Matthew Israel Interviewed by Jennifer Gonnerman

Please see my response at: http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/school_of_shock.html

WHAT THE [deleted].

LOL

It is pretty obs[deleted]ene isn't it?

Re. the evolution of JRC from Skinner: Something about that time, I'm not sure what it was, created a hotbed for these types of places. There were a lot of new ideas floating around about the human psyche, and people tried mucking around with those ideas, for whatever reasons... perhaps some of them were even good-intentioned. I guess some people thought they could apply these ideas to solving some of the "problems of the day," e.g., straightening up the "errant and wayward youth" and turning them into productive citizens. It would seem that the idea that one's teenage years are, by definition, turbulent times fraught with stress and filled with a modicum of experimentation, had not yet been accepted as not necessarily a bad thing. Apparently it still isn't. ...Matthew Israel appears to have escaped close scrutiny of his methods and ideology since he focused on a small subset of youth, namely, self-abusing and mentally disturbed individuals whose parents felt they had no other alternative. His target clientele in the early days weren't exactly able to speak for themselves. Now that the Judge Rotenberg Center has started to target more mainstream malcontents, be it for reasons of greed or myopia, we are starting to hear stories of what life is really like there. May the sunlight of this current exposure prove to be the requisite disinfectant needed to put these atavistic barbaric cruelties to rest.

"He loved Big Brother. He had always loved Big Brother."

----George Orwell's
1984

My foregoing comments were posted on an initial misunderstanding that each related to the particular page I was then reading and found the opportunity-for-comment box thereunder.

My previous comments would make more sense taken in that context. For example, my citation to Orwell's famous concluding lines to 1984, if read in the context of "Katie's" purportedly willing endorsements of Israel's methodology. Similarly, the analogy to Beatles' song w/i context of article's referenced posting of mickey mouse posters within Israel's facility.

But, now, in conclusion. I feel obliged to counter Israel's rather disingenous references to his organization's--and it
was HIS operation, however much the corporate zig-zagging undoubtedly permitted by law consterns such attribution--CALIFORNIA experience.

My then employment for the State of California in Sacramento's headquarters' offices (I am now retired after more than 30 years employment) of various agencies informs my recollection here. And, such recollection follows hereinafter:

Operations conducted under the aegis of Behavioral Research Institute (BRI) were centered at a licensed facility on Zelzah Avenue in Northridge, CA. That facility, similar to those in this article, specialized in severely involved clients suffering "developmental disability(ies)" per (then) Calif. Welf. & Inst. Code Section 4512. This statutory definition included both autism and mental retardation, among other specified conditions subsumed under the rubric "developmental disability".

After receipt of more than a single complaint, both the funding agency (North L.A. Regional Center, an entity dispensing state funds via contract with the State Dept. of Developmental Services) and licensing authority (viz., the Dept. of Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division) commenced investigations of the Northridge facility and its practices. Said practices were not appreciably different from those still employed and embraced according to Israel's avowals in this article.

At least one death, and (if memory serves, perhaps another) occurred at the Northridge facility DURING implementation of BRI containment "treatment intervention(s)". (One such technique involved many staff members "bringing down" a single client and rolling said client up in a lengthy piece of carpet/rug. This, of course, was defended as being for the client's "own good.")

Similarly, as in the instances cited in this article, sundry "satisfied customers" (i.e., parents--never the mostly non-verbal BRI "clients/residents" themselves--were presented in "defense" of expressed agency concerns. Competent (assumedly costly) lawyers were also enlisted by BRI.

Ultimately, at least one significantly lengthy appellate decision was rendered by the courts. (A published decision, this cannot be too hard to obtain a cite for by any paralegal/law clerk interested in doing so; I simply do not have the capacity here at my desk.)

The facility was ultimately DE-licensed (although, as things legal go, it may well have been officially deemed a "surrender" by the licensee, as lawyers worked out all the fine points) and DE-funded by California agency action.

Finally, as I recollect (and everything I assert here is in good faith predicated upon solely the recollections of an aged man [me] long after the fact!), the entire matter was "resolved" without any guilt/fault findings and essentially with an agreement that Israel's minions would no longer seek California public monies nor the official sanction of licensure while practicing such "theraputic" approaches as had brought the entire matter to a head in the first instance. In short, Israel's practices were effectively disapproved and put out of business in California insofar as taxpayers' dollars were concerned.

In consequence, as Israel hedgingly ackknowledges in this article, his type of "therapy" with defenseless "developmentally disabled" clientele as employed at the Northridge BRI facility no longer is funded nor officially sanctioned in Calif.--notwithstanding his referenced reminant at the Tobin facility.

As everywhere else where Irael's tax-paid practices have been challenged, he successfully enlisted the support of various politicos in seeking to defeat his rejection in California. It appears to always be predicated upon certain parents' assessments of the efficaciousness in his methods. These parents may, or may not, be lawfully authorized to surrender their progeny's rights to bodily integrity, which Israel's methods entail. And, at least in California, a parent of adult children must be authorized by a court before being legally able to consent to
such "treatment".

Hard won statutory acknowlegements of the personal rights possessed by persons with disabilities are apparent in California. (I am unfamiliar with status in other states of the union.)
Specifically, the Calif. Legislature has long averred that persons with mental or developmental disabilities are entitled to precisely the same rights as all other persons. (See Calif. Welf. & Inst. Code sections 4201/4202, 5325.1)

Nevertheless, as the Calif. State Supreme Court found necessary to remind,
this statutory acknowledgment is (quoting from memory alone) "but a legislative affirmation of long established constitutional principle." (In re Irene Hop ___Cal.3d _____)

Given Israel's continued operations, it may well be nigh time to have such
constitutional (state AND federal) reasserted on behalf of those whom others provide "consent" to have "treated" in such avowedly painful
manner.

Yeah, I know. Lotsa luck with the Roberts, et al., courts today. Hah!

your left should be your own left