Reasonable People Disagree with Me on This. They, of Course, Are Wrong

Nearly a year ago, New York made plans to ban the use of electric shocks as a punishment for bad behavior, a therapy used at a Massachusetts school where New York State had long sent some of its most challenging special education students.

But state officials trying to limit New York's association with the school, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, southwest of Boston, and its “aversive therapy” practices have found a large obstacle in their paths: parents of students who are given shocks.

“I understand people who don't know about it think it is cruel,” said Susan Handon of Jamaica, Queens, whose 20-year-old daughter, Crystal, has been at Rotenberg for four years. “But she is not permanently scarred and she has really learned that certain behaviors, like running up and hitting people in the face, are not acceptable.”


I know what you're thinking. I've thought it, too: “If everyone learned that lesson—‘that certain behaviors, like running up and hitting people in the face, are not acceptable’—where would we get the people to staff our police forces?” I don't know. I won't pretend to have all the answers.

But I know this: Not every sociopath is cut out for law enforcement. For those few, those non-driving few, we have to have options.

And running around and hitting people in the face is inappropriate for most toll booth operators.