It didn’t really matter in this situation, except perhaps for the “untrained” part. The staff’s actions were, apparently, right in line with the facility’s protocols. From the Globe story it appears that only the *number* of shocks administered to one boy was “outside of his treatment plan”. Remote video surveillance and ordering shocks by telephone was and still is A-OK there, and apparently waking a child up for shocks in the middle of the night, many hours after “bad” behavior, was also perfectly acceptable.

If you beat a dog, and it bites you, you don’t go “Gee I guess that dog is retarded” you say, “Well I shouldn’t have beaten the dog”. We’re talking about people who already suffer from things most people wouldn’t consider. Like bright lights. Or, take me for instance, someone who has Asperger’s Syndrome. I have Hyperacusis, I’m disturbed by sudden loud noises.

I hate to admit this, but sometimes I will react to sudden loud noises by behaving in ways people might see as “retarded” Like screaming, or making hissing noises. This is to keep the sound from entering my ear. It’s a defense mechanism, it’s not something that should be cured. If you are to cure someone of their defense mechanisms, then you’re dooming them to a life of torture. Most of the people at JRC are being shocked, so they learn not to defend themselves against things that they are overstimulated by. They’re conditioned to belive in learned helplessness, because the only response they get to “I’m in pain” is BZZZZTTTT.

When I read about the person who became comatose at JRC, it reminded me of the ending to the film Brazil. Where after being tortured, the main character couldn’t take it anymore, and started singing Brazil. The torturers said, “He’s gone”. Meaning that he was tortured to such an extent, that he had to retreat into his mind. That he was no longer able to respond or accept the outside world, the only way he could escape was to retreat forever into his mind. People talk about Autistic people as, “Being off in their own world, unable to respond to the world everyone else is in.” What does it say when you CREATE that in someone though?

Imagine being put in a place, where everyday there is no hope, you know that if you do X you will be shocked, there is no discussion it just is. Imagine that happening for years. Imagine if one overzelous sadist happens to be hired, and decides that it’s fun to shock the patients for no reason at all. You can’t do anything, it just is. If you are suffering nobody listens, if you are sick nobody cares, if you are dying it’s just as well. Sounds like a plot to a reasonably good horror film right?

It is the reality people in JRC face EVERY SINGLE DAY.

however bad the working conditions at JRC are, the children at the JRC are the primary victims.

Yes, in so far as the victimisation of the staff is contingent upon the victimisation of the children. They are also perpetrators.

If children weren’t being tortured, but the working conditions were otherwise the same, we’d have no problem in recognising them as coercive to the staff. In this respect, the staff are primary victims.

The situation is analogous to a family unit consisting of a coercive abuser, a coerced abuser, and an abused child. To the extent that the coerced abuser is victimised through the victimisation of the child, they are a secondary victim. But they are a primary victim of the coercion.

Granted. But the staff comments — though brief — seemed to point to “poor” and “coerced.”

It’s a side issue in that, however bad the working conditions at JRC are, the children at the JRC are the primary victims. However, the functionary staff at the JRC *are* also being screwed over, and the way in which that’s happening can help to illuminate how utterly bankrupt this place is on all levels.

One of ballastexistenz’s posts on the JRC attracted several comments from ex-employees who said, basically, it was the worst work environment they’ve ever experienced. They did sound very upset and traumatized.

You’re right. What I meant was that the damage done to the staff was a side issue. The damage done to the children is the main issue, IMHO. Poor phrasing on my part.

If you look at the parental letter propaganda on JRC’s website, it paints a picture of last resort. As in, parents applied to other schools, but JRC is the only one that took their extremely disabled kid. This demonstrates to me that we need to not only condemn JRC and what it is doing, but simultaneously demand school settings that are capable of confidently taking on such extreme cases. I don’t think the argument against JRC and the like is useful until there is a plan in motion to avoid leaving people in limbo. Does anyone know of such in the works? (–>sincere question, I would want to support it.) I think a successful fight against JRC requires a lot more than pointing out its serious deficiencies.

Incompetent, untrained, morally corrupt, or simply stupid staff can doom almost anything to failure. And it is *incredibly* hard to find, recruit, and retain top quality workers, even if you pay them a lot of money. It is probably even more difficult when you’re looking for tolerance (which is probably somewhat fixed by the time folks are in the job hunt) combined with interest in the position, trained skills and knowledge.

Good thinking re milgram though. I suspect you are right.

The staff is an interesting side issue. Because it’s clear that the corporation’s treatment of the staff is unethical. Basically, they’re undergoing an uncontrolled, coersive version of the Milgram experiments every working day. Except that they’re being forced to shock children and the shocks are real–no one’s going to reveal to them at the end of the day that they didn’t do any real harm, that it was all faked. I would expect that a fairly large number of ex-employees of this place have PTSD or other psychiatric sequelae of their experience.

The way you find people to care for those with severe problems is you take the cream of the crop, you pay them well, and you accept that you’re going to sometimes get burnouts.

Do you think I’m disagreeing with you about function? I’m not. That WOULD work, once put into practice. I’d also add “…and train them well,” with which I’m sure you agree.

What you and I (may) be disagreeing about is feasibility. That suggestion is, um…. not quite as easy as it first may seem, I think, even given considerable resources.

Which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try. And it should be pretty obvious that $200k/year/child should be able to produce, if not perfection, something a hell of a lot closer to perfection than the shit we saw there.

The motherjones article quotes $220K per victim. It also quotes 234 residents, and $56M total annual revenue, so the math pretty much works out.

The way you find people to care for those with severe problems is you take the cream of the crop, you pay them well, and you accept that you’re going to sometimes get burnouts.

Questions of “Who’s going to pay for it?” or “Where does the money come from?” are red herrings. The money is already available, and it’s already being spent.

I think it is a staffing problem. A lot of the reason people do this sort of horrible shit is that the caretakers themselves are limited in their capabilities. Tolerance is pretty hard to achieve; working past boundaries with little payback is difficult. And because these positions are generally not very well paid, and are generally at least somewhat unpleasant, you don’t tend to attract the top candidates.

Of course we and they are supposed to understand that the kids can’t help it, just as I am supposed to understand that my 1 year old can’t help but dump out every container he sees, and it’s just “my fault” for giving him the opportunity. But you know what? It’s still fucking annoying when I turn around for a minute and he shatters something on the rug.

I know he’s only a baby, so I can’t–and don’t–get angry at him, but I doubt i could keep up that level of forgiveness for his entire life. It’s actually fairly rare that you find people who have the ability to never blow up at others, and/or to take what comes their way without complaint.

I’ve worked with mentally disabled children and it can be insanely frustrating. I didn’t have the ability to keep it up; I’ve done it. And nonetheless from my lifetime observations I am probably in the upper rank of people who can shake shit off. So you generally need people who are more tolerant than I (not so hard, really) but for the worst case kids you need people who are WAY more tolerant than I am. Who are willing to shake it all off, every day.

People refer to them as “saints” for a reason–saints are rare, and different from most of us. How are you going to find enough people like that to staff an institution like this?

And who is going to pay for it? I know from various friends’ experiences how difficult it is to find caretakers for the mentally disabled. And that’s part-time, just-competent, care, usually to fill in for the odd day here or there. One of my best friend’s kids is now 14. he’s big, strong, and extremely disabled. He uses a diaper, is sexually confused since he hit puberty, bites and punches when he is angry, threatened, or upset, and generally is a handful. With all that he’s a good kid, and he gives a great hug. But unsurprisingly finding care for him isn’t easy.

I think there are two different conversations. One is “don’t zap the kids” which seems pretty blatantly obvious.

But the other one is what level of care we owe these kids. Do we just keep them from hurting self or others? Or are we obliged to, as KateL put it, do this:

things like changing his diet, proper medication, positive reinforcement and a shitload of time and patience and COMPASSION on the part of many staff members changed his behavior dramatically in 3 years.

Because I don’t think there are enough trained people (or money) to give that to everyone who would benefit from it. I wish there were.

Oh, but that takes time. And money. And paid, trained staff.

D’ya think $220K a year would cover it?

So where was that $220K (times how many prisoners?) going? It wasn’t going to the staff — anybody who gets cowed by a threat of “…or you’ll be evaluated” probably isn’t making much more than minimum wage.

Oh. Right. High electricity bills.

Seriously, though, was somebody making a mint off Camp Child Abuse here?

In the case of autistic children in particular, one potentially useful intervention might be to try to figure out what is bothering the child. People with autism often have sensory dysintegration such that stimuli that are minimal to neurotypicals may be highly painful to them.

Yeah, that. There are a lot of behaviors that seem incomprehensible or maliciously violent to NTs that really make absolute and clear sense once said NTs figure out how an autistic person perceives a situation or experiences a sensory stimulus.

Which is a huge part of where a lot of this weird “just punish” thinking comes from. The people with power didn’t know what could be causing behaviors, experienced those behaviors as disruptive or threatening, went “what do you do with an NT kid when positive reinforcement doesn’t work AHA PUNISH!”

which really… well clearly it’s not right even for NTs when it’s torture. But in the case of many of these autistic kids, it may not even make sense to punish at all, even humanely. Because these kids may just be expressing “I can’t stand those lights!”

which is hardly a call for punishment. Perhaps a call for stopping a behavior, if it threatens others or is very self-injurious. But punishment? If you’re punished for what is either

an involuntary reaction to an overwhelming stimulus
or
a behavior you intend as communication

what does that really do or fix or solve?

Bjartmarr, the logical conclusion of your suggestion is “remove him from all human contact whatsoever”. Is that so much better than the other alternatives?

No, it’s “find humans he can have contact with.” There are humans trained in providing services to such people. Look at KateL’s comment #43, where she describes significant improvements in someone once:

*his diet was changed
*he was treated with respect by others (rather than punished?)
*he was taught a way to more effectively communicate with others