Behavioral Rehearsal Lessons
“Most of my shocks were for noncompliance or disruption. In fact, I was also subject to a method known as BRLs. While I was sitting in a restraint chair, a staff would burst into my conference room — I was one-on one alone with staff — and screamed at me to hurt him holding a knife. Even though I did absolutely nothing and sat there in shock, not having any idea what was going on, I would receive a shock from the GED device. This happened a couple of times a week, at first, and left me in a constant state of fear, never knowing when I’d be hurt for no reason.
My experiences from the GED have affected me to this very day. I now suffer from a fear of authority, a fear of being controlled, and I panic when presented with either.”
Ian Cook
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
Shocked for Getting Out of Seat
Early on in her time at JRC, Du Bois was sitting in class and needed to resituate her pants. Her natural reaction was to stand up and fix them. “All I remember is my face hitting the floor,” Du Bois said. She got up out of her seat without permission. Staff responded by immediately restraining her, she said. This was before Du Bois was approved and fitted with a GED.
Du Bois remembers the day she was fitted for a GED “like it was yesterday… It felt like a vibration going through my body,” she said. “My legs would stiffen; they would just go out straight. I was terrified.”
Du Bois said punishments depended on what rule she broke. She said she was shocked for yelling, swearing, getting out her seat without permission and grabbing others.
Terri Du Bois
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
Other Ways I Was Abused At JRC
“Before I was on the GED shocks at JRC, I was abused in many other ways at the Judge Rotenberg Center. I remember on my very first day, when we got on the bus to go back to the residence, the girls sitting behind me started kneeing me in the back through the seat. They wouldn’t stop, and staff sitting with me did nothing about it. But as soon as I finally reacted, I was punished. Staff continued to allow those two girls to abuse me the whole time I lived in the Lorusso house with them. They were in the room next to mine, and would call me names and threaten me all the time.
They were NEVER held accountable, but every time I would finally try to defend myself I was restrained or marked as “having behaviors”
Jennifer Msumba
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
Shocked in His Sleep
“Because I didn’t wake up, she shocked me,” recalled Torres, now 24. “Then I ended up peeing the bed, so she shocked me again.”
Under his court-approved treatment plan, Torres could be shocked for threatening to hit another student or for running away, swearing or screaming, refusing to follow directions or “inappropriate urination,” according to court records obtained by NBC News. One employee, he said, used to shock him in his sleep.
Rico Torres
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
Shocking an Epileptic Student
“I can testify that staff were required to keep a medical log of a student’s seizures who was diagnosed with epilepsy, and that two out of three times he was shocked his arms, legs, and full body would go stiff, his eyes would roll back, he would drool, we would have to hold him up or help him to the floor if he was standing, and then we were required to record the time of day and the length in seconds of the seizure. The log did NOT ask us to record whether the seizure took place immediately after receiving a GED application.”
Gregory Miller
Former Employee – Left of His Own Will
No Positive Behavioral Support
“At this point, it is an understatement to say that positive behavioral supports are the most effective, widely used, state-of-the-art treatment. Other than the individuals at the JRC, every disabled person in this country who is being treated for self-injurious or aggressive behaviors is being treated without electric shock. In fact, electric shock has been widely determined to be antiquated and detrimental to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities by professionals in the field.”
“The vast majority of state agencies have issued rules prohibiting the use of aversive interventions like electric shock and forty states and the District of Columbia have legislatively outlawed the use of such interventions.”
National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services
Death by Medical Neglect
“I can testify to witnessing a Case Manager break open a capsule of ammonia under the nose of a JRC student in 2003, years after these “treatments” were no longer legal in Massachusetts. The student to whom this was done has since died of a urinary tract infection that had lasted for years. I continue to wonder whether her health-dangerous behaviors, back when I worked with her, would have decreased and if her immunity would have improved, if she had more meaningful and purposeful experiences at JRC/BRI where she lived for most of her life.”
Gregory Miller
Former Employee – Left of His Own Will
Strapped To Board Naked
“When I’m at the facility, they lay me out on the board, butt naked, make me lay there all night, tied, strapped to the board. Mommy, you’ve got to help me. I don’t believe you love me anymore.”
Anonymous
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
Shocked For Reactions of Fear
“I can testify of great crying, emotional distress, student behaviors stemming from anxiety, when students saw a teacher reach for the remote control devices that trigger the GED devices. I can tell how it was very common for students to be shocked for behaviors that were reactions of fear while watching their classmates get shocked, or in reaction to a staff merely reaching for a pencil in an apron from which the remote control devices were hanging.”
Gregory Miller
Former Employee – Left of His Own Will
Tied to 4 Point Board & Shocked
“I want to mention, similar to many other students, I was also tied to the 4-point restraint board and given multiple shocks for a single behavior. And if I screamed out in fear while on the board, I would be shocked for that as well. I was shocked for behaviors I had no control over, such as tensing up and tic-like body movements. We were always having to watch others getting shocked in the room. Hearing others scream, cry, beg to not be shocked. Students would scream “I’m sorry, No, Please!!” all day. I, like other students, would cringe and feel sick and helpless while watching others getting shocked. I was so anxious about getting shocked that I would many times bang my head just to get it over with. The GED often was the cause of my behavior problems. The students that get shocked the most at JRC are non-verbal. So they cannot speak up. I feel that just because we were born different, we are not given the same rights to be protected from tortures like the GED.”
Anonymous
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
GED Burns
“I was burned many times, and I still have scars on my stomach from being repeatedly shocked there, by the FDA approved GED-1. The electrodes had actually burned into my skin. I experienced long term loss of sensation and numbness in my lower left leg, after getting a shock there. I felt searing pain all the way down to the bottom of my foot, and was left with no feeling in my skin from the knee down for about a year”
Anonymous
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
Food Portion Program
“There was a time that I was on the food portion program. This is where JRC starves you as a punishment for having a behavior. Every time I had a minor behavior, such as talking to myself, rocking, wiggling my fingers, I would lose a part of my next meal.”
Anonymous
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
Food Portion Program
“I dropped cream cheese on the piano bench. As I tried to clean it off with my hand, she told me “no manipulating objects”. I told her i was trying to clean the seat off and she pinpointed me with “no arguing with staff”. I felt so hot and frustrated inside. Most any human would want to clean off the seat, I wasn’t doing anything bad or wrong. I managed to hold it in, and as she had promised that after I played for graduation I could go to the after party and eat the good food. Since at that time I was on “contingent food” or portions and had to earn every bite of my meals, that was a big deal.
The ceremony started and I played my 2 songs. As the speeches were finishing I again noticed the cream cheese and tried to wipe it off the bench. This time my case manager pinpointed me and told me to stand up. I knew I was in big trouble, the way her voice was, but didn’t understand why. Before I knew it, she had her hands on my shoulders and directed me to walk. She marched me back to my workshop and told me to take a seat. Then she grabbed my transmitter and started giving me shocks. I ended up with 7 IN A ROW. I can’t even remember what they all were for. But it had to do with the stupid cream cheese, and went from there.”
Jennifer Msumba
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
It Is Prison-Like
“When I visited the place, I was expecting much more difficult, non-communicative behavior in these children. It was a total surprise to me to find out that half to two thirds of the kids from NY had learning disabilities or emotional problems—street kids, kids of color—carrying these shock backpacks. It is prison-like and they are prisoners of the apparatus.””
New York State Department of Education Psychologist
Food Portion Program
“This was my “Portion Program” that I was on. Luckily I was only on it for several months. It works like this: my meals were divided up into portions, little plastic cups. We woke up around 6am but as you see I was not allowed to start “earning” my breakfast until 9am. So my stomach growled for 3 hours at least every morning. If I had ANY little behavior (talk to myself, stopping work, hand movements etc) I lost a part of my meal and had to start over.
Note it says also that my portions were to be kept temptingly in front of me all day as I starved I had to look at my own food sitting there. The only reason why I was offered 200 calories at 12p and 4p was because I had a history of seizures, otherwise I would not have gotten what they called “seizure calories”. LOP food was given to me at 7p”
Jennifer Msumba
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
Loss of Privileges – Food
“Well, basically, when someone from the high-functioning residence/classroom did something, they were put in a low functioning classroom and made to sit next to the more dangerous (and stinky) retarded kids. You received a modified diet of bland, L.O.P (Loss of Privileges) food. They would make you do menial tasks like sort and assemble toothbrush holders and film can cases and then kind of antagonize/tease you by giving you cloyingly sweet, verbal positive reinforcement for completing these “tasks.” Additionally, you have to shower and shit with an open bathroom door until your privileges are restored. Usually, if I tried to run away or hook off on a staff member, this could take 3-8 weeks.”
Anonymous
Survivor of The Judge Rotenberg Center
JRC Takes Guardianship
“Parents of JRC residents reported feeling powerless, coerced and intimidated. They reported being told that if they didn’t agree to the use of shock, the facility would take guardianship away from them. They said, “they didn’t understand the extent and variety of aversives being used”
Study by Brown and Traniello (2010),
State-Subsidized Cruelty
“That program is nothing more than state-subsidized cruelty to children …You can’t do these things to prison inmates or prisoners of war: There’s no reason to do them to people with autism.”
Martha Zeigler
Mother of a Daughter With Autism