#StopTheShock
Many may mistakenly believe that electric shock is an outdated method, or a treatment of the past. What if I told you that there’s a facility in Canton, Massachusetts that still employs this cruel form of therapy?
The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center is an institution for people with developmental disabilities and emotional disorders. It’s important to note that a disproportionate amount of its students are black or brown. The JRC uses aversives, a kind of punishment, to control their students. The worst aversive that the JRC uses is an electric shock device called a Graduated Electronic Decelerator, or GED. The GED is attached to the student’s body and a staff member or teacher uses a remote control to give them a shock. The JRC has electrocuted people for flapping their hands, standing up, swearing, not taking off a coat, noises or movements that they make due to their disability, and screaming in pain while being shocked. This treatment is clearly beyond inhumane, and the United Nations went so far as to call it torture.
In a video that surfaced in 2011, JRC staff tied an autistic boy face-down to a four-point board and shocked him 31 times at the highest amperage setting. The first shock was given for failing to remove his coat, and the next 30 were for screaming while being shocked. Despite this video surfacing over a decade ago, the malicious actions of the JRC have not been fully curbed.
The FDA is the organization that holds the power when it comes to banning electric shock devices. After a meeting where it found that these devices were too dangerous to use, the FDA created a proposed rule to ban them in 2016. A “proposed rule” is a draft of a rule, so the government asks for the public’s opinion on this rule before officially implementing it. As expected, people had much to say and many were against the use of electric shock.
In March 2020, the FDA finally released the final rule to ban electric shock devices after four years of waiting. Instead of following the rule, the JRC filed a lawsuit against the FDA so they could continue using electric shock to torture those with disabilities. In July 2021, the DC Circuit Court overturned the ban so that the JRC could keep using electric shock. However, all hope was not lost and many continued to fight for change.
On May 4th, 2022, the New York legislature announced a new bill targeting facilities like the JRC, called Andre’s Bill. It was named after Andre McCollins, a survivor of electric shock torture and other forms of aversive conditioning. While the New York legislature entered recession before the bill could be passed, the widespread bipartisan support provided key pressure that would allow for change. In the fall of 2022, advocates fought for the inclusion of the GED ban in the FDASLA, a bill relating to the FDA. While the House included the ban, the Senate did not.
Finally, in December 2022, Congress included an amendment in the end-of-year omnibus bill, which affirmed the FDA’s right to ban contingent electric shocks used for behavior modification. The amendment thankfully addressed the technicality that allowed for the 2022 FDA ban to be overturned the first time.
After relentless advocacy from the disability community, Congress has listened to survivors, advocates, and allies by formally acknowledging the FDA’s power to pass a ban on electric shock devices. We are one step closer to eliminating electric shock torture for good. Now, the FDA must ban electric shock devices again so the torture that students of the JRC are currently undergoing comes to an end. Let’s #StopTheShock.
