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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where we

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Speaker 1: talk about real bleak shit and boy howdye? My guest

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Speaker 1: today Aidan Bonacci Aiden. Did I get it right this time? Yes?

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Speaker 1: You did? And thanks for having me question Mark? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: how are you? How are you enjoying learning about the

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Speaker 1: Judge Rodenberg Center. I am not surprised, but I'm also

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Speaker 1: very depressed. Yeah. Well, it's about to get a lot worse.

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Speaker 1: Uh actually significantly worst, vastly worse. Fun. How do you

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Speaker 1: feel about electrocuting children? Yeah, that's the right response. Um,

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Speaker 1: can we stop with the electricity once? Please? Got no? No, no,

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Speaker 1: it's uh yeah. We actually should start this episode by

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Speaker 1: talking a bit more about the parents who have made

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Speaker 1: Matt Israel's career possible. It should be clear by everything

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Speaker 1: I've said so far that I think they're wrong and

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Speaker 1: in some cases profoundly abusive. But people who are wrong

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Speaker 1: can have compelling reasons for being wrong that are not

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Speaker 1: easily dismissed. George Nazareth, former head of the Rhode Island

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Speaker 1: Human Rights Committee and the first person to take a

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Speaker 1: serious deep look at the fund up workings of b

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Speaker 1: R I probably put it best when he was asked

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Speaker 1: by a reporter from the Boston Phoenix why so many

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Speaker 1: parents would sign off on approval to have their children abused. Quote,

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Speaker 1: desperate parents will sign anything. You become desperate about a

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Speaker 1: lot of things. Some of the parents at b r

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Speaker 1: I are now saying they want the program to continue.

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Speaker 1: They think the state will send their children back home.

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Speaker 1: Some parents would blow their brains out if the states

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Speaker 1: sent their children back home. They've been through the mill. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's it's they have the reasons. But at

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Speaker 1: the same time, it's like, just because it may seem

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Speaker 1: like the right thing doesn't mean this. It's certainly not

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Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to say And part of what

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Speaker 1: I'm getting at here is that a lot of these

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Speaker 1: parents why they like the b r I isn't that

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Speaker 1: it's helping their kids. It's that it's keeping their kids away.

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Speaker 1: And the Judge rd Bricks Center is taking kids from

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Speaker 1: multiple states. They're taking the most severe kids. And it's

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Speaker 1: not right that a lot of parents are willing to

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Speaker 1: accept this school because it keeps their kids away. But

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Speaker 1: that's the that's that's where they are and there it

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Speaker 1: is not a thing of like they're not it's not

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Speaker 1: that I don't think they see themselves as being cruel.

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Speaker 1: I think they're unthinkably desperate in a lot of cases,

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Speaker 1: and they're not. There aren't a lot of options for them,

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Speaker 1: and that's that doesn't defend this because again I'm we're

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Speaker 1: spending ten thousand words and two hours talking about how

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Speaker 1: bad this place is. Oh yeah, it's excuseable, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it's not unexcusable. Yeah it's not. Okay, it's not acceptable,

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Speaker 1: but it is the result of a desperation more supreme

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Speaker 1: than I think most people can asp um especially, and

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Speaker 1: this becomes less the case because now I think the

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Speaker 1: parents who were defending it have options. It's fucking nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty five. Like autism as a diagnosis is five years old.

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Speaker 1: What options do you have? Not that this was the

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Speaker 1: right one, but there's just not a lot of good ones,

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Speaker 1: and there's yea or even any of them besides this one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's you know, even even if there were in

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Speaker 1: in you know, there are in some cases other options

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Speaker 1: for parents. And I don't want to also make it

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Speaker 1: like look like it was more. But also the amount

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Speaker 1: of education the parents might have about what's available is minimal,

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Speaker 1: Like it's just you have to again really want to

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Speaker 1: emphasize that we're not we're not trying to whitewash either

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Speaker 1: the parents or what's happening at this facility, but like

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Speaker 1: it's a desperate situation. Um, And that's that That's part

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Speaker 1: of what I think condemns Matt Israel more because he

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Speaker 1: is taking advantage of this desperate situation to test his

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Speaker 1: weird you like, human avioral modification theories. He's taking advantage

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Speaker 1: of this horrible, horrible situation. Yeah, like what you mentioned

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Speaker 1: in the last part, he sees them more as features

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Speaker 1: than as actual children, and this is just something to

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Speaker 1: show off. Yeah, something how good he is it plugging

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Speaker 1: in new stimuli to alter their behavior, and it doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter to him. I think that this is that he's

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Speaker 1: just torturing these kids and to stopping behavior. He's not

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Speaker 1: changing anything. He's not he's not helping them. He's temporarily

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Speaker 1: stopping them from doing something via violence. I don't think

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Speaker 1: he cares because the behavior has stopped, and he has

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Speaker 1: no problem continuing the violence forever. In fact, he gets

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Speaker 1: he gets paid if he gets to continue the violence forever. Yeah, Um,

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Speaker 1: it's real bleak. Oh yeah, So George Nazareth, the guy

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Speaker 1: who gave that quote about some parents would blow their

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Speaker 1: brains out if they sent their children back home. They've

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Speaker 1: been through hell. Nazareth is number one. He's the guy

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Speaker 1: who carries out the first big investigation of b r

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Speaker 1: I and condemns it unequivocally. He's also the parent himself

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Speaker 1: of a mentally disabled daughter. I don't know how to

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Speaker 1: be more specific about her condition than that, because in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen article where I found this, she's just referred

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Speaker 1: to as retarded. The fact that a thoughtful, compassionate and

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Speaker 1: very ethical man like George Nazareth would use that term

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Speaker 1: for his own daughter is a sign of how primitive

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Speaker 1: the things were in that period in terms of science um.

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Speaker 1: Because this was not considered an offensive term. There are

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Speaker 1: advocacy agencies called like the Organization for Retarded Persons and

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Speaker 1: what UM that use that word. And I bring this

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Speaker 1: up because the primitiveness of the terminology and use suggests

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Speaker 1: how primitive the other methods of treatment were as well.

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Speaker 1: While the Judge Rodenberg Center was marked out by experts

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Speaker 1: at the time for its brutality, the gold standard of

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Speaker 1: care during that period also involved a lot of unnecessary

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Speaker 1: force and medication, which is a kind of force. Why

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Speaker 1: these parents say they're worried their kids would get stuck

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Speaker 1: in an institution and drug to unconsciousness. That is not

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Speaker 1: a lie or an unreasonable fear. A lot of these

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Speaker 1: people are an impossible situations. Matt Israel promised he could

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Speaker 1: help their kids, and in many cases he at least

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Speaker 1: seems to have delivered. And one of the things that

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Speaker 1: he does that makes this such a that makes them

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Speaker 1: so good at getting these people to believe in him,

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Speaker 1: is these are beautiful facilities. These are not dank and

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Speaker 1: frightening looking places. They're not run down. They're colorful, they're

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Speaker 1: filled with toys and statues of creatures, and like they're

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Speaker 1: he makes them look extremely friendly and comfortable. So if

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Speaker 1: you're a parent taking your kid in, this place looks

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Speaker 1: like a wonderful place for your kid to live and

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Speaker 1: and and and be treated. And he can say like, hey,

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Speaker 1: your kid's been biting or tearing open his skin, and

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Speaker 1: that stops after a couple of weeks, and maybe you

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Speaker 1: don't notice why it's stopping and what he's doing to

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Speaker 1: stop it. You know. Um, it's also a lot of

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Speaker 1: the parents who defend him aren't entirely aware of what's

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Speaker 1: going on at the school, and you can blame them

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Speaker 1: some degree for not availing themselves of the information that's

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Speaker 1: out because there are reports on this place. But that

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Speaker 1: is the situation, um so by n Matt is Reel School,

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Speaker 1: which is still called the Behavioral Research Institute at this

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Speaker 1: point where seeved eighty seven thousand dollars per student per year,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of that wound up in Israel's pocket.

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Speaker 1: His compensation topped out I think around two thousand at

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Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars a year UM so he's making

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Speaker 1: a very comfortable income, but at the same time he

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Speaker 1: is putting most of the money into this facility. These

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Speaker 1: are expensive facilities to run there in many cases multiple

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Speaker 1: full time employees per student um. That Boston Phoenix article,

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Speaker 1: which was a major source for episode one, was written

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Speaker 1: during the massive series of legal battles between the State

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Speaker 1: of Massachusetts and b r I. Thanks to Judge Rodenberg,

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Speaker 1: those struggles eventually went Israel's way, but at the time

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Speaker 1: the article was written, he did not know that. And

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Speaker 1: the piece ends on this ominous line quote, if Massachusetts

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Speaker 1: shut down b r I. Israel says he may open

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Speaker 1: group homes in Rhode Island. Israel thinks the current crackdown

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Speaker 1: may lead to greater understanding of his philosophy and allow

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Speaker 1: him a greater array of behavioral modification tools. I've never

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Speaker 1: used electric shock, he says in his calm soft voice.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't rule it out, particularly if were deprived of

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Speaker 1: other procedures. It's more effective and you wouldn't bruise or

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Speaker 1: cut the skin. Oh fuck, yeah, that's real bad's And

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Speaker 1: I kind of flipped out a little when I read

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Speaker 1: that in this nineteen article. UM. And I should note

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Speaker 1: here the only reason I have access to that article

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Speaker 1: because that's a thirty six year old article. He was

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Speaker 1: originally published in a physical newspaper. I was able to

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Speaker 1: read it because several copies have been archived by different

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Speaker 1: disability justice advocates. Autistic civil rights advocates have a very

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Speaker 1: particular interest in documenting that Israel's early career and his crimes. Also, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're doing this because they think he's basically a war

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Speaker 1: criminal U, which by the way, the U n agrees

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Speaker 1: with UM. And they're they're trying to make sure, like

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming an autistic civil rights advocate who was like,

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Speaker 1: came across an old copy of that read that into

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Speaker 1: piece where he starts talking about how he's looking into

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Speaker 1: electric shock, and was like, well, this needs to be preserved,

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Speaker 1: like at some point there's going to be a reconciliation

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Speaker 1: commissioner or whatever, and we need to document this ship.

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Speaker 1: When we left off in the late nineteen eighties, b

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Speaker 1: r I was still b r I, but Judge Rotenberg

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Speaker 1: had just saved it, or, to be more accurate, the

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Speaker 1: judge had saved its ability to use physical punishments on students.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen nine and other student, Linda Cornellison died. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a weird c O R N E l

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Speaker 1: I S O N. I've never seen that last name before,

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Speaker 1: but I think Linda Cornellison um in nineteen nineties she

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Speaker 1: died and she was a non verbal student at the facilities. Mean,

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Speaker 1: she's she's not really able to use language to communicate,

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Speaker 1: and one day she started grabbing her stomach while she

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Speaker 1: was on the bus to school. And a lot of

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Speaker 1: these kids, they'll go to a school and then they'll

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Speaker 1: go home to a residential facility that b r I

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Speaker 1: runs when she arrived at the at the at her school,

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Speaker 1: a nurse decided that she was just acting to try

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Speaker 1: to get attention or something and sent her back to class.

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Speaker 1: After school, she was sent back to a b r

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Speaker 1: I run residential home where she lived. Staff were angry

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Speaker 1: at her bad bay behavior. They believe this nurse basically like, oh,

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Speaker 1: she's she's playing around by pretending to have stomach pain,

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Speaker 1: So they gave her thirteen spatulus bankings, twenty nine finger pinches,

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Speaker 1: fourteen muscle squeezes, and forced her to inhale ammonia five times.

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Speaker 1: She died in the hospital the next day. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and again her The cause of death was gastric perforation,

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Speaker 1: which I don't think was caused by any of the

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Speaker 1: adversives that were done at the school, but the fact

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Speaker 1: that she was not taken to the hospital earlier, her

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Speaker 1: pain was not treated seriously. That's certainly their fault. And

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Speaker 1: also sup, yeah, very very bad, Like I would feel

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Speaker 1: comfortable saying they killed her, even though maybe they didn't

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Speaker 1: cause the thing that I would say the ammonia was

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Speaker 1: just like yeah, And Linda's mom and says she never

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Speaker 1: her daughter never had gastro intestinal problems before. Um, it's

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Speaker 1: maybe it might even be possible that like the stress

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Speaker 1: from all the adversives had helped cause the gas. I'm

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Speaker 1: not a doctor. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna speculate

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Speaker 1: further other than to say that by not taking this

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Speaker 1: problem seriously when she started to complain. And this is

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Speaker 1: again part of like the biggotry, I guess you would say.

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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, biggotry is a fair thing to say.

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Speaker 1: Because she's not verbal, they assume she's not capable of

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Speaker 1: expressing a serious concern about health problem. Right, she has

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Speaker 1: to be just like fooling around trying to trick you.

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Speaker 1: Um and um that's that is a kind of biggotree

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Speaker 1: and it led. It's a bigger tree that led to

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Speaker 1: this girl's death. Um so Um. The state found after

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Speaker 1: the autopsy and whatnot, that that while b r I

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Speaker 1: had not caused her death, uh, that it had quote

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Speaker 1: violated the most basic codes and standards of decency and

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Speaker 1: how it treated her. Um. And while so, while there

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Speaker 1: were no charges on Matt Israel or the facility as

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Speaker 1: a result of Linda's death, it did have an impact

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Speaker 1: on him. He decided that there were too many different

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Speaker 1: kinds of physical punishment at his school, and the nature

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Speaker 1: and impact of those punishments varied too much from teacher

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Speaker 1: to teacher. In other words, he was concerned that one

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Speaker 1: employee's pinch could be a mild pinch and another could

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Speaker 1: cause a bleeding wound. He wanted more uniform physical aversives,

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Speaker 1: and he decided that electric shocks were the best way

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Speaker 1: to do this. The machine he picked was called the

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Speaker 1: Self Injurious Behavior Inhibiting System. It was made of an

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Speaker 1: electrode and a radio transmitter, which were attached to the

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Speaker 1: arm or leg via velcrow. The shock was described as

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Speaker 1: like being like struck by a rubber band, you know,

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Speaker 1: somebody pulls back a rubber band, Like not serious, not

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Speaker 1: a real, like a very mild shock, and it lasted

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Speaker 1: about a fifth of a second. One nine to ninety

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Speaker 1: paper on the s I B. S Civice system said

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Speaker 1: the shock caused quote almost complete elimination of self harming behavior.

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Speaker 1: We can debate whether or not this kind of treatment

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Speaker 1: is ever ethical, but it is important to note and

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Speaker 1: whether it's ethical is again a separate question from whether

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Speaker 1: or not it works. We'll talk about that a bit later.

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Speaker 1: To abate that. Um. It is important to note here

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Speaker 1: that this machine was not designed as a punishment. They

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Speaker 1: were not trying to shock kids to punish them. They

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Speaker 1: were trying to interrupt them when they were harming themselves. Right,

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Speaker 1: The people who made this machine felt that such extreme

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Speaker 1: measures were justified if the mild shock would stop a

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Speaker 1: kid from biting through their hand or bashing their head

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Speaker 1: against the wall. And again, I am not saying this

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Speaker 1: is the right move, and and in fact that the

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Speaker 1: evidence suggests that this doesn't really work all that well,

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Speaker 1: I get why. I don't think these scientists who say,

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Speaker 1: well let's try this, we're being monsters, even though we

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Speaker 1: can say this was a bad road to go down

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Speaker 1: and did not help your They are not trying to

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Speaker 1: punish kids. They're trying to stop kids from hurting themselves.

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Speaker 1: And again, it doesn't work, but it's not. The start

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Speaker 1: road for this technology is not monstrous. Yeah, it's not

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Speaker 1: fully malicious. It's just you could say unethical, you can

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Speaker 1: say unwise, ineffective. They're not They're not doing what Matt

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Speaker 1: Israel comes to do. They're not trying to hurt these kids. Um.

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Speaker 1: They are trying to interrupt dangerous behavior. UM. I just

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Speaker 1: think that's important to note because you you again, it's

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Speaker 1: this thing that you see in science, where like someone

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Speaker 1: will have an idea that isn't inherently horrible, but because

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Speaker 1: of how another person takes it and evolves it, it

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Speaker 1: becomes something profoundly abusive. UM. I just think it's important

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Speaker 1: to note this doesn't start as an abusive behavior. It

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Speaker 1: starts as as a desperate attempt to stop people from

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Speaker 1: hurting themselves. Israel School was an early adopter of sibbis.

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Speaker 1: Matt liked the consistency of the shock. He liked that

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Speaker 1: applying it required less manpower than holding down a child

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Speaker 1: to assault their feet. Uh the b R. I tested

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Speaker 1: it on twenty nine students over fourteen months. When early

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Speaker 1: guinea pig was Brandon Sanchez, an autistic boy who was

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Speaker 1: also the nephew of a state representative. From Wired quote,

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Speaker 1: Brandon banged his head until he cracked it open. He

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Speaker 1: wants chewed off part of his tongue. He was a

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Speaker 1: ruminator too. He would vomit, chew the vomit, swallow it,

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Speaker 1: and vomit again. The acidity was burning his esophagus. The

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Speaker 1: vomiting was causing him to lose weight. Israel thoughts Sibis

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Speaker 1: might be the only way to save this twelve year

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Speaker 1: old's life. Brandon was down to fifty two pounds. Israel

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Speaker 1: and his staff started with the treatments. Fifty shocks became

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Speaker 1: a hundred, a hundred became five hundred, five hundred became

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Speaker 1: a thousand, and they still shocked more. Brandon wasn't responding,

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Speaker 1: so two thousand shocks and then three thousand, four thousand.

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Speaker 1: After roughly five thousand shocks in a day, is Reel

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Speaker 1: told his staff to stop. The shocks weren't strong enough,

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Speaker 1: is Reel thought. He asked Sibis's developers to increase the voltage.

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Speaker 1: They refused, and that's when Israel made his own machine.

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Speaker 1: M So you see what's happened here. That's first off, horrific.

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Speaker 1: If you're doing that five thousand times and it doesn't work,

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Speaker 1: the problem isn't it's not strong enough. The problem is

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Speaker 1: it doesn't work. Yeah, I was gonna say, after like

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Speaker 1: shocking a kid five thousand times, to be like, hey,

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Speaker 1: maybe we're not doing it right. And and the people

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Speaker 1: who developed this again didn't intend it to be used

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Speaker 1: this way, because he is using it the way he

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Speaker 1: uses all aversives as a consistent punishment for a thing

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Speaker 1: that they do. So they do a behavior they're not

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Speaker 1: supposed to do, you punish them with a shock. That's

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Speaker 1: not what this is intended for. This was intended to

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Speaker 1: disrupt someone physically from from an action. Um. It was.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of like a tourniquet. It was an

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Speaker 1: emergency procedure, you know. Um. And he is not using

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Speaker 1: it that way, and the way he's using it doesn't work.

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Speaker 1: But instead of realizing maybe you're going down the wrong road,

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Speaker 1: he decides that they just need to be electrocuted more. Um.

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Speaker 1: The machine that they built was called well he and

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Speaker 1: he works with an engineer on this, right, he doesn't

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Speaker 1: do it all on himself. But the machine that Israel

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Speaker 1: has built that he calls the graduated Electronic descelerator like decelerate,

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Speaker 1: you know, like the opposite of acceleration. Um. He. This machine,

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Speaker 1: the g E D, would become Matt Israel's main claim

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Speaker 1: to infamy. It was three times stronger than Civice, and

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Speaker 1: its shock lasted a full two seconds instead of one

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Speaker 1: fifth of a second. Now this is a significant escalation,

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Speaker 1: and it's a dangerous one. But around a year of

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Speaker 1: testing the g E D, Israel became convinced that it

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Speaker 1: still was not strong enough. Students had gotten used to

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Speaker 1: the shocks, so he developed a new, even more power

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Speaker 1: a ful device, one that could deliver extremely painful shocks.

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Speaker 1: Israel was not the first psychologist working with this community

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Speaker 1: to use electric shocks. I have our Lavas, a doctor

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Speaker 1: with U C l A, had experimented with cattle prods

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Speaker 1: on children in the early nineteen seventies. He was a

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Speaker 1: major advocate for electric shocks as a behavioral modification aid

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Speaker 1: early on. But in nineteen eighties seven uh this doctor

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Speaker 1: Lavas published a study that showed that after forty weeks

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Speaker 1: of one on one therapy, autistic preschoolers could attain what

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Speaker 1: he called normal functioning without any kind of aversives. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen three, Lavas admitted that he had been wrong, and

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Speaker 1: he strongly rejected his early work, saying that shock therapy

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Speaker 1: was at best a short term solution that did not

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Speaker 1: fix problems and was not worth the pain it caused.

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Speaker 1: So Lavas pretty fucked up to cattle prod kids. But

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Speaker 1: he eventually he does his recently, yeah yeah, yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: I was wrong. This is fucked up, don't do it

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Speaker 1: now when Matt is really and I should also note

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Speaker 1: that I don't want to make it seem too easy

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Speaker 1: what he's saying here, like these forty weeks of one

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Speaker 1: on one therapy, that's a lot of work. We'll talk

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Speaker 1: about this more. Yeah, it's a commitment. It is a commitment,

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Speaker 1: and it's what these kids deserve, obviously, but it's also

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Speaker 1: often what there's resources or what schools are willing to

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Speaker 1: devote resources with the state is willing to devote resources

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Speaker 1: to do um. And there's furthermore, the thought that because

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Speaker 1: the that the adults doing this work are not well

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Speaker 1: paid generally, there are some, there are some specialists who

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Speaker 1: are very well compensated. There are some there's some specific

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Speaker 1: facilities that train and higher professionals and pay them. Well,

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Speaker 1: that is not the norm. I got about eight dollars

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Speaker 1: an hour, and again, no training. You are not going

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Speaker 1: to get someone to perform the kind of one on

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Speaker 1: one therapy that Lavoss is showing can work on these

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Speaker 1: kids and can can stop these kind of behaviors. You

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Speaker 1: are not going to get that with someone making eight

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Speaker 1: dollars an hour, working eight hours a day. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's just not possible, and especially we brought this up

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Speaker 1: in part one where they had to do a quick

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Speaker 1: turnaround in like the two weeks with a lot of

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Speaker 1: these exactly and with that eight dollars an hour. And yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: it's just you don't have any means to do so

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Speaker 1: you do not. And it's so much of the problem

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Speaker 1: here and again Matt Israel is the primary bastard. But

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Speaker 1: the fact that on the whole, all the state usually

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Speaker 1: wants to do with these it's a mix. There will

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Speaker 1: do devote more resources to the kids who will be

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Speaker 1: able to work a full time job and like make

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Speaker 1: a living. Right. Um, a lot of these kids, for

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Speaker 1: whatever reason aren't aren't aren't going to be able to

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Speaker 1: do that, They're not going to be able to live

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Speaker 1: what what I guess what you would say the state

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Speaker 1: considers to be a normal life, which is an economically

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Speaker 1: productive life. And so the goal becomes, how do we

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Speaker 1: wear house these kids for the least amount of money

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Speaker 1: as opposed to is there anything we can do to

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Speaker 1: to give them a your life, to help them like

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Speaker 1: be healthier? Um? And it's um, it's something we've seen

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Speaker 1: time and time again. It's not just here, it's like,

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Speaker 1: how how can we take these people who aren't going

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Speaker 1: to be productive quote unquote in sense and in economic

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Speaker 1: couple of sense and help them alford the leases amount

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Speaker 1: of money. It's yeah, honestly depressing and infuriate it is,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's again part of the villain here is

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Speaker 1: the reduction of human beings to their their pure economic potential.

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Speaker 1: So when Matt Israel started applying aversives to children with

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Speaker 1: behavioral issues in the early nineteen seventies, data on how

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Speaker 1: adversives worked was severely mixed. By the early nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: though clinicians and researchers had published significant studies showing positive

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Speaker 1: reinforcement could work in the most difficult cases. What it

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Speaker 1: required was constant quote functional analyzes, which is monitoring patients

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Speaker 1: all day and night to discover what is causing the

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Speaker 1: behavior and then to read a wreck those feelings. It's

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Speaker 1: basically saying that like, well, you need a level if

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Speaker 1: you're going to reinforce, if you're going to change these behaviors.

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Speaker 1: In positive reinforcement, it's it's a full, like twenty four

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Speaker 1: hours a day job monitoring these kids, seeing what's causing

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Speaker 1: the behaviors and redirecting them. That's obviously very expensive and difficult. Um,

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Speaker 1: the best solution is the most effortful and the most

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Speaker 1: expensive one. Meanwhile, electrocuting kids works in the short term

402
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Speaker 1: to stop behavior. Um that's undesirable. Um. And yeah, that's uh,

403
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Speaker 1: that's kind of why this happens. Um. In nine, a

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Speaker 1: guy named Philip Campbell became commissioner of the Massachusetts Department

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Speaker 1: of Mental Retardation, which is again that's the name of

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Speaker 1: this government agents. Yeah again the dark ages. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: this the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation regarded b r

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Speaker 1: R is horrible, like rightfully, so they were also the

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Speaker 1: organization that was supposed to regulate it. So Philip Campbell

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Speaker 1: comes into to running this department and hates this school

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Speaker 1: that his his department is regulating with good reason, and

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Speaker 1: he goes after b r I. But unfortunately he decides

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Speaker 1: to break the law to do so, and he was

414
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Speaker 1: eventually found to have leaked false reports about the school

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Speaker 1: to the press. And there's plenty of bad reports about

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Speaker 1: the school, but he he does not go through this

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Speaker 1: in a legal or ethical way, and it causes a

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Speaker 1: worse problem because b r I is able to go

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Speaker 1: to the court and argue they had been wronged by

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Speaker 1: Philip Campbell, and the court read um and Campbell's irresponsible

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Speaker 1: behavior led in nine seven to a Massachusetts Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: ruling that found he and his department were in contempt

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Speaker 1: of court. The state was ordered to pay more than

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Speaker 1: a million dollars in court costs, and the department was

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Speaker 1: effectively dissolved. So now the Judge Rotenberg Center, and they

426
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Speaker 1: start calling at the Judge Rodenberg Center in honor of

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Speaker 1: the judge who was most responsible for getting them through

428
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 1: this period of legal fighting. Um. The Judge Rotenberg Center

429
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 1: no longer is monitored by a state watchdog. Instead, they're

430
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 1: only being monitored by an independent attorney hired by the

431
00:22:56,160 --> 00:23:01,240
Speaker 1: Probate Court, which means they're effectively unregulated for a while. Fun. Yeah,

432
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 1: and this is the period in which the use of

433
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:07,640
Speaker 1: he starts to experiment with electric shocks in But after

434
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:12,399
Speaker 1: nineteen seven it really explodes. Now that they're free to

435
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 1: do whatever the funk Matt Israel wants, the school expands massively,

436
00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:19,359
Speaker 1: its enrollment more than doubles from a hundred and ten kids.

437
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:22,440
Speaker 1: And this is just the Providence Facility to two D

438
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 1: and twenty eight. In the space of about four years,

439
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 1: the school's budget balloons from eighteen million to fifty six

440
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:31,639
Speaker 1: million dollars. The patient base grows to include kids whose

441
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:35,240
Speaker 1: problems were not just like the result of a diagnosis,

442
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:37,440
Speaker 1: but also largely behavior base, so kids who have gotten

443
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:39,679
Speaker 1: in legal trouble, kids who had in some cases come

444
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: from jail. Some of them are like kids with a

445
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:43,879
Speaker 1: d h D who likes steal a car or something

446
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 1: um In the early odds. The school's educational policy also changes,

447
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: and they switch from teaching kids and the goal being,

448
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:53,880
Speaker 1: at least distensibly this is still a school. We're trying

449
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: to alter their behavior, but we're also trying to educate

450
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: them to they stopped trying to educate them, really, they

451
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: move on to simply managing the behavior. One psychologist who

452
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: worked at the Judge Rodenberg Center later told Wired quote

453
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: Israel couldn't stand them not behaving in a perfectly controlled way,

454
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: and so now that he's in total controlling without oversight,

455
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,439
Speaker 1: Matt Israel turns the Judge Rodenberg Center into a perfect prison,

456
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: one in which every single kind of behavior can be tracked, judged,

457
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 1: and punished. At the push of a button. But you

458
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 1: know what's also a perfect prison? Oh dear God, perfect prison.

459
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:43,920
Speaker 1: So lock yourself in with these products and services. All right,

460
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: we are we're back, and we're we're talking about horrible things.

461
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: So I just told you that he is able to

462
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,919
Speaker 1: after turn the Judge Rodenberg Center into a perfect prison.

463
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: And I'm going to read a quote from rot Wired

464
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,200
Speaker 1: that I think makes the point of what a wocking

465
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 1: nightmare this place. Here we go, Mm hmm, yeah, strap m.

466
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:08,919
Speaker 1: J RC has always believed in punishing not only the

467
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:11,919
Speaker 1: negative behavior, but also the actions that presage. At a

468
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 1: face slapper could be shocked for simply raising his hand.

469
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: This is called treating the antecedent. A lot of things

470
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,399
Speaker 1: can be antecedents at j r C. Yelling, refusing a

471
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: teacher's order, talking out of turn. Another psychologist who left

472
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 1: in two thousand two says those are precursors to violence

473
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: so much as ordinary classroom disturbances. J r C has

474
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: video monitors in every room of the school, in every residence,

475
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 1: has had them since nineteen. Certain staffers, called quality control

476
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 1: sit in a control room day at night a wall

477
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: of television monitors and computer screens Before them watching everyone,

478
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 1: and because the rooms are miked, hearing everything. The control

479
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: room is ostensibly to ensure that students are shocked for

480
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: the inappropriate behaviors that an employee might miss. When that happens,

481
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: quality control phones the staffer in the room, who then

482
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: applies the shock. But the people who sit in the

483
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: control rooms serve another purpose. They're watching their own. If say,

484
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 1: a teacher in the classroom refuses to shock a kid,

485
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 1: he or she is written up. The write ups carry

486
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: the Orwellian title performance improvement opportunities. Anyone can tattle on

487
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 1: anyone else, regardless of the station. The school has staffers

488
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: whose job is to read and track those forms. Get

489
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 1: enough of them and you're gone. So yeah, that's wow, Buck,

490
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: that's horrifying. Yeah. It also it's making the point here

491
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: with the treating the aniset and stuff. So again they

492
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: have to go to a judge to get approved to

493
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: use aversives and to shock kids like or to go

494
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: to probate court. So they have to get legal approval

495
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: to do this, and the way they do that is

496
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: by saying the only option they're violent, they're hurting themselves

497
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:49,679
Speaker 1: or hurting other people, and the only way to stop.

498
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: That is by applying the shocks, right, That's how they

499
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: justify this. But and so the probate court is saying, okay,

500
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: in order to stop this kid from hurting or even

501
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 1: killing themselves, you are allowed to shock them. Okay. But

502
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,160
Speaker 1: the judge Rodenberg Center, because of how they view antecedents,

503
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: can define raising their hand, not sitting down when told to,

504
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: refusing to take off a jacket, refusing to put on shoes,

505
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: all of that, they can call antecedents to a violent behavior.

506
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: And so they can electrocute kids for anything, for flapping

507
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: their hands by saying that will lead to violence if

508
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: we don't electrocute them early, Yeah, they can just do

509
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: fast loose exactly. So they are always saying, and when

510
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: they defend themselves, we only do these shocks in order

511
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: to prevent kids from hurting themselves. But they define hurting

512
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: themselves as basically fucking anything whatever they want to be. Yeah. So,

513
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: staffers at the time, and this is again the early

514
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:49,440
Speaker 1: or late nineteen nineties, noted the complete lack of fox

515
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: given to the education of kids in the center and

516
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: the absolute obsession with surveillance and punishment at all times.

517
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: Some teachers would eat in their cars just to avoid

518
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:02,159
Speaker 1: being listened to via hidden microphones. Meanwhile, the electrocution panopticon

519
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: built by Matt Israel had a profound impact on children.

520
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:07,959
Speaker 1: One teacher told an interviewer that he'd been warned by

521
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: a staffer to announce to the class whenever he reached

522
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: into his pocket. One time, he didn't, and the kids

523
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: he was with started screaming. They thought he was reaching

524
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,159
Speaker 1: for a shock buzzer. But because they'd screamed, which was

525
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: an antecedent to violent behavior, they now had to be punished. Quote.

526
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: All of these behaviors had to be consequated with a

527
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 1: geed electric shock. There were no exceptions. A scream was

528
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: a scream, a grab was a grab, and we had

529
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: to follow court approved orders. So these kids are so

530
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: fucking ptsdd out by being electrocuted. I reached into his

531
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: pocket and they freak out, and then they have to

532
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: be electrocuted for freaking out. Yeah, So see what a

533
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: fucking nightmare that sits. Yeah, it's a fucking nightamabic like

534
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: the Holy Ship. Yeah, it's really bad. Now. In interviews,

535
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: Matt Israel and other representatives of the school will claim

536
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 1: that students are only eligible to be shocked if they've

537
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 1: engaged in seriously dangerous behavior. This is untrue, at least

538
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:03,479
Speaker 1: according to a two thousand six report by the New

539
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: York State Education Department. It claimed that the j RC

540
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: was shocking kids quote without a clear history of self

541
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: injurious behaviors, it is hard to exaggerate how profoundly abuse

542
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: of this treatment could be. To make that point, I

543
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 1: am going to quote from an NBC News article about

544
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: a kid named Rico Torres. Quote. Rico was just eight

545
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: the first time school staffers strapped electrodes to his legs

546
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: and shocked him. They draped twelve vote battery over his

547
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: shoulders in a backpack while a nearby teacher held a

548
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: clear plastic box with a photo of his face attached.

549
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: When Torres misbehaved, the teacher would reach inside the box

550
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: and push a button that sent a two second jolt

551
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: of electricity coursing through his body. Under his quarterproofd treatment plan,

552
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: Torres could be shocked for threatening to hit another student,

553
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: or for running away, swearing or screaming, refusing to follow directions,

554
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: or inappropriate urination. According to court records obtained by NBC News,

555
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: one employee, he said, used to shock him in his

556
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: sleep because I didn't wake up. She shocked me, recalled

557
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 1: to risk now four. Then I ended up peeing the bed,

558
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: so she shocked me again. The electrodes stayed on his

559
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: skin twenty four hours a day for most of a

560
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 1: decade until he was eighteen. She oh, yeah, yeah, like

561
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 1: the fact that they would do it while he was sleeping,

562
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 1: and it's like and with the urination thing, it's most

563
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: like being class because of the shocks. Yeah. Yeah, if

564
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: you electrocute a child while they're sleeping, they might be

565
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: the bed. Yeah, but it's not a behavioral issue. That's

566
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: what you were electrocuting a child issue. Yeah, Like oh

567
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah, it's um it's rough, it's real rough.

568
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: Yeah no, um yeah. My one thing is like I

569
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: would just hate if they did this was like the

570
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: more noncommunicative kids, you know, the ones it's like that. Ah,

571
00:30:56,560 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: it's just rough all around. Yeah, Um, it is rough

572
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: all around. And it's like I think, uh, I think

573
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: a lot of these kids are non verbal. I don't know,

574
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's it's a mix. It's hard to

575
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: get like exact data on that, but yeah, I mean

576
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: that that is an additional level. If the kid can't

577
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: even tell you, well, it's the same thing with that

578
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: that girl who died. Yeah, yeah, they can't tell you,

579
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, you're misbehaving. Yeah, they're just trapped

580
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:30,959
Speaker 1: in this world of adults electrocuting them, never understanding really why. Um,

581
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: it's pretty bleak. So obviously also pretty bleak for the staff.

582
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: A lot of whom get this job. They see it's

583
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: this nice facility, they see it's I'm helping kids. They

584
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: go and they realize like, oh no, I'm torturing children.

585
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: You know, there's huge turnover and they don't you know,

586
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: you have to understand too. A lot of these people

587
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: who come to realize what they're doing is wrong. Initially

588
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: maybe like, well, this guy is a doctor, this school

589
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: has a great reputation. It's like it's got a approval

590
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: from the state and whatnot. Maybe I'm just being squeamish

591
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: and I don't understand why this is necessary. For a

592
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: lot of them do come to realize like, oh no,

593
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: this is horribly fucked up, and the school has caught

594
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: Like most workers don't last a fucking year, I don't think. Um,

595
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 1: which of course, makes it hard to get decent staff

596
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: because the kind of people who are going to do

597
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: that job are maybe sometimes going to be monsters themselves.

598
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: We're like, well, it doesn't pay well, but I get

599
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: to hurt people, you know, prison guard ship. Oh yeah, yeah.

600
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: The consequences of this situation where you have constant turnover,

601
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: the good people leave, the folks who are able to

602
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: stay for a while, or maybe terrible. The consequences of

603
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: this are made abundantly clear on August six, two thousand seven,

604
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: when a prank caller calls the staff in the middle

605
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 1: of the night imposes as a supervisor. Remember there's always

606
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: people watching, and they'll call rooms and be like, hey,

607
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: such and such kid did this behavior and you didn't

608
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: catch it. You need to shock him now, you know.

609
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 1: So this person calls a supervisor who's awake on the

610
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: night shift, and he orders punishments for two teenagers who

611
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: are asleep at the time. The kids are sixteen and nineteen,

612
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: and the person on the phone claims they had misbehaved

613
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: earlier in the evening. Now, staff weren't supposed to administer

614
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 1: shocks long after bad behavior, and this had been hours ago.

615
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: But also the thing that Israel had establishes that if

616
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: you are a staff member and you're told to shock

617
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: a kid and you don't do it, you'll get fired,

618
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: right if you don't instantly obey orders, because again he's

619
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: kind of operat conditioning his employees too. If you delay

620
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: it all. Once told to electrocute these kids, you'll lose

621
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: your job. Um, So they they they wake these kids

622
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: up to shock them. Other students who are awake at

623
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 1: the time beg the staffers not to do this, and

624
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: one of them is even like, hey, this this might

625
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: be a hoax, this phone call might not even be

626
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 1: like an actual supervisor. But the staff wakes both boys

627
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: up and electrocutes them repeatedly, because again the person on

628
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: the phone says, keep shocking them, keep shocking them, keep shocking.

629
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: They shocked them so many times that they have to

630
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: bind their legs and arms so they can continue to

631
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: electrocute them. One team was shocked seventy seven times, the

632
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: other twenty nine times. The former had to be treated

633
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 1: for two first degree burns. The call it's horrible, horrible. Now.

634
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 1: The caller is believed to have been a former resident

635
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:12,359
Speaker 1: of the center because he knew the staff. He knew

636
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: the number, he knew the other residents. Um, so it

637
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: may have been someone who was there and had an

638
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:17,879
Speaker 1: issue with these two kids and like wanted to funk

639
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: with him. I don't know. As far as I can tell,

640
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: the person who did this has not been caught, NBC

641
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: wrote quote. At the time of the call, five of

642
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 1: the six staffers had worked double or triple shifts, and

643
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: most have been on the job less than three months.

644
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 1: The staffers were described as concerned and reluctant about the orders,

645
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 1: but they failed to verify them with the central office

646
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: or check treatment plans to make sure the teens could

647
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 1: receive that level of shock therapy. The report said. Staffers

648
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: also did not know who was the shift supervisor that night.

649
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: One reason staffers might not have been suspicious of the

650
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,360
Speaker 1: phone call is that the Rottenberg Center uses surveillance cameras

651
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: in its group homes to monitor residents and staff, and

652
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:56,280
Speaker 1: a central office employee is allowed to initiate discipline by phone.

653
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: So again, these guys haven't been there long, they don't

654
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: know who's supposed to be giving the orders, so they

655
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: don't recognize that anything is really fucked up. You know,

656
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,280
Speaker 1: they should have obviously. Yeah, they sure they stumble checked

657
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 1: like a once or at some time between the first

658
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 1: and seventy seventh time they shocked the child they had

659
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 1: tied to a fucking chair. Um, But it's also the

660
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 1: fault of the system he's developed. Not to take blame

661
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:24,359
Speaker 1: off of these people for doing something horrible, but like so,

662
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 1: Matt Israel built a system where this was inevitable. The

663
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:31,879
Speaker 1: staff responsible were fired immediately, but the incident was so

664
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: horrific that it sparked another set of investigations into the

665
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 1: Judge Rotenberg Center. A court demanded video footage of the

666
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: two students being shocked for three solid hours. Matt Israel

667
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:44,839
Speaker 1: ordered the footage destroyed, which was a crime and led

668
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: to him being indicted by a grand jury in two

669
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 1: thousand eleven. In order to avoid criminal charges, Israel agreed

670
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: to leave the school he'd founded. So two thousand eleven

671
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:58,839
Speaker 1: he quits because he illegally destroys evidence, and the court

672
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 1: is like, hey, we won't charge you criminally if you

673
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 1: if you get out of here, which I don't know,

674
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: I think maybe locked the funk up. Yeah he should

675
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 1: be in jail, but he shouldn't be around kids. I'll

676
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: say that. So the very next year, two thousand twelve,

677
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 1: is when the general public finally got their first good

678
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: look at what the Judge Rodenberg Center had been doing

679
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 1: to children all those years. This was thanks to the

680
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: case and the mother of Andre mccollins. Andre's mother had

681
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: enrolled him in the Judge Rodenberg Center, not because he

682
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: was super violent, but because he was special needs and

683
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: he had been raped in a public school by another student.

684
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: And she a big selling point of the jearse. First

685
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 1: of all, it looks very nice. It looks like a facility.

686
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:45,280
Speaker 1: She also likes that it's heavily surveilled. It's covered in cameras,

687
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 1: so she feels like nothing bad can happen to her

688
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 1: kid here because someone's always watching. And that's like you

689
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 1: have to understand, like that's all. It's reasonable. That like

690
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:55,320
Speaker 1: the fact that this place is so surveilled, freeting to

691
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 1: her because what happened to her kid, you know, she's

692
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: rasonsted again, Yeah, totally reasonable. In short order, Andre was

693
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: taken off his medication because again the Judge Rodenberg Center

694
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: and Matt Israel don't believe in medicating kids. He was

695
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: put back on and after he started acting out and

696
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 1: engaging in self injurious behavior and like the school couldn't

697
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 1: correct it, and they didn't have approval to give him

698
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: electric shocks. So after they have to put him back

699
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: on his medicine, they go to court to get him

700
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: approved to receive electric shocks. The court approves it, and

701
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: the treatment plan listed that shocks could be applied if

702
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:27,479
Speaker 1: he was aggressive, if he screamed, or if he tried

703
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 1: to remove his electric remove like the electrocution thing, or

704
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 1: if he engaged in what they called health dangerous behavior

705
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:37,919
Speaker 1: and they defined health dangerous behavior specifically in his case

706
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: is tensing up his body, So if he gets tense,

707
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: they can electric famously relaxing electrocution. Yeah. Man, they were

708
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 1: horrifically creative of these excutions shock kids. They were. And

709
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: it's one of the fun up things is that like

710
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: they're talking about how bad he's on risper it All,

711
00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: and they're talking about how bad risper it All is,

712
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 1: so they want to they they take him off it,

713
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,879
Speaker 1: but then he gets worse when he's off it because

714
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 1: medication is helping. But and that's why they justify putting

715
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: this kid on the electrocution treatment so that they can

716
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: take him off Risper Doll again and then electrocute his

717
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: behaviors away, which is yeah, the they're basically doing the

718
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 1: thing like, hey, have them steal something, now we can

719
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 1: shock them. Yeah, and it's one of those things. Obviously,

720
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: over medication is a problem. I known a bunch of

721
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: kids who were like in a bunch of adults who

722
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: are like No. Once I found the right medication, it

723
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: was life changing. And like the kind of blanket rejection

724
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: of any sort of medication in favor of electrocution is

725
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Oh yeah, you know. It comes out of

726
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 1: a period when massive, like like unreasonable and unlike immoral

727
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: levels of medication and drugging were common. And I get that,

728
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 1: but it it persists past the area where there are

729
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 1: medications that really help and and it rejects those in

730
00:38:55,320 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: favor of torture, which is is bad. So now that

731
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 1: he's being electrocuted regularly, Andre has taken off of his

732
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: meds again, and his mother visits him, you know, several

733
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: times and sees that like he's he's he's changed. His

734
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: behavior has changed in a negative way as a result

735
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: of being off his meds and probably as a result

736
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: of being tortured, and she begs the school to put

737
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: him back on his meds um. The school doesn't do this. Uh,

738
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: And the electrocutions continue, and he has like a bad

739
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,360
Speaker 1: incident one day where he the school alleges that he

740
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: at least attempted to hit a teacher, so they shocked him.

741
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 1: And then afterwards, hours after that violent incident, they shocked

742
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 1: him again. And I'm going to read a quote from

743
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 1: New York magazine that that describes what happens later in

744
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 1: that day. Like other students in the room, Andre sat

745
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:44,760
Speaker 1: at a desk facing a computer, his back to the teacher.

746
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: A worker told him, take off your jacket. Andre didn't move.

747
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: Take off your jacket please again, no response. An employee

748
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: pressed the button to activate his shock device. He screamed.

749
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: Andre fell to the ground and tried to crawl under

750
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: his desk. Four adults rabbed him and wrestled him to

751
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 1: the floor, holding him down while he struggled. His psychologist

752
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:06,839
Speaker 1: brought in a restraint board, and the employees moved him

753
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: onto it, face down. Eight of them surrounded him as

754
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:12,720
Speaker 1: they bound his wrists and ankles to the board. Usually,

755
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,479
Speaker 1: after Andrea got a shock and was restrained, he'd calmed down,

756
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: but on this day he only got more agitated. The

757
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 1: more upset he became, the more he tensed up his body,

758
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:23,720
Speaker 1: and the more he tensed up, the more shocks he received.

759
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,240
Speaker 1: Between ten am and about eleven am, the workers shocked

760
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 1: him fourteen times. Each press of the button triggered aloud,

761
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: high pitched alarm, informing employees the shock had been delivered,

762
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: while Andrea's cries echoed down the corridor. Yeah, I I

763
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: don't know what else to say at this point, like god,

764
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: damn it. Yeah, it's pretty bad. And after a lengthy

765
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:54,280
Speaker 1: court battle, um his mother succeeds in making this video

766
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: public and this leads to widespread outrage against the Judge

767
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 1: Rodenberg Center and more investigations. In two thousand thirteen, a

768
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: United Nations special report tour on Torture found that students

769
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: who were electrocuted at the Rodenberg School had their rights

770
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 1: violated under the UN Convention on Torture. So the United

771
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: Nations says, these kids are being tortured, like this is yeah,

772
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: that unites our definition. You achieved the special level. Fucked. Yeah,

773
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: if the UN is coming after your school, like yeah,

774
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 1: you might want to reevaluate you. You may be real

775
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 1: fucked up. Um. You know what isn't hasn't been declared

776
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 1: torture by the United Nations hopefully. The products and services

777
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: that sponsored this podcast, well most of them, most of

778
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: them okay again north of eight percent north yeah, yeah, yeah.

779
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: The the the hard like the strong odds are whatever

780
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: advertisers are on our show have not been declared to

781
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:03,399
Speaker 1: be torturation people. Almost none of them. That's a good thing. Yeah,

782
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: we're back. So as this so you know this this

783
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: the u N starts looking into ship and as a

784
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: result of this video coming out, the Justice Department launches

785
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: an investigation that I think is still ongoing, like a

786
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: decade later. I haven't found a result from it, and

787
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: I've read some recent reporting on it, so it seems

788
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: like either it got kind of buried or they're getting

789
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: real deep into it. But it's been a long time, um,

790
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: without kind of a result. Another thing that's ongoing is

791
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:39,280
Speaker 1: Matt Israel's obsession with experimenting on children. If they recall,

792
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,400
Speaker 1: decades ago, he was forced to separate his relationship with

793
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,280
Speaker 1: the school he'd founded in California. It had been taken

794
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: over by Judith Weber, who had been the executive director

795
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:50,320
Speaker 1: of the West Coast b r I when it was founded.

796
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: Judith and Matt eventually married, and in two thousand and fifteen,

797
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: it was found that Matt Israel, while not on staff

798
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 1: at the West Coast b r I, which had been

799
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: renamed Tobin World too and Tobin World three, was working

800
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 1: as a behavior analyst and an administrator at both facilities.

801
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: The schools had not notified the state that Matt Israel

802
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: had been added to the roster of employees because Matt

803
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 1: Israel was legally prohibited from entering the facilities. From a

804
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: write up at ed source dot org quote in unannounced

805
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: visits to Tobin World two and three on January sixteenth

806
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,760
Speaker 1: and seventeenth, investigators also found that the schools were employing

807
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 1: behavioral analysts with expired certifications and teachers without their acquired

808
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 1: credentials to teach students with certain disabilities. The school also

809
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:33,359
Speaker 1: failed to comply with state regulations that require behavior plan

810
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 1: reviews after staff members have physically restrained students or isolated

811
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: them in rooms they cannot leave. The Judge Rodenberg's Educational

812
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 1: Center is the only facility in the country that still

813
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: uses electric shock therapy. In this way, roughly twenty of

814
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 1: their students received shocks, although given what we know about

815
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: how lacks these facilities can be about rules and paperwork,

816
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: it's hard to say if that's really all the kids

817
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: who receive shocks. In March of the FDA banned the

818
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: use of electronic shocked vices in the context that they're

819
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: used in the center, saying they caused quote an unreasonable

820
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 1: and substantial risk of illness or injury. But in July

821
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 1: of this year, in a two to one decision by

822
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: the Washington D C. District Court of Appeals, it was

823
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 1: ruled that the FDA's band violated federal law by interfering

824
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 1: with the authority of healthcare practitioners to practice medicine. The

825
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 1: center's attorney, Mike Flamia, told c and Then that the

826
00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 1: ruling was important because quote, it protects what all of

827
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: us cherish, and that is the right to go to

828
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 1: our doctor and have our doctor decide what is the

829
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:40,720
Speaker 1: best treatment. Um, you do you, I guess what the

830
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:44,759
Speaker 1: hell you do your kids? Yeah, it's Messy'm like, honestly,

831
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 1: that's unbelievable because it's like, yeah, I know, it could

832
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 1: be a little. But so it's like, hey, my doctor

833
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 1: can tell my kid that you need to be shot,

834
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 1: and a lot of them didn't even have the credentials anyways. Yeah,

835
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: so again that's part of it, Like, well, I my doctor.

836
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: I have a right to you know, pick my doctor

837
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 1: and for him to pick his well, but a lot

838
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:11,200
Speaker 1: of these people aren't legally qualified to prescribe any kind

839
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 1: of treatment to your kids, or to kids of autism

840
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 1: or anything. Yeah, that's the thing that's passing me off

841
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: the most about this. It's like these people are making

842
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 1: a super important decisions that they have no right to make. Yeah,

843
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 1: And part of this issue is this thing I've I've

844
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: complained about a few times on the show, which is

845
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: that like they're framing this is like, well, we want

846
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,239
Speaker 1: the freedom to go to our doctor and and and

847
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,240
Speaker 1: have our doctor to no know, you want the freedom

848
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 1: to have absolute power to say what is and isn't

849
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 1: okay for your kid. And I don't think parents should

850
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: have that. You're not the god of your child, and

851
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:47,879
Speaker 1: you're not the government of your child. And I don't

852
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: think government should have a lot of the power that

853
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 1: they have. But like there's there's this problem of how

854
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 1: parents are treated as the ultimate authority of what's good

855
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 1: or bad for their kid, which has a lot of

856
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,279
Speaker 1: horrible consequences outside of this too. But this is one

857
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: of those consequences where it's like, well, especially within the

858
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: context here where a kid is autistic and maybe not,

859
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 1: it's like, well, the parents basically get the keys to

860
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 1: the kingdom. They have to make the final call, and

861
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: they don't know what's going on most of the time. Yeah,

862
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:25,319
Speaker 1: a lot of parents suck. Yeah, Maybe don't make them

863
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 1: the absolute god of their own of their child, because

864
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,360
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. I will say the full disclosure.

865
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 1: Mind o't but I'm but but you know, I know,

866
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: I know. I've known some people who have fed disability

867
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: as parents that weren't a great Yeah, exactly, and it's

868
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 1: it's a problem. Yeah. Um. So, the j RC was

869
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 1: supported by a significant number of parents who has always

870
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 1: argued that the facility was a matter of last resort

871
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: for their kids. In making this case, Flammia, the lawyer

872
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 1: offered up the argument that absolutely no other treatment had

873
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 1: worked for these kids. Quote, I know that the people

874
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 1: that oppose this treatment, they'll tell you over and over

875
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: again that there are other treatments that work as well,

876
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 1: if not better. And they'll talk about positive behavior supports,

877
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: which j RC does all of that. They'll talk about drugs,

878
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: psychotropic medications. These clients at j r C, they've tried

879
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: all that, numerous drugs, numerous diagnoses, numerous combinations of drugs.

880
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: That is again extremely common, this line of argument, that

881
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 1: they've tried everything. This is the last resort. I think

882
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: the most dedicated example of this came from that Wired

883
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 1: article I've cited a bit in this episode. And while

884
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: that article goes into horrible detail about abuses at the

885
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 1: j RC, it also includes this bit. You don't know

886
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 1: what it's like to be the parent of a student

887
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 1: at the Judge Rodenberg Center. You don't know what it

888
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: takes to hear all this and still come out in

889
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: favor of the school. And you don't know because you

890
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:43,320
Speaker 1: don't have a kid who pulls out her hair and

891
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 1: bloody clumps, who seems to enjoy that. Okay, a kid

892
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: who scalp resembles that of a frontier settler worked over

893
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 1: by a furious native. And then to see her today, happy, smiling,

894
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:55,239
Speaker 1: a brunette just like any other brunette, and all thanks

895
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 1: to j rc her life saved by the machine saved.

896
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:01,279
Speaker 1: And that's just one kid, just one story, you see,

897
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 1: there's another side. There's a lot that's funked up about

898
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:08,240
Speaker 1: that Wired article, and they site they cite some science

899
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:10,400
Speaker 1: that makes the situation seem much more muddled as to

900
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 1: whether or not this is best. Um. A lot of

901
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: that science is at this point more than twenty years old.

902
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:19,439
Speaker 1: The most recent studies that they side are from Oh Yeah.

903
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: And it's made more difficult by the fact that the

904
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:24,920
Speaker 1: jear C isn't exactly required to hand over objective, reliable

905
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,800
Speaker 1: evidence about the efficacy of its methods. And there's strong

906
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 1: arguments that they're not fixing any problems these kids have.

907
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: They're just temporarily suppressing them with violence. And there's also

908
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: the thing of like, are they actually trying these other methods?

909
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 1: Are they just going straight to the shocks? Are they

910
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:43,360
Speaker 1: just going straight to the shocks? Um? The and yeah.

911
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: Supporters of the school will argue that like these schools

912
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,800
Speaker 1: that's that don't use aversives and that use only positive

913
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: support will turn kids down, will say this kid is

914
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: too severe for us, and eventually those kids have no

915
00:48:55,560 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 1: other option. But the judge Rodenberg Center, which turns nobody down. UM. Now,

916
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:02,960
Speaker 1: most of the studies have come across that purport to

917
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 1: show a benefit to the adversives used at the j

918
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:06,799
Speaker 1: r C are more than twenty years old, and again

919
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: are very not at all conclusive. Um. The preponderance of

920
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:12,319
Speaker 1: evidence seems to suggest that these kind of treatments are

921
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,560
Speaker 1: not necessary even in the most severe cases. But the

922
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:17,760
Speaker 1: kind of treatments that help in the most severe cases

923
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 1: are labor intensive and expensive. Um. It is worth noting,

924
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: regardless of what you want to get into the weeds

925
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 1: on the science here. No other facility in the US

926
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: uses these methods, and many other facilities do treat children

927
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 1: with problems just as severe using methods that do not

928
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,919
Speaker 1: evolve electrocuting kids. The judge Rodenberg Center and the parents

929
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: who support it argue that as unpleasant as the shock

930
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 1: treatments are, they also represent the only viable treatment for

931
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:46,839
Speaker 1: patients who would otherwise destroy themselves. Nancy Weiss is the

932
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:50,319
Speaker 1: director of the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities at

933
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:53,240
Speaker 1: the University of Delaware. She has been a longstanding critic

934
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:55,239
Speaker 1: of the j r C, and when that court ruled

935
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: they could keep electrocuting kids. CNN went to her for

936
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: comment on this matter. She said, quote, part of the

937
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:04,600
Speaker 1: reason that people with disabilities have behavioral problems, behaviors that

938
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:07,800
Speaker 1: we find challenging is that they're protesting the crappy lives

939
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:10,800
Speaker 1: we offer them. It's that person's only form of protest,

940
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,240
Speaker 1: and it's a critique of the life they're being offered.

941
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 1: It's like, there's no greater human impulse than to be

942
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:18,359
Speaker 1: in charge of your own life. And what jere C does,

943
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 1: to an extent beyond what any other provider in this

944
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: country does, is strip people of choice and control. Yeah,

945
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: I mean, when you get down to it, it's ultimately

946
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 1: there are much better ways of doing it than ye

947
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: electric shock. There are there are, And I find it

948
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 1: compelling what she says about the a lot of these

949
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: bad behaviors of these kids protesting in the first place,

950
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: that their lives even before the JEARC didn't offer them

951
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:52,760
Speaker 1: a lot of autonomy of choice. But also, um, what

952
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:56,879
Speaker 1: what Israel did at his facility is stripped choice because

953
00:50:56,880 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 1: he doesn't see people as having choice. He doesn't really

954
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 1: believe in free will, believes that we're just the product

955
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 1: of of of stimuli that's put into us. Um. He

956
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 1: treats these kids like robots. He treats his staff like robots.

957
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:10,880
Speaker 1: And the belief that you can make this perfect system

958
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 1: if you just put perfectly, consistently put the right stimuli

959
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:18,799
Speaker 1: in and it does kind of work as long as

960
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 1: the kids are getting electrocuted. For the most part, they

961
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:25,520
Speaker 1: stopped the behavior. They comply UM, but that isn't because

962
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: anything has changed about them. It's because they've been tortured

963
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: into not doing certain things. He just didn't have an

964
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 1: issue with that because again, everyone's a robot. Yeah, it's

965
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:40,920
Speaker 1: just a feature. Yeah, it's a feature. Um it's pretty yeah,

966
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:46,279
Speaker 1: pretty weak. God. So yeah, the f d A has

967
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: you know, the FDA, to its credit, eventually did try

968
00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 1: to stop this UM, but then a judge was like, no, no, no,

969
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep doing this ship. So they're still running today.

970
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah Jesus Christ. Yeah. Uh, I mean at the end, Yeah,

971
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:15,800
Speaker 1: I that's freaking bleak. Yeah. I wish I could have

972
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 1: more to say, but I'm just because the biggest problem,

973
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:27,879
Speaker 1: because as somebody who is autistic, is there are some

974
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:31,520
Speaker 1: people who, like myself, are lucky enough to be able

975
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:36,880
Speaker 1: to do work and all that and stuff, and and

976
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:40,360
Speaker 1: a lot of times we get the name Aspergers, but

977
00:52:40,560 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: buck that ship. And so it's like, I just I

978
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine something like this, and just it just makes

979
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 1: me feel so angry. Sorry, I'm rambled. No no, no, no,

980
00:52:55,000 --> 00:53:01,399
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's really important, Like the I don't know,

981
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:07,240
Speaker 1: how do we uh, how are we because we all

982
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,759
Speaker 1: have a we all have some form of mental disability,

983
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:14,840
Speaker 1: even if it isn't outwardly apparent, how are we able

984
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:18,760
Speaker 1: to be able to treat one another, support one another

985
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 1: without dehumanizing and freaking shocking them like cattle. Yeah, and

986
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: it's some part of the problem here is that a

987
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: significant chunk of of people with autism UM aren't legally

988
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:41,080
Speaker 1: in control of their own lives, which in some of

989
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 1: them are not in a legal capacity capable of of

990
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 1: of of being in control in at least in a

991
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 1: legal sense of the word. UM. They need some sort

992
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:58,400
Speaker 1: of of caretaker, but that means they're not making decisions

993
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:01,279
Speaker 1: for themselves, and and so, like the the industry that

994
00:54:01,320 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 1: has developed around providing these people with care often and

995
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: in fact largely, does so without any real input from

996
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,239
Speaker 1: the people in it. UM and because the people who

997
00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 1: are kind of most vulnerable to this tend to be

998
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 1: unable to express themselves in a way that is easy

999
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 1: for most people that understand. It happens without most people

1000
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 1: being aware of it, and so there's no outcry and

1001
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 1: nothing is done and it and it continues on for

1002
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 1: decades and decades because they think that's how it is. Yeah,

1003
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 1: that's the only option or the best option, or you know,

1004
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 1: we'll look their parents say this is fine and like

1005
00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 1: yeah it's Um, it's not great. No, it's not great. Well,

1006
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:42,959
Speaker 1: and you've got any plug doubles to plug? Uh? You

1007
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:47,040
Speaker 1: can follow me on twitch at notch the b N

1008
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 1: O T C H t H e B. I post

1009
00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: a lot their social commentary WoT stuff. Um, but that's

1010
00:54:57,160 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 1: my big thing. To plug sweet well, plug out, plug away.

1011
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: And I don't know, Uh, yell at the FDA or

1012
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 1: a judge or something about this, I don't know. I

1013
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:12,799
Speaker 1: guess THEDA is more or less on board. I don't

1014
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:14,919
Speaker 1: know who to yell at at this point. Just just yell,

1015
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:21,239
Speaker 1: yell ye to the sky. You gotta stand up for people. Yeah,

1016
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 1: all right, well, thank you, aiden. And that's that's behind

1017
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 1: the bastards. Thanks for having me