no friggen way (this is in no way an insult to the person above who sent their son to JRC in good faith, hence why I said MOST.) They make an excuse that these people are “born” a certain way, and can never be functional members of society On the front page, amidst all the trendy art and happy kids who were probably threatened with the GED if they didn’t pose for that, there is something about an “experiment”, where Mr. Israel says (so delicately put) that a new law is wrong because it says that “persons with mental illness or developmentally disabilities should never receive aversive therapy and should be treated as if they are entirely normal. They should be free to make their own choices and do more or less whatever they want.”
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
A lot of it isn’t even “mental illness” anyway, and he says they basically deserve this because the way they were BORN, or because of something they can’t control? You know, the girl I know was adopted by parents who wanted to help a disadvantaged child deemed “un-adoptable” by the DSS before she turned seven (which I think is when they adopted her) and abused by her birth mother and in foster care. Her mother literally prevented her from doing ANYTHING, thinking this would be helpful, but my friend had become stubbornly defiant. After all, if you had been abused by every person who was supposed to be helping you, who wouldn’t?
And now this is what she gets.
I know her mother was just trying to relieve herself of the stress in a selfish manner, and she had been institutionalized after cutting herself and suicide attempts. Her dad I think is pretty good though, and I think we have an auspicious sign coming up, with the school *hopefully* closing, and her mother now dying of lung cancer (and still smoking after the doctors tell her she has it… she’s a VERY heavy smoker) now maybe, she will be able to get out and HOPEFULLY make it in life. I know she will, after all, how many times has she been abused in life? She’s seriously the most amazing person I know.
I don’t understand how this is considered legal. If this was happening in someones’ house, it would be considered child abuse. This is worse, people who are supposed to be HELPING them (and may I add, they didn’t just end up with a kid after a night with some cheap wine and Barry White music like some parents do) are abusing their children. And what’s worse? The parents and all agree to it. So who’s the one person who ends up getting left out of this entire thing? The child, of course. Then again, with Mr. Israel’s views, I doubt he considers people with “problems” to be people. I love how he labels OTHER children with problems, he needs to take a look at himself first. Pot, kettle, black.
(I wonder if he thought the abuses at Abu Ghraib were justifed, since the people getting abused were Muslims?)
He should get arrested for this and get a mandatory sentence of life in prison (if I didn’t live in Massachusetts, I would have said the death penalty, which I am normally against, but this is just so wrong.) I’m going to do an expose on this for my school newspaper next year, which I am on the staff, and maybe it wll make it into the statehouse or something and we can vote for the thing that bans “aversive” treatment on the next election, I’m sure most people would if they knew the truth about it, which most don’t. And then the school would close of course, since what does it have without the shock thing?
May Mr. Israel rot in jail and get butt-raped every day for the rest of his life (while cleaning the toilets in every cell with his wretched tongue.)
Amanda- JRC has an open visiting policy. You can visit (as can any parent or agency) unannounced and receive a tour.
Agencies can and do “pop in” for unannounced visits.
Apparently there is proposed legislation in Massachusetts, where JRC is located, to ban the use of aversive therapy. I have only seen a newspaper article, and not the proposed legislation, so I don’t know how far it goes.
Corporal punishment is illegal in Massachusetts schools, but of course, JRC doesn’t use “punishment” it uses “aversive therapy” to “decelerate” misbehavior.
Jo, you could consult an attorney about a lawsuit by your son. His statute of limitations will probably expire when he turns 21, so you would have to do it soon.
Regarding your statement that “they treated him as if he were mentally retarded or autistic …” I hope you weren’t implying that it is okay to treat mentally retarded or autistic people this way.
Anne: “Corporal punishment is illegal in Massachusetts schools, but of course, JRC doesn’t use ‘punishment’ it uses ‘aversive therapy’ to ‘decelerate’ misbehavior.”
Only those who failed to understand Skinner’s work actually have to find new words to make the things he found distasteful seem more palatable… one has to wonder who they are trying to kid. Behaviouristically speaking, an aversive stimulus, given in any setting, is a punishment, by definition.
Sad situation….
A little history is needed to understand Dr. Israel. He got his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1960, the height of MK ULTRA. MK ULTRA was a highly funded, super secret program funded by the CIA. Its main area of reseach was brainwashing. It was an ‘anything goes’ project with no accountability. There was a huge scandal when the program was discovered.
The NYS report shows that Dr. Israel uses brainwashing techniques of withholding food, torture, and withholding emotional interaction. – while only pretending to to offer education and bragging about not offering traditional psychologial services to his “studentsâ€.
Jackie… your post is very interesting…
“A little history is needed to understand Dr. Israel. He got his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1960, the height of MK ULTRA. MK ULTRA was a highly funded, super secret program funded by the CIA. Its main area of reseach was brainwashing. It was an ‘anything goes’ project with no accountability. There was a huge scandal when the program was discovered.”
I can bet that Skinner was not involved in this, and – if your intimation here is accurate – this would mean that Israel did *not* in fact study under Skinner. This would not surprise me in the least since there is nothing in the way that JRC operates that is even mildly reminiscent of Skinner’s work… and I would expect a former student of Skinner’s, who hails Skinner the way that Israel does, to stick to Skinner’s ideas instead of completely bastardising the man’s approach to the point of totally distorting that approach until there is nothing left of it to see.
“The NYS report shows that Dr. Israel uses brainwashing techniques of withholding food, torture, and withholding emotional interaction. – while only pretending to to offer education and bragging about not offering traditional psychologial services to his ‘students’.”
Correct. Certainly, from a child development point of view, the JRC is a place to send one’s child if one wishes to have him/her systematically abused. I cannot respect anyone – however misguided – who sends their child there and leaves them there… those whose kids have been there and then complained do merit respect because, even if misinformed at first, they have thoutght about the place and taken their children’s viewpoints into account. Well done them.
From what he practices, I can say that Israel has never been a student of Skinner’s.
It gets worse.
Yesterday I was reading through the parent testimonials on the JRC Web page, and found them to have a curious parallel in construction (among other anomalies), suggesting that the content of such is being deliberately led. During those readings, I ran across further things that were totally unexpected and alarming.
Alarmingly, JRC is not just a temporary location for controlling children with behaviour problems; it’s also an institution for lifetime confinement. Some of the inmates have been there for over a decade, at least as reckoned by the dates of their parents’ letters.
“We are the parents of a 35 yr. old autistic adult. He has been in this program since he was 19.†(Shields)
A 32-year old autistic adult has been in this place under the GED aversive system for over ten years. (Soucy)
Yet another person has been there for eleven years, also past legal majority. (Slaff)
The idea of spending YEARS in that kind of aversive environment, surrounded by all their sensory-overwhelming décor, and living on the limited proscribed diet is just dreadful.
(Oh bother! I’m not sure if the hypertext formatting is copy-pasting, but you can follow the links to the parents’ letters, if this link works http://qw88nb88.wordpress.com/
Foiled by technology again; PLBKAC, I’m sure — I really need more sleep.)
Jo, I’m so sorry to hear about your son! Have you been able to find beneficial assistance for him? The last place that poor guy needs to go is jail …
andrea
David: Yes, the electric shock part of MK ULTRA was done in Canada – not by Skinner. However, there were many at Harvard involved in MK ULTRA brainwashing experiments with drugs (LSD) and hypnosis at the same time that Dr. I was there.
The point is: If you want to understand what is going on at JRC it is better to watch “A Clockwork Orange” or “Manchurian Candidate” than look to psychology texts.
Andrea: Using solicited testimonials of parents and patients are an explicit violation of the Psychologist’s Code of Ethics.
“5.05 Testimonials
Psychologists do not solicit testimonials from current therapy clients/patients or other persons who because of their particular circumstances are vulnerable to undue influence.”
http://www.apa.org/ethics/
Andrea:
*quote*
It gets worse.
Yesterday I was reading through the parent testimonials on the JRC Web page, and found them to have a curious parallel in construction (among other anomalies), suggesting that the content of such is being deliberately led. During those readings, I ran across further things that were totally unexpected and alarming.
*endquote*
Check out what Jackie says…
Jackie:
*quote*
Andrea: Using solicited testimonials of parents and patients are an explicit violation of the Psychologist’s Code of Ethics.
“5.05 Testimonials
Psychologists do not solicit testimonials from current therapy clients/patients or other persons who because of their particular circumstances are vulnerable to undue influence.â€
*endquote*
Actually, this is true…
Jackie: “The point is: If you want to understand what is going on at JRC it is better to watch ‘A Clockwork Orange’ or ‘Manchurian Candidate’ than look to psychology texts.”
When I got through the NYSED report on JRC, I figured that my best model was Seligman’s shock treatment of dogs to induce learned helplessness states… daren’t watch those films…. nightmare city, those…
Jackie: “The point is: If you want to understand what is going on at JRC it is better to watch ‘A Clockwork Orange’ or ‘Manchurian Candidate’ than look to psychology texts.â€
If you want to understand what is going on at JRC it is better to go to JRC and actually see with your own eyes, what is going on at JRC.
David: Yesterday I was reading through the parent testimonials on the JRC Web page, and found them to have a curious parallel in construction (among other anomalies), suggesting that the content of such is being deliberately led.
All you have to do is come up with some proof that they are being deliberately led. I’m confident that they have been asked to write what they think about JRC, not to say that they love it.
Andrea: The idea of spending YEARS in that kind of aversive environment, surrounded by all their sensory-overwhelming décor, and living on the limited proscribed diet is just dreadful.
I love the spin. The environment is beautiful artwork and colorful furniture, but I guess if you are automatically biased against JRC you can’t see anything good about the place so you have to describe it as a sensory-overwhelming place.
The diet is similar to a vegetarian diet, but does include meat. This type of diet has been endorsed by PCRM (http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/) and has been proven in studies to make people healthier and lower their meds. (ref-Diet First, Then Medication for Hypercholesterolemia
Anderson
JAMA.2003; 290: 531-533. )
But you people seem to be determined to believe only the bad things that you have read from unreliable and biased sources WHO HAVE NEVER WORKED THERE and not keep an open mind. Oh well.
Be happy in your delusion
Ann: Your presumption that I do not have intimate knowledge of the JRC may be incorrect.
I have seen the marks left by those “souped up” GEDs.
I know those slaughter house movies the staff is “encouraged” to watch in order to advance in the crazy organization. (classic brainwashing)
I know why JRC choose to add liver power to the food at the end of the day. (some students liked the make up food better than the veg. Chinese.)
I know that students get 150 rewards for intentionally doing something wrong if the teacher does not pinpoint. (Brainwashing)
I know a landscaper evaluates the teachers.
And I know what the staff was coached to say before NY investigators came.
Ann:
I definitely do not mean to imply that Autistic or even Mentally retarded children should be shocked. NO ONE should go through that!
I am definitely seeking legal counsel and unfortunately my son is going to jail-the legal system does not take ADHD, Bipolar and impulse control disorder into account. All I can do is hope and pray that he survives in there. I do hope they close JRC down once and for all!
In response to how a parent can place their child in a school such as this, I tried everything possible, using the NYC Educational system’s guidance. What a crap! All they wanted to do was get him out of their classroom because he was so disruptive…what the hell did I know at the time-tried everything and then JRC. Do not point fingers at the parents, the system is to blam as well as JRC!!!
A tour is not the same as being able to look wherever you want whenever you want.
I’ve purposefully stayed away from this thread for awhile now. Its really very uncomfortable reading and the breathtaking excuses for cruelty speak mostly of promises of pain for the students of JRC.
Its really quite simple: no good can possibly come from the infliction of pain.
Ann:
“David: Yesterday I was reading through the parent testimonials on the JRC Web page, and found them to have a curious parallel in construction (among other anomalies), suggesting that the content of such is being deliberately led.
All you have to do is come up with some proof that they are being deliberately led. I’m confident that they have been asked to write what they think about JRC, not to say that they love it.”
You might want to suggest that to Andrea, since she is the one who said it. Learn to read, will you?
Ann: “Be happy in your delusion”
You may be the deluded one here. Along with Matthew Israel who is deluding himself if he thinks he’s doing *anything* that bears a resemblance to Skinner’s work!
Andrea-
Any agency who licenses JRC or who has a child placed there can visit unannounced, at any time and inspect whatever they like. Any parent of a child at JRC can show up at any time they like and inspect.
Agencies and parents have shown up for unaanounced visits and have been granted access.
If someone who is curious about the program or perhaps has an educational interest in the program shows up unannounced, they will be given a tour.
Ann: “Be happy in your delusionâ€
:: sigh :: I do get the impression that you are reading but not listening. I have described how I work with students like those at JRC, and that aversives are not necessary. I have explained here and on my blog how punishment systems are nonworkable. But such posts are either ignored or dismissed. Instead, we get argumentative fallacies like Appeal to Common Practice, or this Appeal to Ridicule.
These problems at JRC are the things where the current paradigm so permeates culture that most people can’t even see the injustices. And then when those are pointed out, you do not even understand why they are problems. Pointing these injustices out attracts dismissal. Expecting and then demanding fair treatment on someone’s part earns denial. http://qw88nb88.wordpress.com/
Above all, what I am seeing is that the culture at JRC does not create respect, either for the inmate clients there, or for anyone who does not agree with the methods used. A lack of respect is the first step on the slippery slope to treating others as nonpeople.
andrea
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr
Andrea (to Ann): “I do get the impression that you are reading but not listening. I have described how I work with students like those at JRC, and that aversives are not necessary. I have explained here and on my blog how punishment systems are nonworkable. But such posts are either ignored or dismissed. Instead, we get argumentative fallacies like Appeal to Common Practice, or this Appeal to Ridicule.”
This is why I cannot help but feel that the deluded one is Ann herself, having deluded herself that such treatment *is* alright, since it gets x,y,z results. Where-ever I look, whether it be books on educational psychology, occupational psychology, health psychology… clinical psychology and forensic psychology even… the idea of using punishment is always broached in a fashion of “best not to do this, since it’s not that effective, and you can’t really justify it that well”. I have a feeling that the people promoting the JRC’s reputation here are not indeed interested in what objections other may have as much as decrying us for having them.
Andrea (to Ann): “These problems at JRC are the things where the current paradigm so permeates culture that most people can’t even see the injustices. And then when those are pointed out, you do not even understand why they are problems.”
I wonder how much of it is *refusal* to see the injustices.
Andrea (to Ann): “Above all, what I am seeing is that the culture at JRC does not create respect, either for the inmate clients there, or for anyone who does not agree with the methods used.”
It’s a totalitarian culture, Andrea… they don’t actually give a damn, and this is why nothing we can say here will affect it. JRC exists still, not because its methods are sound science applied ethically, but because they have pals in places high… nothing else…
Well, I’m sorry this took awhile but I had to do research since I don’t really know about the FDA. I have found the link to a page that says that the GED is approved by the FDA. You can go to http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/devicesatfda/index.cfm to view this.
So I tried. However, David, it doesn’t matter what I say to you, you are determined to believe what you want to believe about JRC. I suggest you go work there and then you can correct the injustices that exist. Avail yourself of the staff discussion board. As long as you make constructive criticisms your suggestions will be heard and you might win $100 for the best suggestion of that week.
By constructive criticisms I mean you can’t go in there and say what you have said on here. They want to hear what the problem is in a professional manner and then hear what you would do to fix it.
JRC doesn’t mind if you disagree with the way they do things. They don’t fire people for disagreeing. They do, however, expect people to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.
andrea:I have described how I work with students like those at JRC, and that aversives are not necessary.
Not at your school for your students.
Andrea: I have explained here and on my blog how punishment systems are nonworkable. But such posts are either ignored or dismissed.
You explain that punishment systems are nonworkable so I ask you-Have you worked at JRC? I would think you would’ve said so by now if you had worked there.
So how would you know how the program at JRC works if you haven’t seen it from the inside over a period of time?
I think that it’s great that your students aren’t severe enough that they need restrictive treatments. Are they medicated?
As others have pointed out to me when I compare my current school to JRC, the fact that your students don’t need that type of treatment doesn’t really have anything to do with JRC.
Your assumption that because “your program works for your students, it will work for every student” is fallible.
If you want to categorize the students as inmates that is your choice, but I thought that the students were the victims here. How is calling them inmates not abusive? If one of them were to read that what do you think it would do to their self esteem? You talk about respect but then you say something like that.
I’ve worked at three different behavior schools and the ones that aren’t JRC didn’t show respect to the students because they were not trained to show respect. At JRC, if you don’t say “please” when giving a directive to a student, you will be told to do so, again and again until you remember. JRC staff is told to never lie to the students. They have been lied to in the past and their trust needs to be earned. It can’t be earned if they are lied to again and again. Staff are trained to never yell at the students. Staff are encouraged to interact with them when the time is appropriate and be very enthusiastic when giving verbal praise. These ideas are not simply told to staff when they are in the initial two week training, it is enforced all the time through quality control checks and in bi-weekly evaluations and in the PC/PIO system.
The students are allowed to interact with each other, at appropriate times. During interactions their conversations are monitored by staff and this is because they want to prevent runaways and coordinated attacks against staff.
Students can earn independence. They can have bathroom independence, bedroom independence all the way up to entire school independence.
Some minor behaviors are given GEDs because it has been proven that these minor behaviors have led to major behaviors. This is a form of antecedent control. One student I used to work with would receive a GED for clapping. I thought this was horrible when I heard of it. However, when I talked to his case manager about it, he told me that this student used to clap so forcefully and so often that the tissue in his hands was severely damaged. His hands look as if they are swollen all the time now. The treatment worked as of the time that I left in 2004.
I’m sorry to hear about the woman whose son was not successful at JRC. I would never expect that JRC could successfully treat every single student. No place can be 100% successful. They have recognized that many students who leave JRC have had a hard time adjusting and staying on track. They have improved their transition program so that students will not feel like they are lost once they leave.
Jackie: I have seen the marks left by those “souped up†GEDs.
What exactly is a “souped up” GED? Was this before or after the staff was required to rotate electrodes on the hour every hour? I know of marks left by GEDs. It’s because staff didn’t rotate. JRC’s policy is to terminate staff if they violate the rotation policy two times. If they violate it once, they are suspended one day without pay.
Jackie: I know those slaughter house movies the staff is “encouraged†to watch in order to advance in the crazy organization. (classic brainwashing)
I know them too. At least you didn’t say they were forced to watch them. I was promoted three times while I worked there and I was never made to watch a movie in order to be promoted.
If you would like to provide some details and evidence to back up these claims I would be happy to listen.
” I have described how I work with students like those at JRC, and that aversives are not necessary. I have explained here and on my blog how punishment systems are nonworkable. But such posts are either ignored or dismissed. Instead, we get argumentative fallacies like Appeal to Common Practice, or this Appeal to Ridicule.”
Andrea: Regarding the above, you have limited knowledge of the students that are treated at JRC. I would daresay that you might be treating students who are not like students treated at JRC. I am personally thrilled to hear that you have been having so much success using positive interventions only. That is the goal of all treatment.
Good luck in your continued work with the students that you serve.
Emma: “Regarding the above, you have limited knowledge of the students that are treated at JRC. I would daresay that you might be treating students who are not like students treated at JRC. I am personally thrilled to hear that you have been having so much success using positive interventions only.”
So you should be…. it demonstrates the non-viability of the JRC method.
David: “So you should be…. it demonstrates the non-viability of the JRC method.”
I disagree. It demonstrates that different methods of treatment work with different people.
Sam….
Understand you are working at JRC and made a comment that these students are the worse in the country…How dare you say that. My son was born with multiple afllictions that he has problems dealing with…is he then a bad kid, one of the worse in the country, what kind of crap is this????…hell no I’d say! Your comment is tasteless and I think you should truly think before you speak. He needed help, went to JRC for help…we asked for help where he could LEARN how to deal with his learning disabilities as well as other disabilities…you are saying it was OK to shock the crap out of him, you are saying it is OK to shackle him and yet no psychiatric treatment given? That is what happened…MOST OF THESE KIDS HAVE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS….zapping does not solve that only makes it worse. HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David: “So you should be…. it demonstrates the non-viability of the JRC method.”
David I believe what Emma is saying, and please Emma do correct me if you feel that I have not understood your point clearly, is that since JRC is willing to treat the most problematic students, many folks that work at agencies that “hand pick” their students, so that they are dealing with only students that have less extreme behavioral challenges, may not be dealing with the exact same population, despite the fact that they believe they are. There is a published paper by one respected leaders in the field of “positive behavioral supportsâ€, Edward Carr, and in his own paper, despite the fact that he is an outspoken critic of JRC and the use of aversives, he admits that his own findings that in the most extreme cases, positive behavioral supports are only effective 50% of the time.
I like Emma, am thrilled to hear that Andrea is having such great success using positive interventions. I sincerely wish her continued success with the population that she treats. I would agree however, with Emma’s statement that Andrea “has limited knowledge of the students being treated at JRCâ€. I understand and respect that Andrea has a great deal of experience both working in the field and as a consumer. Despite these facts, I don’t get the impression she has ever been to JRC and observed what goes on there firsthand. She may indeed have been to 20 or 30 centers which she believes to be similar; she may have treated 1000 students that she believes to be similar, yet that is not the same as firsthand knowledge of the individuals that are being served and cared for at JRC.
Just so we all know exactly who we’re dealing with, both ‘Alexius’ and ‘Emma’ have IP addresses that resolve to the Judge Rotenberg Centre.
Kev: “Just so we all know exactly who we’re dealing with, both ‘Alexius’ and ‘Emma’ have IP addresses that resolve to the Judge Rotenberg Centre.”
Oooooh… nice to know.
And Ann’s calling *us* on spin! Alexius and Emma have a vested interest in trying to deflect, since they work there; Ann used to work there, so she has one too. They don’t seem to consider the points we make, which are valid, that the treatment meted out at JRC (and places like that) is barbaric (which it is), and has no ethic-scientific merit (which it doesn’t)… they have to intention of taking these views on board as being other people’s reasoned conclusions based on the evident presented (e.g., in the NYSED report, and other literature).
I’m pressing the troll alarm button again, Kev.
Emma: “I disagree. It demonstrates that different methods of treatment work with different people.”
So, as far as it goes, I could decide (since you, Ann and Alexius) are failing to learn (by the usual means) how to take on board other people’s justified and reasoned conclusions, to come to JRC and electroshock you into being able to do so… and that would be perfectly ethical.
As for different methods of treatment work on different people… if there’s people there (as the testimonials say there are) who have been there from age 19 to age 35…. that’s definitely not a sign that the JRC brand of “treatment” works at all!!!!!
Siis niinku Dah!