Friday, June 29, 2012

Ban on Shock Treatments on Disabled People Kept Out of State Budget

By Margaret Carroll-Bergman

An amendment to ban electric shock treatments on disabled people was not adopted to the state budget Thursday in a conference committee of House and Senate legislators.

The amendment to the state budget that would ban aversion therapies on disabled people was championed by state Sen. Brian A. Joyce, who has been working on this ban for more than a dozen years.

Joyce told Fox News that he was "incredibly disappointed once again."

"I believe that the JRC is the only such facility in the world where these brutal practices are allowed," said Joyce in a live chat with Canton.Patch.com earlier this month. "Under the U.S. Constitution, it would be cruel and unusual punishment to apply such a painful device as the GED-IV to the most heinous of criminals. In fact, had we caught Osama Bin Laden alive, under international law, we could not have done to him what is done to innocent and disabled children at the JRC."

The conference committee includes Sen. Stephen M. Brewer (D-Barre), Sen. Jennifer Flanagan (D-Leominster), Sen. Michael Knapik (R-Westfield), Rep. Brian Dempsey (D-Haverhill), Rep. Stephen Kulik (D-Worthington) and Rep. Viriato Manuel deMacedo (R-Plymouth).