Gettin’ jolted in Massachusetts
Odd-ball story in the Boston Herald:
The family of a New York teenager is accusing his school district of violating his civil rights by sending him to a Massachusetts school that uses electric-shock therapy to treat people with behavioral problems.
Antwone Nicholson, 17, was routinely shocked whenever he swore or did not cooperate with staff at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, where the Freeport Union Free School District sent him when he was 14, according to the notice of intent to sue that his family filed last week.
The school uses what is call “aversion” therapy on students whose behavior can’t be properly modified with less severe regiments. The Herald explains:
The average student [in aversion therapy] receives one two-second jolt per week, he said, although some receive as many as 50 shocks a day.
And here comes the obligatory reference to something unpleasant that people are more familiar with:
The New York State Department of Education does not allow students to be disciplined with corporal punishment, but refers children to the center because Massachusetts has yet to ban corporal punishment of disabled people. “What we’re doing is essentially exporting our torture since we can’t do it here,” Mollins said. “I think people in Massachusetts need to ask why they’re allowing this to go on in their state.”
Why shouldn’t we want to take New York tax-money in return for jolting the Empire State’s obnoxious residents? Hey, send us some Yankees fans!
