Lawsuit, video thrust JRC back into national spotlight

The Canton-based Judge Rotenberg Center, a self-proclaimed school of last resort and currently the only one in the nation using electric shock therapy as a behavior modification tool, has found itself at the center of yet another controversy after video surveillance footage of a student being restrained and then repeatedly shocked was played in a Dedham courtroom last week.

The dramatic video, portions of which were played at the start of a civil trial against the school and subsequently aired by Fox 25 News, shows former student Andre McCollins screaming and writhing in pain from the skin shock applications as JRC staffers attempt to subdue him. The video later shows McCollins, who had reportedly displayed aggressive behavior on the bus ride to the school that day, tied to a restraint board face-down and wearing a helmet — a position he was forced to remain in for over five hours while receiving dozens of shocks, according to the lawsuit.

McCollins’ mother, Cheryl McCollins of Brooklyn, New York, is suing the center for negligence, claiming that the incident in the video caused permanent damage to her autistic son, who, at age 26, is now “heavily medicated” and “state institutionalized.” Lawyers from the JRC, meanwhile, insist that the staff members followed proper protocol with McCollins and that all of the actions taken in the video were covered under the student’s court-approved treatment plan.

The trial was expected to last at least through this Friday, with lawyers for both sides preparing to call a number of expert witnesses. The fallout from the video, however, was already being felt last week as JRC critics from across the nation and the globe sounded off on the treatment of McCollins while calling for an immediate end to the use of “aversive therapy” in Massachusetts.

“It is extraordinarily disturbing and only strengthens my resolve to stop this barbaric practice that takes place in my district at the JRC in Canton,” remarked Senator Brian A. Joyce in an email addressed to “concerned citizens.”

Joyce, who has battled the school for more than two decades, has proposed countless bills in an attempt to ban or severely restrict the JRC’s use of skin shocks, but none of the bills have made it out of the House of Representatives, which includes a few members who are ardent JRC supporters.

However, opponents of the school’s treatment methods recently scored a major victory when the state Department of Developmental Services approved regulation changes prohibiting the use of all Level III aversives (including shock therapy) except in those cases where a student had an existing court-approved treatment plan as of September 1, 2011. Under the revised regulations, which took effect October 30, no new students can be approved for shock therapy treatment in Massachusetts.

The landmark amendment, which closely mirrors a bill that Joyce had previously filed in the Senate, was the latest in a string of blows for the JRC over the past two years.

In July 2010, Canton Police were called to a JRC group home after a fight had broken out between students and staff that the Boston Globe described as a “30-minute brawl” and that one CPD officer described as an “eye-opening experience.” Later that same month, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, in a nationally televised interview, characterized the school’s treatment methods as torture and called for an immediate federal investigation.

Most recently, in May 2011, the school’s founder and executive director, behavioral psychologist Dr. Matthew Israel, was indicted on criminal charges stemming from a 2007 incident at a JRC group home in which two students received dozens of shocks based on a prank phone call. Israel, who was charged with destroying the surveillance tapes, was forced to sever all ties to the school as part of a plea agreement that spared him from serving a prison sentence.

It is Joyce’s understanding that law enforcement officials were able to retrieve the footage from that incident, and the senator remains hopeful that that film — like the McCollins video — will be “recovered and displayed for all to see.”

In the meantime, Joyce has been hard at work on a series of aversive therapy bills that would effectively codify the recent DDS regulation changes through legislation, and he is optimistic that the bills can be pushed through during the upcoming budget process.

The JRC plans to fight the regulations in court, but Joyce and other opponents are counting on the video evidence to speak for itself.

As the senator told a legislative committee recently, “I hope and pray that someday all Massachusetts citizens and indeed, all of us in humanity, can view this horrific action that has gone on, basically unfettered, for 40 years in Massachusetts.”

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Posted by Jay Turner on Apr 18 2012. Filed under News. Both comments and pings are currently closed.