Action For Autism

Judge Rotenberg Center - every law they break

To follow on from yesterday’s post on the JRC, it sems that while it may be legal under Massachussetts State Law to detain people against their will and torture them with electric shocks, it is illegal to record their screams without their express consent. This email explains it all. It sounds petty compared to the daily misery endured by the inmates at JRC. But, hey, whatever helps to close them down. Please respond directly to Ken Mollins if you have any information pertaining to this or to the grand jury investigation of abuses at the Judge Rotenberg Center.

Dear fellow advocates: 

This latest letter from Attorney Kenneth Mollins exposes the illegal practice of recording all conversations at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in violation of Massachusetts State Law.
Please forward this letter to others and post on lists.  Permission is granted by Kenneth Mollins.

If any readers have had their privacy violated at JRC you may want to contact Kenneth Mollins, or myself and I will forward your information to Ken. Perhaps this can be a concerted effort. You may also want to address your own personal letter to Attorney General Martha Coakley if you have been violated in this manner, or if you are aware of other criminal matters at JRC.

Thank you, for your active advocacy. Please remember that change can only occur if we take action! Our silence is only golden for Dr. Israel.

May 16, 2008

Via Facsimile (508)795-1991

Attorney General Martha Coakley
One Exchange Place, 3rd Floor
Worcester, MA 01608

Re:  Judge Rotenberg Center

Dear Attorney General Coakley:

 I am writing concerning ongoing apparent criminal activity that is occurring on a daily basis at the Judge Rotenberg Center (“JRC”) in Canton, Massachusetts, and where numerous people are being subjected to said criminal activities on a daily basis. Mass. Ann. Laws ch. 272, §99 states:

It is a crime to record any conversation, whether oral or wire, without the consent of all parties in Massachusetts…

 I have spoken with numerous prior employees of the JRC who all advise me that the entire school and residences are subject to the recording of conversations taken therein. These recordings not only apply to the students and faculty, but to the mailman, the person who delivers lunch, and to any other person entering the facility, all of whom are being recorded and replayed without their consent. I was in the facility back in early 2006 to meet with a client, and thereafter I was advised by both staff and parents of students in the facility that my conversations were recorded without my consent. In addition, I have spoken with others who have been in the facility without consenting to their conversations being recorded.

 The criminality described herein is made worse by an examination of the release signed by the parents of students attending this center. I am enclosing herewith a copy of the applicable portion of the release which is the same release signed from 2003 to the present, the section enumerated as “H. Filming/Photographs.” The fact that audio taping and recordings are made during therapy sessions is expressed, but in the paragraph consenting to same, the audio portion is specifically deleted, and the consent goes to video taping and/or photograph of the student. This omission specifically vitiates any consent by the parent of any student or parent from September 2003 to the present. As such, I believe there are thousands of victims of criminality in violation of the aforestated section, of which I am one. In addition, in speaking with March Network, the company that does the video surveillance at JRC, they have also advised me that all conversations that take place in said center are recorded.

 I ask that you immediately cause this criminality to cease and to prosecute the thousands of alleged criminal acts that appear to have occurred at this center and as a victim I hereby demand that you seek both monetary and criminal sanctions against those for acting in concert to commit a violation of the aforesaid criminal statute.

 I am aware that you are currently investigating the JRC and that a grand jury has been convened to investigate criminal acts. It might save the taxpayers of Massachusetts time and expense if you present evidence to a grand jury of the criminal acts revealed herein. I will be happy to testify as well will others I have spoken with concerning same.
 
Very truly yours,
 
LAW OFFICE OF KENNETH M. MOLLINS, P.C.

By: 
KENNETH M. MOLLINS
KMM/mc
cc: MA Governor Deval L. Patrick
NYS Attorney General, Andrew M. Cuomo

May 17th, 2008 Posted by Mike | Autism rights, Judge Rotenberg Center | 4 comments

Judge Rotenberg Center - action at last?

This comment was  posted to an old blog post of mine about the Judge Rotenberg Center.

I have a 25 year old son with severe autism, he is non verbal and is self abusive, self injury, aggressive, he’s 6′1″ too. I’d rather DIE than ever put my son into the JRC!! you need behavior modifaction! no punishments! now my son is doing much better I forgot to tell you those really bad behaviors had happened more when he was 15 yrs old, altho they still come up. I love my son with all my heart and I hate the fact he’s in a group home now. I live in R.I. I wish I could take him home forever. Thanks for reading.

If you read this press report you will understand the strength of her feeling. A prank phone call fooled the staff into administering a series of electric shocks to two unfortunate inmates for alleged misdemeanours committed earlier in the evening. This week the Boston Globe published a follow-up story. 

Rotenberg records reportedly are seized

By Patricia Wen
Globe Staff
May 15, 2008

State Police seized documents late last week from the offices of the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton that are related to a prank phone call last summer that led two students to wrongfully receive dozens of punishing electrical shocks, according to two people with direct knowledge of the investigation

My immediate response is “Wrongfully?” So under what circumstances should students “rightfully” receive electric shocks? My second thought is that, even if one were to accept the premise that contingent electric shock is an effective and acceptable method of behaviour modification, what sort of staff would sanction this to take place hours after the alleged infractions, and on the basis of a phone call? The original report in the Boston Globe tells us.

Six staff members worked the overnight shift at the group home at 66 Kevin Clancy Way, a tan house located in a quiet cul-de-sac in Stoughton. Five of the six had already worked a double or triple shift, while the sixth worker showed up at 10 p.m. None had much experience caring for emotionally disturbed boys at the group home. Most had been on the job less than three months.

Inexperienced, overworked staff, that’s who. But why should they comply with such a bizarre request? Again the original Boston Globe report is invaluable.

The staff was “apprehensive” and confused about the caller and discussed what to do, but they went ahead with the punishments because they were told by the caller that they would be “evaluated” if they did not obey, the report said. The caller, who made a series of calls between 2 and 4:45 a.m., had detailed knowledge of the inside of the house and led the staff to believe that he was watching them on surveillance screens at the central office.

Inexperienced, overworked staff who were only following orders and were fearful of the consequences if they did not obey.  Hmm. This is abusive and bullying on so many levels. The latest report updates us on a grand jury investigation

led by the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley, said Kenneth Mollins, a New York lawyer who has filed several lawsuits against the school and who said he spoke to a representative of Coakley’s office about the Rotenberg investigation. Mollins said he was told the grand jury is also examining possible financial improprieties by the school.

Ah yes, follow the money. JRC has around 250 inmates at $250,000 a year. They are plainly not spending it on quality staff. So where does the money go?

Ernest Corrigan, a spokesman for the school, did not confirm that a seizure of documents had occurred last week. He said only that school officials have been cooperative with state and local police ever since they reported the prank phone call to police last summer.

“We’ve been supportive of the investigation,” he said.

As a mark of their “cooperation” they destroyed the surveillance tapes of last years abuse even after being told by investigating officials to preserve them. For too long the JRC has got away with the abuse of autistic and other vulnerable young people. It remains to be seen if they will get away with abuse of the legal process.

May 17th, 2008 Posted by Mike | Autism, Judge Rotenberg Center, ethics | 2 comments

Judge Rotenberg Center - latest research

Side effects of contingent shock treatment

W.M.W.J. van Oorsouw(a) M.L. Israel(b) R.E. von Heyn(b) and P.C. Duker(a)

(a)Pluryn Werkenrode Groep (Winckelsteegh) and Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
(b)Judge Rotenberg Center, Canton, MA, USA 

Received 20 August 2007;  accepted 29 August 2007.  Available online 22 October 2007.

Abstract

In this study, the side effects of contingent shock (CS) treatment were addressed with a group of nine individuals, who showed severe forms of self-injurious behavior (SIB) and aggressive behavior. Side effects were assigned to one of the following four behavior categories; (a) positive verbal and nonverbal utterances, (b) negative verbal and nonverbal utterances, (c) socially appropriate behaviors, and (d) time off work. When treatment was compared to baseline measures, results showed that with all behavior categories, individuals either significantly improved, or did not show any change. Negative side effects failed to be found in this study.

Research in Development Disabilities is a respectable journal with a well respected editor, Professor Johnny L. Matson. Professor Matson also edits Research in Autistic Spectrum Disorders. So I was surprised to see this abstract. I had assumed that Matthew Israel and the Judge Rotenberg Center were beyond the bounds of acceptable practise in  psychiatry.  Perhaps their reputation has not reached the  Netherlands. Just to make sure I have emailed the lead author.

But, surely Professor Matson is familiar with the controversy surrounding JRC? You would expect his journal to take a long hard look at a piece of research supporting electric shock treatment with Matthew Israel’s name on it before accepting it for publication. Yet the entire peer review process was completed in a just over a week. “Received 20 August 2007;  accepted 29 August 2007″ I find that remarkable and disturbing.

November 15th, 2007 Posted by Mike | Judge Rotenberg Center, Quackery, psychiatry, science | 22 comments

Judge Rotenberg Center - Close it Down!

Shock Tactics is yet another detailed account of the abuse carried out on people at the Judge Rotenberg Center. Over half the inmates at this institution are wired to a device called the GED that delivers painful electric shocks at the push of a button. At one time the use of electric shocks on severely disturbed children was given dubious justification by the life threatening severity of their self injurious behaviour. Better GED than dead as it were. The reporter, Jennifer Gonnerman, gives credence to this when she writes:

Before we set off on our tour of the institution, there’s something Israel wants me to see: Before & After, a home-made movie featuring six of his most severe cases. He has been using some of the same grainy footage for more than two decades, showing it to parents of prospective students as well as reporters. It shows how in 1977, an 11-year-old girl, Caroline, arrives at the school strapped on a stretcher, her head encased in a helmet. Next, free from restraints, she tries to smash her helmeted head against the floor. In 1981 it shows Janine, also 11, who shrieks and slams her head against the ground, a table, the door. Bald spots testify to the severity of her troubles; she’s yanked out so much hair it’s half gone. Compared with these scenes, the “after” footage looks almost unbelievable: Janine splashes in a pool; Caroline grins as she sits in a chair at a beauty salon.

“These are children for whom positive-only procedures did not work, drugs did not work,” says Israel. “And if it wasn’t for this treatment, some of these people would not be alive.” The video is very persuasive: the girls’ self-abuse is so violent and so frightening it almost makes me want to grab a GED remote and push the button myself. Of course, this is precisely the point.

Then she meets two of these “success stories. ”

Considering how compelling the after footage is, I am surprised to learn that five of the six children featured in it are still here. “This is Caroline,” one of my escorts says later as we walk down a corridor. Without an introduction, I would not have known. Caroline, 39, slumps forward in a wheelchair, her fists balled up, head covered by a red helmet. “Blow me a kiss, Caroline,” Israel says. She doesn’t respond.

A few minutes later, I meet 36-year-old Janine, who appears in much better shape. She’s not wearing a helmet and has a full head of black hair. She’s also got a backpack on her shoulders and canvas straps hanging from her legs, the telltale sign that electrodes are attached to both calves. For 16 years – nearly half her life – Janine has been hooked up to Israel’s shock device. A few years ago, when the shocks began to lose their effect, the staff switched the devices inside her backpack to the much more painful GED-4.

The Judge Rotenberg Center no longer restricts itself to severely handicapped children who self harm. More “high functioning” individuals with a range of difficulties including ADHD and Bipolar Disorder get the same electric shock ”treatment” for the most trivial “offences” like getting out their seat without permission.

Matthew Israel, the director and founder of the JRC claims to be a behaviourist in the tradition of B. F. Skinner, under whom he studied in the 1950s. He took up the idea of using electric shock from fellow behaviourist Ivor Lovaas. Lovaas no longer uses electric shocks because:

“These people are so used to pain that they can adapt to almost any kind of aversive you give them.”

Israel met the same difficulty. His answer was to turn up the power and use even more painful devices. What I want to know is how long are we going to put up with college educated professors telling us it OK to inflict pain on the most helpless and vulnerable people in society? Even Dr Bernard of the Maudsley Hospital in London is quoted in the article as saying,

It’s terrible to use something like that without clear evidence to show it works.

There have been attempts to close the JRC. But Israel has always relied on the tesimonials of satisfied parents, motivated by the fear that if JRC closes there is nowhere else for their children. It seems that the only criteria for admission is that you have been written off and rejected by everyone else. Once inside your fate is forgotten.

What I find most inexplicable is the support for JRC by ex inmates. Stockholm Syndrome maybe? This is Katie Spartichino:

Katie, 19, tells me she overdosed on pills at nine, spent her early adolescence in and out of psychiatric wards, was hooked up to the GED at 16, and stayed on the device for two years. “This is a great place,” she says. “It took me off all my medicine. I was close to 200lb and I’m 160 now.” But when she first had to wear the electrodes, she says: “I cried. I kind of felt like I was walking on eggshells; I had to watch everything I said. Sometimes a curse word would just come out of my mouth. So being on the GEDs and knowing that swearing was a targeted behaviour where I’d receive a [GED] application, it really got me to think twice before I said something rude.”  

The most chilling part of the whole story is one of apparent tenderness.

As Katie speaks, LaChance runs her fingers through Katie’s hair again and again. The gesture is so deliberate it draws my attention. I wonder if it’s just an expression of affection – or something more, like a reward.

To me, LaChance’s action screams of an abusive relationship, Katie allowing herself to be treated like a child by someone who probably inflicted pain on her in the past. And when Katie admits that she sometimes still swears

 The hair-stroking stops. LaChance turns to Katie. “I hope you’re not going to tell me you’re aggressive.”

The last time I heard that voice it was Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

“Oh, no, that’s gone,” Katie says. “No, no, no. The worst thing I do sometimes is me and my mom get into little arguments.”

Poor Katie, still in fear of that voice, still in thrall.  And she is one of the lucky ones. She got out.

JUDGE ROTENBERG CENTER - CLOSE IT DOWN!

October 28th, 2007 Posted by Mike | Autism rights, Judge Rotenberg Center, disability rights | 9 comments

Judge Rotenberg Center again

Derrick Jeffries - Person with Asperger’s Syndrome and Nancy Weiss - Co-Director, The National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities, Center for Disabilities Studies, University of Delaware have issued

A Call for Ethical and Unprejudiced Leadership and Practice in the Field 

which I was pleased to sign. The letter begins like this:

“This letter is to the American Psychological Association (hereafter referred to as APA), and to all professionals in the field of psychology. This letter calls upon APA and professionals who adhere to the APA Code of Ethics to act in a manner that is ethical and consistent with that Code of Ethics. Two recent APA documents are relevant to this call to action. They are, the 2006 “Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or punishment” (hereafter referred to as 2006 Resolution), and the 2007 “Reaffirmation of the American Psychological Association Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Its Application to Individuals Defined in the United States Code as “Enemy Combatants”" (hereafter referred to as 2007 Resolution). With fervor, we are advocating for people with autism, developmental differences, and mental health challenges; urgently entreating that they may be given the same respect with regard to human rights as alleged “Enemy Combatants,” or any other human beings. As professionals who adhere to the APA Code of Ethics, nothing less than an unprejudiced stance in this matter should be considered acceptable.

“Currently, children and young adults with autism, developmental differences, and mental health challenges are being treated in a manner that clearly meets the definition of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as defined by the two previously mentioned APA documents. The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (hereafter referred to as JRC) in Massachusetts has a long history of using electric shock, food deprivation and prolonged mechanical restraint, as well as other painful and dehumanizing aversive techniques.”

Please go to http://disabledsoapbox.blogspot.com/ to read the letter in full and add your support. Meanwhile, anyone interested in debating with Matthew Israel should visit the Justice, the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. Nathan Robinson from Brandeis Students United Against The Judge Rotenberg Center has written an opinion piece about the JRC that has provoked responses from Israel and equally vigorous replies from Nathan and others.

October 14th, 2007 Posted by Mike | Autism rights, Judge Rotenberg Center, disability rights, science | no comments

National Autism Association opposes the Judge Rotenberg Center

This blog started as an argument against chelation as a therapy for autism. The National Autism Association is a dedicated supporter of chelation therapy. But today I would like to quote one of their press releases in full. The message is so important that I have ignored the temptation to edit out their call for a cure at the bottom.

Rita Shreffler posted this press release on the AUTINET email list. Somehow it never made it onto the NAA website but full marks to NAA and full marks to Rita Shreffler and Wendy Fournier for being the first to sign the petition to end the use of aversives on autistic children.

I would like to think that all in the autism movement, both parents who are seeking a cure and those of us who prefer to celebrate Neurodiversity could unite in opposing the barbaric treatment meted out by the Judge Rotenberg Center. I would like to but sadly if you go to Whose Planet is it Anyway and read this entry

You Don't Know What You're Talking About

and scroll down to the comments you will encounter a load of bile from Fore Sam, the pseudonym of John Best Jr. Here he is addressing autistic adults who oppose the Judge Rotenberg Center.

If I thought I could have some of you enrolled at JRC, I'd apply for a job pressing the shock button. It might help straighten you out.

If he was just a troll we could ignore him. But John Best Jr is the parent of an autistic child and a Rescue Angel, a member of Generation Rescue whose job it is to visit the parents of autistic children and persuade them to chelate their child.

I hope that NAA publish this press release on their website. I hope they invite Generation Rescue to endorse it. And if GR oblige I sincerely hope that they remove John Best Junior from their list of Rescue Angels. He is not fit to advise parents. He is not fit to be a parent, let alone the parent of an autistic child.

NATIONAL AUTISM ASSOCIATION SPEAKS OUT AGAINST “AVERSIVE THERAPIES” USED ON CHILDREN

“THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY,” SAYS NONPROFIT GROUP

Nixa, MO – In a TimesUnion.com article published last week entitled “Should pain be a part of learning?” writer Rick Carlin touched on a highly controversial collection of aversive therapy methods used on children with neurological disorders such as autism.

Carlin described such methods as “hitting, slapping, pinching, kicking, hurling, using painful or intrusive sprays or inhalants, and withholding sleep, shelter, bedding or bathroom facilities,” and cited facilities such as the Rotenberg Residential Center as utilizing these methods on troubled patients. Also mentioned was electrical shock therapy.

“We can’t allow this to continue,” says Wendy Fournier, President of the National Autism Association. “There has to be a better way of addressing behaviors associated with severe autism and related disorders.”

The national group says regulations need to be in place to prevent aversive therapies. “We’re interested in talking to facilities such as the Rotenberg Center, and are willing to help in any way we can to replace these cruel therapies with something less aversive,” says NAA Executive Director Rita Shreffler. “These children simply cannot be subjected to these methods, and finding a better way should be the priority of these types of treatment centers.”

The article noted new legislation, sponsored by Senator Marty Golden (R-NY), which would ban aversive therapies. “The National Autism Association supports this legislation,” says Fournier. “we’re more than willing to help any political figure ban these inhumane practices.”

To view the article, visit http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=482318&category=CAPITOL&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=5/16/2006.

Related articles:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/05/23/ny_debates_mass_schools_shock_use/

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/05/22/a_question_of_tough_love_vs_torture/

To sign a petition supporting a ban of these methods, click here http://www.PetitionOnline.com/NYs6876/petition.html

For more information about autism, visit www.nationalautism.org.

-30-

Think Autism. Think Cure.

June 25th, 2006 Posted by Mike | Autism, Judge Rotenberg Center | 17 comments