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NEW JERSEY'S DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED GET MORE PROTECTION
Town Journal - 10/19/2017
Gov. Chris Christie on Oct. 6 signed into law protective measures designed to prevent abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with developmental disabilities.
The bill is known as Stephen Komninos' Law, named after a 22-year-old with intellectual disabilities who died in 2007. Between 2004 and 2007, Komninos suffered 16 separate "substantiated incidents of abuse," according to bill sponsor Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth. Komninos was taken by an employee of the South Jersey home he lived in on a trip to 7-Eleven, where he was left unsupervised against medical orders, choked on a bagel and died.
The new law represents several years of work by the Legislature and advocates to increase state oversight of programs for the developmentally disabled. The law sets a range of requirements for the Department of Human Services to follow at group homes and care facilities. They include: the department must make two unannounced visits annually to group homes and apartments to check for abuse or neglect; drug testing of direct care staff members in programs and housing funded by the Division of Developmental Disabilities; increased criminal penalties for failure to report abuse; and increasing the involvement of families of people with disabilities.
Christie signed the law at a Friday afternoon ceremony in Trenton in front of advocates and victims' family members.
"I'm proud to be a part of strengthening our commitment to protecting people with developmental disabilities while giving their families greater say -- and I hope along with that, a greater peace of mind for the well-being of their loved ones," Christie said.
Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, D-Englewood, is one of the many sponsors who praised Christie's signature of the bill.
"This day has been a long time in the making," she said. "I know we can never erase the pain that the Komninos family has endured, but my hope is that they can find a measure of comfort in the fact that a great deal of good has come out of one of their darkest moments."