The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) is a pseudoscientific therapeutic institution in Canton, Massachusetts, United States, whose behavior modification program targeted at people with developmental disabilities and emotional and behavioral disorders has been condemned by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture. The center is known for its use of the graduated electronic decelerator (GED), a torture device that administers electric shocks to residents. The JRC's behavior modification program uses the methods of applied behavior analysis and relies heavily on aversion therapy. Aversives used at JRC include food deprivation, movement limitation via long-term restraints, sensory deprivation, and GED shocks. While JRC claims to rely mainly on positive behavior support and contends that aversives are used only as a last resort when positive intervention has failed, state reports have repeatedly found that aversives are used for minor infractions, and that no significant positive behavior support programs exist. While the Food and Drug Administration issued a formal ban on the GED in 2020, the device continued to be used on some residents pending an administrative stay for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2021, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FDA could not issue a "partial stay" but must issue a blanket ban or no ban at all, thus allowing the JRC to continue using the device. In response to this ruling, the United States Congress amended the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022. The amendments gave the FDA the authority to ban a medical device for one use regardless of approval for other uses. The FDA proposed a new ban based on its expanded authority in March 2024 and accepted public comments on the proposal through May 2024. After allowing two previous self-imposed deadlines (October 2025 and May 2026) to pass, the agency announced in July 2026 that it would make a final decision on the proposed ban by November 2026. The Judge Rotenberg Center was founded by Matthew Israel in 1971 as the Behavior Research Institute (BRI). In 2002, JRC staff tied an autistic boy face-down to a board with four-point restraints and shocked him 31 times at the highest amperage setting. The first shock was given for failing to take off his coat when asked, and the remaining 30 shocks were given for screaming and tensing up while being shocked. The boy was later hospitalized with third degree burns and acute stress disorder, but, as neither the law nor JRC policy had been broken, no action was taken against any of the staff. In a 2007 incident, in response to a prank phone call claiming that two residents were misbehaving, JRC staff restrained and shocked the two 29 and 77 times respectively. In 2011, Matthew Israel was arraigned on charges related to the 2007 incident, though the charges were dropped after Israel resigned from his position as part of a deferred prosecution deal with the Massachusetts Attorney General. There have been repeated attempts to shut down the center by autism, disability, and human rights rights advocates. Organizations that oppose the center include the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Disability Rights International and Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth. Six residents have died at the institute since it was founded in 1971.
History
Background
In 1957, a group of researchers interested in applications for B. F. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning – an approach to behavior modification based on providing rewards or other reinforcing stimuli – founded the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. In 1967, the group established the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) to focus on the application of applied behavior analysis (ABA) to the "socially important problems" of people with autism and other developmental disabilities. Researchers for JABA believed that because there was data supporting the effectiveness of the use of aversives on disabled people, use of aversives was "science-based" and that arguments based on human values were irrelevant. In 1974, a dissenting group of researchers founded the Association for the Education and Treatment of the Severely and Profoundly Handicapped (AESEPH; later renamed TASH), which distinguished itself through its opposition to the use of aversives and involuntary commitment. Matthew Israel enrolled at Harvard University in 1950, where he studied under Skinner and earned undergraduate and doctoral degrees in psychology. In 1966, Israel founded the Association for Social Design (ASD), an organization intent on building a network of communes based on the behavior modification principles described in Skinner's utopian novel Walden Two. Under Israel's management, the Boston chapter of the ASD attempted to establish two urban communes – one in 1967 in Arlington, Massachusetts and another in 1969 in Boston's South End – though both dissolved within weeks. In 1970, Israel moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where he ran behavior modification programs for children with autism and behavioral disorders at the Patrick I. O'Rourke Children's Center and the Emma Pendleton Bradley Hospital.
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