Judge Rotenberg Educational Center: Shock Devices, FDA Ban, and Legislation

The Judge Rotenberg Center shock therapy program is the only known use of remotely activated electric shocks as behavioral treatment in the United States, carried out at a private residential school in Canton, Massachusetts, under individual court orders issued by Massachusetts probate judges. The facility, which serves more than 300 residents with autism, intellectual disabilities, and emotional or behavioral conditions, has continued the practice despite a United Nations finding that it may amount to torture, a federal ban that was overturned in court, and repeated legislative efforts in Massachusetts and New York to end it.

How the Shock Device Works

The device is called the Graduated Electronic Decelerator, or GED, and was invented by the center’s founder, psychologist Matthew Israel. Residents wear the batteries and electrodes continuously, often in a fanny pack around the waist, with electrodes attached to the skin. Staff deliver two-second shocks by remote control.¹

The standard GED delivers 15.5 milliamps of current. A stronger version, the GED-4, delivers up to 45.5 milliamps for up to two seconds.² A current of 50 milliamps is considered potentially fatal. Former residents have described the shocks as extremely painful and capable of causing brief loss of muscle control, bruises, scars, and lasting pain, and have reported being shocked for behaviors such as yelling, swearing, getting out of a seat without permission, clicking teeth, rolling eyes, or talking out of turn.³

The center characterizes the devices as lifesaving for residents whose aggressive or self-injurious behaviors have not responded to other treatments. As of late 2025, 54 of the facility’s more than 300 residents were approved for the devices, and all residents currently authorized to receive shocks are 25 or older.³

Why the Practice Is Still Legal

Shock therapy at the center operates under a January 1987 court-approved settlement agreement in Massachusetts probate court. Under that agreement, aversive procedures are permitted only when authorized as part of a court-ordered “substituted judgment” treatment plan for an individual resident. A probate judge must be satisfied that the person, if competent, would consent to the treatment. Each plan is subject to judicial oversight, with a court-appointed monitor.⁴

The settlement was originally intended to last one year. In 1988, Judge Ernest Rotenberg, for whom the center was later renamed, extended it indefinitely. Since 1986, more than 15 different judges of the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court have approved individual petitions for aversive therapy, with yearly reviews for each patient.⁵

In 2011, the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services banned electric shock devices for new admissions but allowed exceptions for individuals with existing court-approved treatment plans.⁶ In September 2023, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled in SJC-13298 that the use of electric skin shocks at the center remains legal, upholding the existing framework. The decision confirmed that state efforts to ban the practice had been unsuccessful and that oversight would continue through annual probate court hearings.⁷

The FDA Ban That Was Overturned

In March 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule banning electrical stimulation devices used for self-injurious or aggressive behavior. The FDA determined that the GED devices presented an “unreasonable and substantial risk of injury,” cited a lack of credible evidence of efficacy or long-term benefit, and pointed to the availability of alternatives proven safe and effective.⁸ The ban effectively applied only to the Judge Rotenberg Center, the sole facility using such devices.

The center challenged the rule. On July 6, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the ban in a 2–1 decision in Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, Inc. v. FDA, No. 20-1087. The court held that the FDA lacked statutory authority to ban a medical device for a specific use while allowing it for others. Because electrical stimulation devices remain legally marketed for other conditions such as treating addictions, a use-specific ban violated 21 U.S.C. § 396, which prohibits the FDA from interfering with the practice of medicine. The court characterized the agency’s authority to ban devices as an “all-or-nothing” power.⁹ The D.C. Circuit denied rehearing en banc in December 2021.¹⁰

Congress has since acted to restore and protect the FDA’s authority. In the 2022 omnibus spending bill, advocates secured a provision granting the FDA explicit authority to ban electric shock devices. A later appropriations rider, Section 722, would have blocked the FDA from banning devices previously cleared by a court, but it was removed by the House Appropriations Committee in July 2024 following opposition from several members of Congress.¹¹ The FDA has issued a new proposed rule to ban the devices.

Deaths and Documented Abuse

Vincent Milletich died at the facility in 1985 at age 22 after staff forced his head between a staff member’s legs, handcuffed his hand, and applied a white-noise helmet. The facility was cited for negligence. Linda Cornelison died in 1990 at age 19 after staff ignored a perforated stomach ulcer for two days, treating her expressions of pain as behaviors to be punished. She received 56 physical aversives in a roughly four-hour period before an ambulance was called, and a Massachusetts court found the facility negligent in her death in 1995.¹²

The most publicly known incident involved Andre McCollins. On October 25, 2002, the 18-year-old autistic student received 31 electrical shocks to his torso, arms, and legs over about six and a half hours. He was strapped face-down to a four-point restraint board for seven hours without access to water or a restroom. He was catatonic for three days and was hospitalized for five weeks, later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder; an expert witness testified that the events caused permanent brain damage.¹³ The case was tried in Norfolk Superior Court and settled confidentially during jury deliberations. Video of the incident, released publicly in 2012, drew national outrage.¹²

A 2007 incident proved pivotal. A former student placed a prank telephone call to the facility, impersonated a staff member, and instructed staff to administer shocks to two teenage residents. An 18-year-old received 77 shocks and a 16-year-old received 29 shocks over approximately three hours. State investigators ordered the center to preserve the video recordings, but the tapes were destroyed.¹⁴ The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care concluded that staff were physically abusive, neglectful, and lacked necessary training.¹²

The Founder’s Departure

Matthew Israel was arraigned on May 25, 2011, on charges related to the destruction of the 2007 surveillance tapes, including misleading a grand jury and being an accessory after the fact. He entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office under which he resigned as executive director, severed all ties with the school, and received five years of probation instead of jail time. Israel did not admit to committing any offense.¹⁵¹⁴ His retirement took effect June 1, 2011, and the agreement required a court-approved monitor to oversee the center’s activities.¹⁶

International and Advocacy Response

In June 2012, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan E. Méndez, and the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover, issued a joint communication to the U.S. government expressing “serious concern” about the center’s use of electric shocks, physical restraints, and food deprivation. They concluded that the practices may violate the absolute prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under the UN Convention Against Torture, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The rapporteurs requested that the U.S. investigate, hold accountable those responsible for any verified violations, and adopt effective measures to prevent future use of electric shocks on children and people with mental disabilities.¹⁷

Mental Disability Rights International (now Disability Rights International) published a report titled “Torture Not Treatment” that documented the use of GED devices on residents’ legs, arms, soles of feet, fingertips, and torsos, with some individuals receiving dozens or hundreds of shocks per day. The report also documented prolonged four-point and prone restraints, food deprivation, and a practice called “Behavioral Research Lessons,” described as staged mock scenarios designed to elicit behaviors that would then be punished with shocks. The group concluded that the practices met all four criteria for torture under international law.²

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network has led a sustained campaign called #StopTheShock, in coalition with disability rights organizations. In 2018, ASAN delivered a petition signed by more than 290,000 people to the FDA, and the following year 243 organizations signed a letter urging the agency to ban the devices. The Association for Behavior Analysis International formally opposed the use of the devices at the center in November 2022.¹⁸

Pending Legislation

Lawmakers in Massachusetts and New York have repeatedly tried to end the practice through legislation. None has succeeded as of early 2026.

In Massachusetts, Representative Danielle Gregoire introduced H.245, “An Act regarding the use of aversive therapy,” which would prohibit the use of physical pain and the denial of basic human needs as behavioral modification for people with disabilities. The Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council endorsed the bill for its 2025–2026 legislative session, and legislators held a hearing in November 2025.¹⁹ A companion bill, H.240, would regulate the training and certification of those administering the shocks.³ As GBH News reported in November 2025, such state legislation “has been filed repeatedly in the Massachusetts legislature but so far has not been successful.”²⁰

In New York, State Senator Jabari Brisport introduced Senate Bill S.8935, known as “Andre’s Law” after Andre McCollins. The bill would prohibit New York State and its agencies from funding, operating, licensing, or approving any program that uses aversive conditioning. It targets a loophole in a 2005 state law that banned aversive conditioning within New York’s borders but continued to allow the state to fund placements at out-of-state facilities using the practice. According to the bill’s fact sheet, New York has spent more than $100 million over the past decade sending disabled residents to such facilities, and nearly half of the Judge Rotenberg Center’s residents have come from New York.²¹²² As of its last reported status, the bill was in the Senate Rules Committee.

What Supporters Say

The center has vocal supporters, particularly among families of residents with severe self-injurious behaviors. The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center Parents Association, led by parent Marie Washington, has stated that the methods are used only after “all other treatments and less restrictive alternatives have been tried and failed.” Parents have described the alternatives their children faced elsewhere as permanent sedation, full-time physical or chemical restraint, and life in psychiatric hospitals.²³

Supporters report that children who once engaged in life-threatening behaviors such as head-banging causing retinal detachment or self-mutilation leading to bone infections reached near-zero levels of such behaviors after treatment at the center. They frame the issue as one of parental choice, arguing that the option “must remain” available for the small percentage of children for whom they say it is a matter of life or death. Former students have testified before legislative committees that the center saved their lives.⁵

1
Center for Public Integrity. When a School Turns to Shock Therapy
2
Disability Rights International. Torture Not Treatment Report
3
MassLive. Former Students Say Canton Facility’s Electric Shocks Aren’t All They Endured
4
FindLaw. Judge Rotenberg Educational Center v. Commissioner of the Department of Mental Retardation
5
Judge Rotenberg Educational Center. MDRI Report Response
6
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. JRC Case Summary
7
Boston Globe. JRC SJC Rotenberg Center Skin Shocks Aversives
8
Center for Public Representation. Court of Appeals Overturns FDA Ban on Electrical Stimulation Devices Used at JRC
9
Justia. Judge Rotenberg Educational Center v. FDA, No. 20-1087
10
The Arc of California. Use of Shock Therapy Denied by U.S. Court of Appeals
11
Autistic Self Advocacy Network. ASAN Welcomes Removal of Harmful Appropriations Bill Rider
12
Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Prisoners of the Apparatus
13
Lubin & Meyer. Rotenberg Shock Case
14
Taunton Gazette. Judge Rotenberg Center Founder Agrees to Step Down
15
WBUR. JRC Founder Agrees to Resign
16
The Canton Citizen. JRC Part 2
17
UN OHCHR. Joint Communication to USA Regarding JRC
18
Autistic Self Advocacy Network. #StopTheShock Campaign
19
Massachusetts.gov. MDDC Testifies on Bill Prohibiting Aversive Therapy
20
GBH News. Massachusetts Legislators Hear Testimony on Bill to Ban Shock Therapy
21
New York State Senate. Andre’s Law Fact Sheet
22
ProPublica. NYC Sends $30 Million a Year to School With History of Giving Kids Shocks
23
ABC News. Full Statement From Judge Rotenberg Educational Center Parents Association