Last year New York was ready to ban the use of electric shocks as a punishment for bad behavior, despite sending students they could not handle to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, southwest of Boston, which uses "aversive therapy" practices, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Tuesday.

"I understand people who don't know about it think it is cruel," said Susan Handon of New York, 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."

Students at Rotenberg wear backpacks containing a device that allows a staff member to deliver a moderate shock to electrodes attached to their body.