I cannot even believe these people are not in jail. This is beyound cruel and unusual punishment. It is torture. If I were a parent there I would not stop until all of them rotted in jail. It is sick and twisted. Unbelievable. Has Hitler been reincarnated in MA? You can hear them screaming in pain while they are being tortured. This is not therapy and anyone who thinks it is has perhaps studied under a serial killer or a complete psychopath with a God complex. The president needs to step in immediately and put a stop to this. These people are criminals...sick twisted criminals and that is all they are. It reminds me of a case that two parents, who consequently are in jail as we speak, were using a shock collar on their own child. This is beyound evil. It is causing irreverseable damage that would traumatize anyone for life. Anyone who thinks electricuting someone is therapy needs to be electricuted. I am appalled, disgusted, grieved and shocked; not only that anyone could be so cruel to do that to another human being and listen to them reeling in pain, but to be demonic enough to call it therapy. Any smart lawyer would jump on this band wagon because these people will be paying out their noses until their grandchildren are dead. God help the person who thinks that they could ever do that to one of my family members and not pay for such a completely evil act against another human being. They took paddling out of schools in Ohio because it was too barbaric and they think torturing someone isn't. Why even call it shocking? Let's call it what it is. Is electricty not used as a primary form of torture through out the world at times of war?? Do they not use electricity to kill people??? I have been electricuted and it was traumatic and extremely painful.  I think all of those people need to go through what they have put other people through and then lets ask them how theraputic it was??? What the heck is wrong with this country. Those people are the ones that are insane...lock them up and throw away the key.

The negative references to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center that appeared on your website on June 30, 2010 have been brought to my attention. To providing some balance to your readers, I would appreciate your bringing the following information to the attention of your readers. AVERSIVE THERAPY SAVES LIVES JRC is a residential behavior modification school in Canton, Mass., for individuals whose severe, often life-threatening behavior disorders are not effectively treated by psychotropic drugs, counseling, or rewards-only procedures. Through the use of safe, parent-requested, individually court-authorized, and scientifically validated aversive therapy â?? while avoiding or minimizing psychotropic drugs â?? the center has, to cite just a few cases, saved the life of a child who vomited so frequently that he was in danger of starving to death; restored the eyesight of two children whose head-banging was so severe that each detached both retinas and risked permanent blindness; and saved the life of a boy whose severe, compulsive self-scratching placed him at risk of dying from blood and bone infections. The centerâ??s program consists, overwhelmingly, of positive rewards and educational procedures. However, as research has shown, such procedures alone are effective in only 60 percent of cases at best. Consequently, positive procedures at JRC need to be supplemented, in the most difficult cases, with the use of shock to the surface of the skin. This feels like a hard pinch and is administered as an immediate corrective consequence for the problem behaviors. Behavioral skin shock bears no resemblance to electroconvulsive therapy treatment (psychiatric brain stimulation that causes seizures) or police stun guns (JRCâ??s skin shock uses 60 volts; a stun gun generates 350,000 volts). This form of treatment is extremely effective, and a peer reviewed study found that there are no negative side effects. The procedure is far less aversive and far less painful than the damaging self-abusive, aggressive, and dangerous behaviors that it eliminates. The procedure is so effective that it is applied infrequently (on average fewer than three times per week), and is used only until the studentâ??s problem behaviors decrease and positive behaviors take their place. Aversive therapy: â?¢ Eliminates the need for cocktails of mind-numbing psychotropic medications which, instead of treating behaviors, often put the user into a semi-comatose state in which the individual sleeps most of the day. They also expose the user to frightening short- and long-term side effects such as permanent tics, obesity, diabetes, organ damage, metabolic changes that can shorten life expectancy. â?¢ Eliminates the need for manual and mechanical restraints, which most programs use to control aggressive and self-abusive behaviors. In a published study in which we treated aggression in 60 students, once our skin-shock aversive was employed, the use of manual restraints dropped to zero and psychotropic medications dropped by 98 percent. â?¢ Eliminates the need for time-out rooms and isolation. â?¢ Is used with only 27 of the Judge Rotenberg Centerâ??s 145 school age students and only after JRC has tried, for an average period of approximately one year, to accomplish the treatment goals using only positive rewards and educational procedures. â?¢ Is pre-approved, individually, by the parent and a physician, and by a judge at a hearing in which the child is represented by his/her own court-appointed attorney. â?¢ Is a procedure that numerous parents and students have credited with saving lives. â?¢ Is used with students whose behaviors are so severe that they have been rejected and expelled by other treatment programs that pride themselves on using â??positive-onlyâ?? procedures. â?¢ Enables JRC to maintain a policy of near-zero rejections and expulsions. Parents do not have to fear a call asking them to â??come take your too-difficult-to-handle-child home.â?? Most if not all critics of JRC have never visited the center or spoken with any of our current clinicians, staffers and students, or those students' parents. Most of the opposition to the centerâ??s skin-shock aversive treatment reflects an ignorance of its effectiveness and a refusal to rationally weigh the benefits against the disadvantages. The boy we saved from life-threatening blood infections died at age 25 from a resumption of those same self-scratching-caused blood infections after he was removed from JRC by advocates who made the same claim as Ms. Ahern, that his severe self-injurious behaviors could be treated successfully without aversives. By contrast, two independent, tenured, full professors of special education who took the trouble to visit the center and saw first-hand what it has accomplished recently wrote a textbook (Williams, B.F. & Williams, R.L., Effective Programs for Treating Autism Spectrum Disorder: Applied Behavior Analysis Model) that devotes a chapter to JRC and that cites the center as one of a handful of effective, nationally-recognized behavioral treatment programs for children with autism spectrum disorders. The writer, a behavioral psychologist, is the executive director of the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, a residential special-needs school in Canton, Mass. which he founded in 1971. His email address is M.Israel@Judgerc.org