We missed reporting this at the end of May when it happened, but I like to close the loop on stories we’ve discussed in the past, so I thought it relevant to mention here.
We’ve previously detailed how the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Mass. has a “treatment” for out-of-control children where electric shocks are given in order to curb their behavior (ala BF Skinner). We’ve also noted the horror of the incident where a former patient was able to make a single phone call and cause the staff to shock two children in its care over 100 times.
Now, finally, the founder of the school, Matthew Israel, has agreed to step down from the Center in order to avoid prison time. In an agreement reached with the state’s Attorney General, he will be on probation for five years and the Center will be overseen by a court-appointed monitor.
Matthew Israel pleaded not guilty to the charges of obstructing justice by destroying evidence. The evidence he destroyed were copies of videotapes that detailed what happened in August 2007. He claimed, through his lawyer, that he thought the investigation was over and so was just being prudent in destroying the tapes (so they wouldn’t be leaked to the Internet).
Luckily, the state had copies:
Even though prosecutors were ultimately able to find a back-up copy of the destroyed tapes, Cunha said, there was enough evidence that the grand jury indicted Israel Friday on two counts related to misleading a witness and destroying evidence. Cunha said his office ultimately decided to offer Israel a pretrial probation agreement, in which Israel had to permanently end his tenure at the center, which he founded 40 years ago, and serve a five-year probationary term. If he complied, prosecutors would drop the case in five years.
If you’re not clear on what the Center does, here’s a brief description:
Israel’s center endorses an unorthodox behavioral-control method, in which more than half of the center’s 200 students wear electrodes attached to their skin, and staff members, armed with remote devices, can punish them with shocks for deviant behavior. Students generally have severe behavioral problems, including some with autism and intellectual disabilities.
You know, psychologists have found many ways to control behavior in children, but none so barbaric as hooking them up to electrodes and treating them like mindless rats in a Skinner box.
I rarely take pleasure in other people’s misfortune. But for everything, there is an exception, and so I’m tenuously glad the founder of this dreadful “school” was indicted and forced to step down in disgrace as its leader. This is an appropriate end for someone who has seemingly legitimized a “treatment” technique that should’ve went out with the Dark Ages. Modern science can and will do better, and hopefully, “schools” like this will become but an unfortunate historic footnote of history.
Read the article: School founder denies he obstructed justice
Read one blogger’s reaction over at Care2: Matthew Israel, Founder of the “School of Shock” JREC, to Face Criminal Charges
17 comments
John, I have a strong suspicion verging on a certainty that you made a serious error in this blog post. You say, “We’ve previously detailed how the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Mass. has a “treatment†for out-of-control children where electroconvulsive shocks are given in order to curb their behavior”
I’m sure that the shocks in question are electric shocks NOT electroconvulsive shocks–these latter are of course administered through electrodes attached to the skull for the purpose of inducing convulsions and relieving depression. The school administers mild electric shocks to the skin of the arm (I assume) for behavior control. As barbaric as the practices of the school may be, they’re not nearly as barbaric as ELECTROCONVULSIVE SHOCKS would be–which is in the realm of Nurse Ratched .
Don’t string me up, I’m not supporting this, I just wonder … is this actually more inhumane than takedowns and restraints and isolation rooms?
I mean, what are the *actual* real world alternatives for this population in question? I can’t tell from the story.
In short, with regard to your first question, yes. I have known enough retarded and autistic people to know that ones who are severe enough do enjoy being by themselves listeing to the radio, lining up cars, etc. It is more humane to kill people than to torture them in some of the ways persons with developmental disabilities have been tortured throughout history. Nazi Germany tried killing people who were mentally “wrong”. Justify that if you want, but then again, once it is ok to kill people who are retarted perhaps all the people with iqs under 140 should then be killed, along with meat eaters, those who spread too much polution (thus all Americans)and anyone displaying health/physical defects of any kind.
It is not ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy)as described in your article. If you are going to do an article please make sure it’s correct. Holmegm, you’re absolutely right. Also, I don’t think medicating someone to the point that they don’t even know they exist is “humane treatment” yet it happens every day. This group of clients that the Rotenberg center serve have already gone through take downs, being restrained to a bed, hospitalizations, surgeries, ECT, multiple medication trials, seclusion, etc before JRC. I hear a lot of comments that the GED treatment is inhumane and that other treatments work, what and where are these treatments and treatment centers?? The treatments that these clients received obviously didn’t work and I believe those treatments were inhumane. The indictment of Matthew Israel was a political ploy to get him out of JRC and the only reason why he agreed to the terms is so life can go on at the program. He should be praised for his courage to use a procedure that is not politically correct if everything else has failed. Others turn their backs on these clients not JRC.
No the takedowns, restraints and drugs do not work for these children. The problem is not the mild electric skin shocks that cause a pain signal to be sent but do no phsycal damage. In my opinion it is the staff’s unabilty to follow rules and proceedures that causes the problems. It is either JRC or a life doped up on drugs waiting to die. I have given myself the shock treatments swvwral times as a former employee responsiable for maintaining, calibrating and building GED’s. What do you do with the Brandons other children whit no options now.
Thanks for pointing out the typo; it’s been corrected.
I am very happy to hear that such barbaric practices have been stopped. There are many more successful methods for handling behaviorally challenged children – especially those on the autism spectrum – than physical, verbal, mental abuse.
I have always felt that children who have challenging behavior are not all the same and so a one size fits all does not make any sense. An ASD child has behavior challenges because of the autism where another child who is typically developing may have behavior challenges because of an abusive home life, drug use, etc.
And so because each child’s behavior may exist because of different reasons – understanding those reasons would necessitate different approaches towards behavior modifications.
For example, ASD children have a range of sensory sensitivities. A child overly sensitive to smells would have a difficult time paying attention in class if the glue, the next person’s body odor, or lunch cooking was overloading their system. Then an adult gets angry and starts yelling because of inattention (or in this case, pushing buttons to administer an electric shock) and that adds one more stress ontop of an already stressed child who does not have typical coping skills first because of ASD and secondly because of any additional abuse suffered. And then when the child erupts and starts throwing furniture.. everyone panics and is “so shocked at this unexpected behavior”.
Ask any parent with an ASD child and they can explain how these outbursts are totally predictable. BUT – in order to predict and intervene in a useful and teaching manner you must first recognize that the behavior comes from the ASD and not from a desire to be disruptive.
I am glad that this facility was forced to change and that the person responsible was forced out. This is just one of many facilities that must change. Our efforts do not stop here – there are lots of “schools” who use abusive techniques to manage behaviorally challenging children.
he should be in prison for life
I noticed another error, the comment, “mindless rats in a Skinner box.” Actually, the “Skinner Box” was a device Skinner mentioned in “Walden Two,” as a container in which infants were raised.
I think in “Walden Two” it was likened to an aquarium, and its inhabitants were compared with fish, not rats.
It was produced in limited quantities for people that wanted it, under the name “Air Crib.” Gerald Mertens, of St. Cloud State University told me once that he’d used a borrowed Skinner box for one of his children, on loan from Julie Skinner Vargas.
I met Matthew Israel at Bill Sheppard’s 1966 Walden Two conference, at Hartland, Michigan. I was also present in June, 1967 at the farm where Twin Oaks Community was being started.
While that may be how Skinner used the term, how it has been used in psychology since Skinner’s time is not to describe an infant experimental box, but the operant conditioning box Skinner used in some of his experiments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
I’d forgotten the other meaning of the term “Skinner Box,” probably because Skinner may not have liked it. He thought the “Air Crib” had much potential.
If I remember right, he and his wife raised their younger daughter, Debbie, in an Air Crib, and his daughter Julie raised at least one child in one of them.
When informed that Debbie’s married name is Buzan, it reminded me of Tony Buzan, who around 1967 was Editor of the “Mensa International Journal.” Julie informed me that Debbie’s husband is Tony’s younger brother.
Why was this even allowed to occur?
Hadn’t the world got rid of this practise many decades ago? It seems that “children” again are still being used for outdated methods/procedures not for the common good. This practise is barbaric and inhumane .
One does wonder if this founder actually used this on himself as many times as these children as a whole were given.
I am very glad that he’s stepping down, but what will happen to the ‘school’?
There is never a good reason to harm a child, or intellectually disable adult. Ever. Every behavior exists for a reason and to shock, restrain, and take away the basic freedom of any individual due to OUR lack of understanding, patience, and tolerance says so much about our society. There are other ways to deal with challenging behaviors that are more humane, dignified and compassionate.
Another error. To my knowledge Skinner did not ever shock a child. It was Lovaas who used a cattle prod. I was disappointed to see a psychologist further anti-Skinnerian myths. Beyond Lauren Slater’s fictions, it’s usually that’s left to the press to do.
I’m not aware of any place in the article where it was said that Skinner placed a child in a box to be shocked. My quote was, “… but none so barbaric as hooking them up to electrodes and treating them like mindless rats in a Skinner box.”
Skinner used rats, not children, in his experimental box where he published research on the experiment.
Six children died after this “therapyâ€
Let me repeat that for those in the back.
Six children died as a result Of this “therapyâ€.
I was horrified when I read the original article from several years ago.
I went to Spec. Ed. programs within many schools in the U.S.(1973-1987). While none of the programs were barbaric to this extent. They were barbaric in their own right. To the point that, Over the last eight years of school, I ran away from school, at least five times.
Last year, I had an emotional breakdown, from the ways students n’ staff treated me, back when I was in school.
I was always treated. Like I was only wrong.
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