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Comp_Geek_573
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08 Sep 2014, 12:23 pm

That's what they are: tortures. Straight up and down. With absolutely no real excuse for them.

Those ordering and getting off on this need to be given life in prison or the death penalty.

http://autisticadvocacy.org/2014/08/pri ... rg-center/

I've copied the description of the tortures themselves below:
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The children and adults at JRC now have a variety of diagnoses ? autistic people and people with intellectual disabilities are still students at the JRC, but greater numbers of students with ADHD, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and students labeled as having ?emotional problems? attend JRC now, making up slightly more than half of the students (Gonnerman, ?School?). Many of these students have histories of being abused and abandoned by parental figures, and some are transfers from the juvenile justice system (Ahern and Rosenthal 8 ).

Children and adults at the JRC who are subjected to electric shocks are shocked on their legs, their arms, the soles of their feet, their fingertips, and their torsos. Often, they are shocked for years, even for longer than a decade in some cases. These shocks come from a remote-controlled backpack, called a Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED), which is attached to the student?s back. These shocks have been known to cause blistering and painful red spots on the students? skin. Additionally, the GED-4 was created to be even stronger than the GED-1 and therefore has potential to cause more pain and more injury. Some students receive hundreds of shocks per day (Ahern and Rosenthal 1 ). One student received 5,000 shocks in one day (Ahern and Rosenthal 8 ). Students are shocked over an extremely long period of time ? of the 109 students receiving electric shocks at JRC at one point, 48 had been receiving these shocks for at least 5 years (Ahern 13 ). Additionally, GED-1 and GED-4 devices have both been known to malfunction, shocking students ?repeatedly and rapidly? (Miller). One former student of JRC reported a staff member becoming angry with the student and began pushing multiple buttons on the remote at one time, shocking her in multiple places, and staff members shocking her for things she did not do in places where there were no cameras to provide a record of the incident (xxx).

Shocks have been used at JRC for an incredibly wide variety of behaviors. Although JRC claims that the intention is to stop self-harming or violent behaviors, it also has shocked students for many other things, including: involuntary body movements, waving hands, blocking out sound overstimulation by putting their fingers in their ears, wrapping their foot around the leg of their chair, tensing up their body or fingers, not answering staff quickly enough (xxx), screaming while being shocked, closing their eyes for more than 15 seconds, reacting in fear to other students being shocked, standing up, asking to use the bathroom, raising their hand (Miller), popping their own pimple, leaving a supervised area without asking, swearing, saying ?no? (Ahern and Rosenthal 13 ), stopping work for more than 10 seconds, interrupting others, nagging, whispering, slouching, tearing up paper, and attempting to remove electrodes from their skin (Ahern and Rosenthal 20-21). Additionally, students are shocked for having 5 verbal behaviors in an hour. These behaviors can include talking to oneself, clearing one?s throat, crying, laughing, humming, repeating oneself, or ?inappropriate tone of voice? (xxx). A former JRC teacher recalled how ?one girl, who was blind, deaf, and non-verbal was moaning and rocking. Her moaning was like a cry. The staff shocked her for moaning. Turned out she had a broken tooth. Another child had an accident in the bathroom and was shocked? (Ahern and Rosenthal 3 ). The behaviors that JRC considers punishable by shocking are also discovered by surveillance footage, with shocks then administered after the fact. Shock has even been used as a threat to pressure students to say positive things about JRC in front of the state legislature (Berrington). Non-speaking students tend to be subjected to shock the most, and are the ones who often have a more difficult time speaking up about their abuse (xxx).

As students become acclimated to pain, JRC increases the strength and frequency of the punishments. This leads to a situation where ?the severity of the punishment must be increased in an ever-increasing spiral? (Cobb 7). There is no rule at JRC about how old a child must be before they can be subjected to shock aversives, and Massachusetts law does not place an upper limit on the amount of pain that a student can be subjected to, short of death. There is a disproportion number of students of color within the JRC. Forty-five percent of JRC students are Black, and 28 percent are Latino. One psychiatrist who visited JRC described it thus: ?Street kids, kids of color, carrying these shock backpacks. It is prison-like and they are prisoners of the apparatus? (Ahern and Rosenthal 7).

In addition to shock aversives, students of the JRC are also subjected to food deprivation. At JRC, this is couched in language like ?Loss of Privilege,? ?Contingent Food Program,? and ?Specialized Food Program? (Kindlon, et al.) Students on these programs lose portions of their food whenever they do anything staff deem a negative behavior. One student described her franticness, loss of concentration, and restlessness due to hunger, causing her to lose more food. Often, she would lose all of her food for the day. Students who have lost food receive Loss of Privilege Food at the end of day, which consisted of ground up chicken chunks, mashed potato, spinach, and liver powder that was ice cold. Many students were unable to eat the Loss of Privilege Food (xxx). The Specialized Food Program is more restrictive, and does not give make-up food at the end of the day (Ahern and Rosenthal 19).

JRC students are also deprived of the ability to sleep. The rooms have alarms that would go off if someone moved in bed, waking others up. Students with the GED are made to sleep with the pack on them, which is physically very difficult, and also increases the feeling of fear among students, who are often terrified of being shocked while sleeping. One student described being given a GED-4 shock while she was asleep: ?My fears came true one day and I was given a GED-4 shock while I was asleep. It was not explained to me why I got this shock. I was terrified and angry. I was crying. I kept asking why. And then they kept telling me ?No talking out.? After a few minutes Monitoring called, and told the staff to shock me again for ?Loud, repetitive, disruptive talking out.? [?] After this incident I really stopped sleeping? (xxx). The JRC deprives students of basic physiological needs, including sleep and food.

The JRC also uses restraint and seclusion in its abuse of disabled students. The restraint board is described as ?a large, door sized contraption made out of hard plastic, with locking restraint cuffs on each corner where your wrists and ankles get locked in. Your body becomes stretched spread eagle style, pinned tight, rendering you completely helpless, combined with an overwhelming feeling of vulnerability? (xxx). Sometimes, students are left shackled, restrained, and secluded for months (Ahern and Rosenthal 2). One student described being kept in a small room with one other staff member for a year and a half. A mother of a JRC student reported that her child had been placed in restraints for two years. The JRC also combines the four-point restraint board with electric shocks, sometimes placing the student in a face-down ?prone? position on the board (Ahern and Rosenthal 3). This is done at times to keep students from ripping the GED pack off their body, as well as ?when the aversive power of electricity is not sufficient? (Ahern and Rosenthal 8 ). The ?prone? face-down restraints are generally considered outside of the JRC to be inherently dangerous, with many states banning the use of them (Ahern and Rosenthal 8 ).

Behavioral Rehearsal Lessons (BRLs) are another means with which the JRC fosters an environment of fear among its students. A BRL is a situation where staff members attack a student in a simulated ?lesson.? These BRLs have been used since the JRC was known as the BRI, and at that time Matthew Israel described the point of the BRLs to show students who had had few ?negative behaviors,? the connection between behavior and consequences (Kahn). In one situation, staff would rush at a student who was in a restraint jacket, restraint helmet, and a restraint chair, and scream at him ?Do you want to swallow a knife? Do you want to swallow a knife?? while holding a plastic knife or metal spoon to the student?s mouth. After the student screamed, he was shocked by another staff member (Miller). Another former JRC student described two staff members grabbing the student and holding a knife to the student?s throat. This occurred repeatedly, three times a week for 6 months. The student said of the BRLs: ?I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I can ever imagine. Horror? (Ahern and Rosenthal 18 ).

Social isolation is another tool used against students at JRC. Students must earn the right to socialize at the ?Big Reward Store,? an arcade full of pinball machines, video games, a pool table, and televisions. This is one of the only places students can socialize freely (Gonnerman, ?School?). One former student, Isabel Cadeño, said, ?Usually, you can?t talk to [your friends]. It was basically like we had to have enemies. They didn?t want us to be friendly with nobody.? The form of instruction JRC uses involves little to no instruction, since it is self-taught instruction on computer screens (Ahern and Rosenthal 17). Staff members are not permitted to carry on personal conversations with students (Ahern and Rosenthal 20). When students are deemed as behaving poorly, they are not even allowed to attend the school building during the day, and instead must stay in their residence and do schoolwork there (Ahern and Rosenthal 7).

The court is, in theory, supposed to provide a check on Level III physical aversives as used in the JRC, but in practice, it does not. Attending the JRC and being subjected to physical aversives is not voluntary for most JRC students. Many of the students are children, and it is parents and guardians who consent to their child?s placement at JRC. The JRC must go to court for each student on they wish to use Level III aversives, or aversives that create ?a significant risk of physical or psychological harm? to the individual (Ahern and Rosenthal 31). The court rarely denies approval within these court cases (Ahern and Rosenthal 9). The JRC often has provoked students before attending the hearing. One former student described being brought into the courtroom in a helmet and restraints, and not being questioned by the judge. The decision was made based on testimony from JRC staff and charts of behaviors. These behaviors were over a period of time where the student was placed in seclusion and restraint for two months, and not being allowed to even shower during this time. She describes her experience thus: ?I was bathed tied to a restraint board, naked, while staff washed me, putting their hands all over me. All in front of cameras while Monitoring watched, including men. Being tied on a restraint board, naked, with my private areas exposed to the staff in the bathroom and the cameras was the most horrible, vulnerable, frightening experience for me. I would scream out, ?rape, rape!? And these were recorded as major behaviors for me? (xxx). At times, student behavioral plans were even altered in advance so that judges could not see which behaviors for which students were being shocked (Miller).

Employees of the JRC are also placed in an environment of fear. There is pressure to shock JRC students even if staff members do not want to do so (Gonnerman, ?School?), and JRC staff find it impossible to discuss concerns about their behavior due to the surveillance that exists almost everywhere at JRC, including in the staff break room. Employees are not allowed to have personal discussions with other staff members, are encouraged to anonymously file reports about coworkers, and are told to start up social conversations with staff members as a test that is monitored and watched on surveillance cameras. Employees are also encouraged to be fearful of being attacked by JRC students. They must sign confidentiality agreements when they are hired promising to not talk about the JRC even after they have left (Gonnerman, ?School?). The JRC is described by both students and employees as an environment of fear. Because of the policies towards employees, employees are kept from speaking out against the abuses that occur towards students of the JRC.


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Woodpecker
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08 Sep 2014, 3:47 pm

Is this currently happening, I know that the man who ran the JRC did a deal to stay out of jail. He left and took some form of early retirement.

Fixed a type caused by typing too fast


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Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.


Last edited by Woodpecker on 09 Sep 2014, 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Protogenoi
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08 Sep 2014, 4:25 pm

Yes, this is currently happening.



vermontsavant
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08 Sep 2014, 5:46 pm

I having heard much about them lately but there is always something sinister going on in those Massachusetts institutions.(unfortunately I would know).
If the doctor doing those things took a plea deal and retired,wouldn't further activity be illegal.

But who knows.one thing I know is this : Gaebler,metro,westborough ,Northampton and the extra vile belchertown state school all got shut down.JRC won't operate forever

One great quality about the great state of Mass is that,mass maybe slow,ineficiant and down right cantancerous but Mass usually gets it right eventually.a colosul beaurocracy with a heart


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