Staff Faulted in Use of Shock

The report says none of the six staff members in a Stoughton residence run by the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center on the night of Aug. 26 acted to stop the harrowing events for three hours, despite ample reasons to doubt the validity of the caller's instructions to wake the boys in the middle of the night and administer painful shock treatments, at times while their arms and legs were bound.

The caller said he was ordering the punishments because the teenagers had misbehaved earlier in the evening, but none of the home's staff had witnessed the behavior that the caller cited. As the two boys' screams could be heard throughout the house, near-mutiny erupted among the other boys, who insisted that the accused teenagers had violated no rules. One boy even suggested the call was a hoax, according to the report by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, which licenses group homes.

The staffers, inexperienced and overworked, were described as concerned and reluctant, yet nobody verified the orders with central office, nor did anybody check treatment plans for the two teenagers to be sure they were permitted to receive that degree of shock therapy.

The Rotenberg Center has long been controversial for punishing students with two-second shocks, delivered through electrodes attached to their skin, and it is now permitted only on residents with court-approved "aversive therapy" plans.

In addition, the report said staff at the Stoughton house did not know who the shift supervisor was that night; the senior staffer did nothing to intervene.

By the time a call was finally placed to the central office and staff members realized their mistake, one teenager had received 77 shocks, well in excess of what his treatment plan allowed, and the other received 29. One boy was taken to the hospital for treatment of two first-degree burns.

One reason the staff may not have been more suspicious of the call was that it was not unusual to receive orders over the phone to administer electric shocks or other discipline. To provide round-the-clock monitoring of its residents, as well as monitor the staff's compliance with procedures, the Rotenberg Center, based in Canton,

uses an extensive set of surveillance cameras in its group homes. A central office employee watches a bank of television screens, and is authorized to initiate discipline by phone.

The six staff members have been suspended, as was the video surveillance worker on duty that night, according to the report.

As a result of the investigation, Rotenberg officials have expanded training for staff, instituted new telephone verification procedures, added oversight at group homes, and eliminated delayed punishment, the use of shocks long after an alleged offense.