As the House Appropriations Committee eliminates a loophole that would have allowed punitive electric shocks for behavior control, CCHR calls for a complete ban on all electroshock devices.

By CCHR International
The Mental Health Industry Watchdog
August 2, 2024

A loophole slipped into a massive budget bill by a Congressional subcommittee would have blocked the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) proposed ban on a device used to administer painful skin shocks to disabled students for behavior modification. Protestors rallied against the loophole, prompting the House Appropriations Committee to remove the provision in July. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International commended the swift actions of advocates, including its National Office, in preventing the continued abuse of residents at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Massachusetts, known as “the school of shock.”[1] This also included Autistic Self Advocacy Network-ASAN) and others in the Stop the Shock Coalition.

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, noted efforts to get changes into the budget to allow ongoing use of the device were killed. “I was appalled to see the incredibly concerning rider to allow the use of electric shock devices as treatment for people with disabilities in the language that passed at the subcommittee level. I’m glad the language was removed from the bill” and “I’m committed to ensuring that the FDA has the ability to regulate these dangerous events as devices.”[2]

In March 2024, the FDA issued a public docket proposing a ban of electrical stimulation devices (ESDs) intended to reduce or stop self-injurious or aggressive behavior. The proposed rule, when finalized, removes ESDs from the market, and the devices will no longer be considered legally marketed.[3]

CCHR has long pressed for all electrical stimulation devices to be eliminated as a mental health and behavioral treatment, including electroconvulsive therapy.

In 2012, Juan Mendez, a United Nations Special Rapporteur against Torture, called for the torturous practice to end, stating: “The passage of electricity through anybody’s body is clearly associated with pain and suffering.”[4] The UN Committee Against Torture also called for the JRC electroshock device to be outlawed.[5]

In May 2024, in New Zealand, a victim of electrical shock used as behavior modification won a District Court in New Zealand decision that the practice fit the legal definition of torture. The man, who had been subjected to this violence as a teen in the 1970s, sought compensation for the injuries incurred by the country’s Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). Judge Denese Henare ordered the ACC to cover the man for burn injuries, a brain injury and cognitive impairment caused by “ECT torture.” Judge Henare said the man deserved compassion for what he had been through.[6]

In July, a New Zealand Royal Commission Inquiry also recognized the electric shock punishment as torture and called for a ban on “pain compliance” (behavior modification) techniques in any care setting for children, young people, or vulnerable adults in care.[7]

CCHR says these findings should be applied to how students at the JRC have been and continue to be treated with a draconian and punitive electric shock system. “Some students wear the electrodes as much as 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And sometimes for years,” according to an ABC News report.[8]

In 2007, Mother Jones reported that eight states were sending autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to the facility “that punishes them with painful electric shocks. How many times do you have to zap a child before it’s torture?” JRC charged $220,000 a year for each student. States and school districts pick up the tab. “The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons.” Further, “…six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations.”[9]

New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the program continues to thrive.[10] New York City had been sending children there at a cost of $30 million.[11]

In 2021, NBC News reported many of the school’s students, though not necessarily those wearing the electrical devices, were teenagers of color with emotional and behavioral issues sent by schools, family courts and the juvenile justice system.[12]

The FDA banned the device in 2020, which was subsequently overturned in a JRC court challenge in 2021.[13] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit claimed the FDA did not have the authority to ban the practice. In 2023, Congress passed a bill defining the FDA’s ability to do this.[14]

Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, says, “The cruel practice needs to end, not only in Massachusetts but universally. In an era where there is international condemnation of coercive psychiatric practices, including from the World Health Organization and UN Human Rights Office, any electrical device used to force changes in behavior, emotion, and mental problems, should be prohibited.”

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[1] Jennifer Gonnerman, “The School of Shock,” Mother Jones, 20 Aug. 2007, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/school-shock/; “Banned Devices; Proposal To Ban Electrical Stimulation Devices for Self-Injurious or Aggressive Behavior,” FDA, 26 Mar. 2024, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/26/2024-06037/banned-devices-proposal-to-ban-electrical-stimulation-devices-for-self-injurious-or-aggressive; Mike Beaudet, “Congress backs down on shocks loophole, for now: Measure that would let Canton school continue shocking students removed from bill,” WCVB ABC News, Boston, 11 July 2024, https://www.wcvb.com/article/congress-backs-down-on-shocks-loophole-for-now/61573650

[2] Ibid., Mike Beaudet, WCVB ABC News, Boston, 11 July 2024

[3] “Banned Devices; Proposal To Ban Electrical Stimulation Devices for Self-Injurious or Aggressive Behavior,” FDA, 26 Mar. 2024, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/26/2024-06037/banned-devices-proposal-to-ban-electrical-stimulation-devices-for-self-injurious-or-aggressive

[4] https://www.cchrint.org/2024/03/29/fda-again-pursues-ban-on-behavioral-electroshock-device citing Mike Beaudet and Kevin Rothstein, “U.N. investigating Judge Rotenberg Center’s use of shocks,” MyFox Boston, 20 June 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20150402093929/http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/18840703/2012/06/20/un-investigating-judge-rotenberg-centers-use-of-shocks

[5] https://www.cchrint.org/2024/03/29/fda-again-pursues-ban-on-behavioral-electroshock-device/ Eric M. Garcia, “Will shock treatment finally be banned?” Boston Globe, 30 Jan. 2023, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/01/30/opinion/will-shock-treatment-finally-be-banned/

[6] “Former Lake Alice patient wins court appeal for ACC to cover electric-shock injuries,” Whanganui Chronicle, 27 May 2024, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/whanganui-chronicle/news/former-lake-alice-patient-wins-court-appeal-for-acc-to-cover-electric-shock-injuries/5DS7R5RAEFF2ZFIDEJVUUWCMWY/ 

[7] Whanaketia – Through pain and trauma, from darkness to light, 24 July 2024, Recommendation 72, p. 126, https://www.abuseincare.org.nz/reports/whanaketia   

[8] https://www.cchrint.org/2024/03/29/fda-again-pursues-ban-on-behavioral-electroshock-device; https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/shock-therapy-massachussetts-school/story?id=11047334

[9] Jennifer Gonnerman, “The School of Shock,” Mother Jones, 20 Aug. 2007, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/school-shock/

[10] Ibid.

[11] Heather Vogell and Annie Waldman, “New York City Sends $30 Million a Year to School With History of Giving Kids Electric Shocks,” ProPublica, 23 Dec. 2014, https://www.propublica.org/article/nyc-sends-30-million-a-year-to-school-with-history-of-giving-kids-shocks

[12] Cynthia McFadden, Kevin Monahan and Adiel Kaplan, “A decades-long fight over an electric shock treatment led to an FDA ban. But the fight is far from over,” NBC News, 28 Apr. 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/decades-long-fight-over-electric-shock-treatment-led-fda-ban-n1265546; https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/us/electric-shock-school.html

[13] Ibid.

[14] https://www.cchrint.org/2024/03/29/fda-again-pursues-ban-on-behavioral-electroshock-device/ citing Eric M. Garcia, “Will shock treatment finally be banned?” Boston Globe, 30 Jan. 2023, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/01/30/opinion/will-shock-treatment-finally-be-banned/