To understand what the The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) does to teens, see the following news report on a current court case against the facility with VIDEO OF A YOUTH BEING TIED DOWN AND SHOCKED 31 TIMES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtRGQRtwh2U

The United Nations has called what they do 'torture'

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, MA  is the nation’s only remaining residential special education school to utilize LEGAL aversive therapy (including electric shock), on individuals with disabilities. Their practices include very controversial applications of behavioral methodology.  JRC is under investigation by the United States Department of Justice for their highly controversial practices;  a long history of tension surrounds their application of behavioral methodology.   Their practices have been deemed to meet the legal definition of torture by dozens of disability rights organizations, yet the school, the only one in the nation to still utilize aversive therapy, remains open.  For years, JRC has justified the use of aversive methods to discipline students with disabilities despite sharp criticism from colleagues in the field by contending that it is the last resort for the many residents of the school, many of whom are considered to have severe disabilities. Massachusetts grants the Judge Rotenberg Center status as an approved special education school in the state. 

It is difficult to understand how JRC can continue to justify their methodology by their population alone, especially given that every other state in the nation, who clearly are also home to students with similar challenges, do not engage in - but rather, renounce - the use of aversive therapy. Massachusetts has stricter regulations enforcing the rights of both incarcerated individuals  and animals than students with disabilities.

In 2007, JRC attracted much unwanted attention when a report from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care detailed an incident in which two of the school’s residents were shocked upwards of 75 and 28 times, both requiring emergency medical attention, the result of a prank phone call from a former resident of the school. According to reports, JRC refused to cooperate in the subsequent investigation, destroying video evidence of the administration of the aversive procedures, despite being ordered to turn it over to the State Police.