Judge Rotenberg Center

The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center is a special needs school in Canton Massachusetts, serving both high functioning students with conduct, behavior, emotional and psychiatric problems and low functioning students with autistic like behavior.

The school has come under much scrutiny over the years for its use of aversives (which are forms of punishment used to correct behavioral problems). The center is one of the few places in the United States that still uses aversive tactics, and the only place in the U.S. that uses an electric skin shock device known as Graduated Electronic Decelerator￼ (or GED for short).

The center is founded as the Behavior Research Institute in 1971 by Doctor Matthew L. Israel.

The center was renamed to the Judge Rotenberg Center in 1994, in honor of the judge who helped save the institute from closing at the hands of State licensing officials in the 1980s.

The center moved from its original location near Providence Rhode island to its current facilities in Canton Massachusetts in 1996.

The institute claims to have a near zero rejection policy and will accept students with even the most severe mental an emotional disabilities. The institute also prefers not to sedate patients and pushes for them to be on minimal, or no amount of medications.

Many people who either work at the institute, or a former student says that the Rotenberg Center is torturing its students with barbaric techniques, and using harsh punishment for minor problems and mistakes.

They're many petitions made to get the institute close down.