The lock clicked, binding Jennifer Msumba to a court-ordered electric shock device used as punishment at a Massachusetts day and residential school.
Soon after, she said, she was shocked twice: first for telling a nurse, “No, thank you,” when asked to take medication, and later for getting out of bed to use the bathroom.
“And that was my first day on the shock program,” Msumba recalled in the award-winning documentary “The Fish Don’t Care When It Rains.”
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The documentary, which premiered at the Heartland International Film Festival in Indianapolis, focuses on Msumba’s experiences at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Mass.
The two shocks she received that first day were only a glimpse of what was to come. Msumba, who now lives in Florida, said she later endured repeated shocks, food deprivation and forced “self-care” procedures that are examined in the documentary.
JRC, a day and residential facility serving those with disabilities, has become known across the country for using electric shock devices that are attached at all times to people who demonstrate self-injurious or aggressive behavior.
It is the only facility in the country to use them and has been the center of many advocates’ concerns for decades.
The JRC has said the device is “lifesaving” and that it is important it “remains available to those for whom all other treatment options have been tried and failed,” the JRC and the JRC Parents Association wrote in a statement after a 2023 court ruling that allowed continued use of the devices.
Facility representatives said that their clients have had behaviors that result in “profound physical injuries including blindness and mutilation” before using the devices. The clients have also injured family members and loved ones.
“Families turn to JRC after exhausting other options because of its record in successfully addressing the most challenging cases. Clients live in the community with appropriate monitoring, and their care is overseen by on-site physicians and nurses to maintain the highest standards of safety and treatment. The program operates under rigorous oversight from state agencies and the courts,” a previous statement read.
JRC told MassLive in an email that the “documentary presents a false, distorted and incomplete picture.”
“It relies heavily on false accounts, while overlooking Jennifer’s positive experiences at JRC as well as the experiences of other individuals and families who credit JRC with transforming — and in some cases saving — their lives,” the statement reads. “Through highly specialized treatment, individuals whose lives were once defined by dangerous behaviors, heavy medication, restraint and isolation have been able to live with others, pursue employment and participate safely in their communities. We will continue working to give these individuals the opportunity for safer, healthier and more independent lives.”
As of 2024, more than 300 people attended or lived at JRC, and about 55 people had court approval to use the devices. That same year, WCVB reported that New York taxpayers contributed about $150 million to the Canton school over 10 years, and Massachusetts taxpayers contributed more than $170 million to the JRC over the same period.
Throughout her life, Msumba had “very strong self-harm behaviors,” including putting her head through windows. In the documentary, she talked about having autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). She was in a state hospital when she was given the opportunity to go to JRC.
When she toured JRC, she said “something didn’t feel right,” describing how no one there looked up from their computer screens when she walked into the classrooms. She said a friend tried to warn her.
“Jen, don’t let them bring you here. They’re going to shock you,” she recalled her friend saying before he was dragged away.
Still, she said she ignored her gut, hoping it’d be better than the state hospital she was in.
She lived at JRC from 2002 to 2009 and wore the shock devices for all seven years. At the beginning of her time there, she said she was shocked daily.
“Crying was also a behavior that I got in trouble for, so I had to cry in secret,” Msumba said in video testimony used in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration hearing.
In March 2020, the FDA banned electrical stimulation devices used for self-injurious or aggressive behavior. But that decision was overturned.
The FDA warned in its petition that the “FDA determined that those devices present unreasonable and substantial risks of both physical and psychological injury.”
“The shocks cause pain that has been described as ‘extremely painful,’ ‘excruciatingly painful,’ ‘like a dentist drilling on an un-anesthetized tooth,’ like a ‘bulging and a ruptured disc,’ like ‘a thousand bees stinging you in the same place for a few seconds,’ and as ‘the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced,’” the petition states.
But it wasn’t just the electric shocks that Msumba said traumatized her.
One method used at JRC was the “contingent food program,” which required her to earn her meals. She said they chopped her meals and put them into various cups. She could earn her cups by avoiding certain behaviors, but if she engaged in an unwanted behavior — such as talking to herself — she had to stand up and throw away her food.
“Most days I didn’t earn my food,” she said in the documentary.
For the first year Msumba was there, she wasn’t allowed to take a shower. Instead, she was strapped to a four-point restraint board naked for what she referred to as “self-care” in the documentary.
Msumba said two female staff would use buckets of water and soap to wash her body. But a camera in the corner allowed male staff to observe.
“It was like a bath from hell,” she said nearly in tears, adding that she was once shocked for screaming “the r-word” (rape) during the washing.
She said she hadn’t spoken out about this part of her time at JRC before, despite being outspoken about the electric shocks for years, because she was trying to protect herself.
“I couldn’t get away,” she said, crying.
JRC said the contingent food program and restraint board procedures mentioned in the documentary “were safe and effective.” However, both programs were “discontinued over 15 years ago when JRC developed alternatives.”
JRC officials told MassLive they felt the documentary lacked context, including positive reflections Msumba sent JRC soon after leaving in emails and a video interview.
“In a videotaped interview she gave us after leaving JRC in 2009, Jennifer described spending the ten years prior to JRC in state hospitals and group homes, where she said she had been forced to take ineffective psychiatric medications and that her experience ‘was not living,’” JRC said in a statement. “Reflecting on her experience after receiving treatment at JRC, she said: ‘Everything is better. I am proud of myself and my family is proud of me too. My body is a lot more healthy. I can play outside like I love to do. I play piano and draw all the time. In the weekend, I go home with my mom and spend time with my family. I am much happier and so is my family.’”
They also said “Many claims in the documentary are simply false,” adding that the documentary talks about Msumba’s mother signing over her guardianship and trying to fight to get it back.
“… after Jennifer’s first three years at JRC, Jennifer’s mother became a co-guardian for her daughter and consented to Jennifer’s treatment program at JRC. Jennifer eventually departed JRC when funding from her state agency became unavailable,” JRC stated.
Msumba is hoping that making the documentary available on the right platforms will finally bring “real conversation” and change.
Msumba daydreams of ninjas breaking into JRC to “save everybody” and shut down the facility.
“But I don’t have ninjas,” she said.
At the 35th Heartland International Film Festival, it won the Documentary Feature Grand Prize, Overall Documentary Audience Choice Award and the Richard D. Propes Documentary Social Impact Award.
“I couldn’t be more proud of @jennifermsumba and everything she’s accomplished. Jen, your courage, determination and passion for making a difference are what this film is all about,” Executive Filmmaker Tony Armer wrote on Instagram.
For seven years, Msumba said, staff assigned her to count popsicle sticks and fold towels, tasks that reflected what she believes was the center’s low expectations of her abilities.
Her documentary tells a different story.
Msumba’s own music is woven throughout “The Fish Don’t Care When It Rains,” which is being submitted for Oscar qualification and is expected to screen in Boston, Los Angeles and Tampa, Fla.
She has also released a book, “Shouting At Leaves,” about her time at the center, shares parts of her story on TikTok and joined a church worship band.
“They wildly underestimated me,” she said.
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