Judge Rotenberg Center

Before you read this, read this.

In the heart of Massachusetts lies the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), a controversial behavioral program known for it's use of aversive behavioral techniques. Don't be fooled, it's mission is a noble one.

Once the JRC accepts a student, they do not expel them due to their difficult behavior problems. For some, JRC is the last of many stops they have made over the years. Often, individuals are pushed around in the system through programs and institutions that were unable to get their behavior under control. Once they come to JRC, all of that changes. They minimize/ditch the use of psychotropic medication, and get to the heart of the behavior issues. ^[1]

"JRC relies primarily on the use of positive programming and educational procedures to modify the behaviors of its students. If however, after giving these procedures a trial for an average of eleven months, they prove to be insufficiently effective, JRC then considers supplementing them with more intensive treatment procedures known as aversives. These are used only after obtaining prior parental, medical, psychiatric, human rights, peer review and individual approval from a Massachusetts Probate Court." (from the JRC Web site)

Notice the legal boundaries they have to cross in order to use shock. It's not like there's some sick, sadistic behavior analyst sitting behind a desk ordering Johnny to be zapped. Oh no, everything is looked after, carefully. And from what I understand, if a staff member delivers a shock when they should not have, they are terminated on the spot. How's that for ethics?

When you look at the big picture, shock isn't horrible at all. For example, you've been pushed through numerous institutions, while maintaining a diet of heavy, government regulated psychotropic drugs. You are 120 pounds overweight, you sleep all day, and you still engage in numerous problem behaviors that are dangerous to you and society. Everything has failed: positive behavioral support, drugs, talk therapy, etc. The only thing that is left is shock, and it works. A few jolts can go a long way, just look at the data (from the slide show cited earlier):




Of course, I'm probably blowing the situation out of proportion, and I cannot speak for any case that has come and gone from JRC. Nor can I speak for the entire field of applied behavior analysis, as even our most prominent researchers such as Skinner and Risely argued against the use of aversive control (I'll save this discussion for another day; but to give you a heads up, Skinner was wrong when he said we can build a world free of aversive control).

But as always, most lawmakers and parents don't understand the necessity of this treatment. It's gone as far where some states are considering passing legislation to stop the funding of individuals who attend programs that use aversives. If these laws were to pass, they would set an awful precedent, killing the possibility of the "lost causes" receiving effective treatment. We're so fixated on drugs and medicine; we'll prescribe drugs with horrible side effects that do major damage to our body over a long period of time, but we won't allow a few skin shocks to stop an otherwise lifetime of problems. It's all fucked up.

^{[1] http://www.judgerc.org/slideshow.pdf Take a look at the slide show PDF for all sorts of cool data, etc}