V. Corporal Punishment by the Numbers

Data from the Office for Civil Rights at the US Department of Education demonstrate that at least 41,972 students with disabilities were subjected to corporal punishment at least once in the 2006-2007 school year, the most recent year for which data exist.[74]Of these, 39,093 students are defined as disabled under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,[75] and the additional 2,879 students receive assistance under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.[76] These numbers likely undercount the extent of violence against students with disabilities, in part because schools are not required to report all forms of violent discipline.

The total number of students, with and without disabilities, who were subjected to corporal punishment in the 2006-2007 school year was 223,190.[77] Students with disabilities, therefore, made up 18.8 percent of those who received corporal punishment,[78] even though they constitute just 13.7 percent of the nationwide student population.[79] This disparity suggests that the most vulnerable students are receiving beatings at disproportionately high rates.

Number of Students Paddled in the 2006-2007 School Year, by State

© 2008 Human Rights Watch

Disproportionately High Rates of Corporal Punishment among Students with Disabilities

Corporal punishment is legal under domestic law in 20 states, though in these states many individual school districts choose not to use corporal punishment.[80] In each of those states, corporal punishment of students with disabilities-regardless of the type or degree of disability-is permitted. The vast majority of state laws permitting paddling do not distinguish between students with disabilities and students without disabilities,[81] despite the fact that corporal punishment is prohibited in some states' psychiatric institutions.[82] The Kentucky statute permitting corporal punishment allows corporal punishment of "mentally disabled persons."[83] Texas prohibits certain types of confinement for students with disabilities, but allows them to be paddled.[84]

Some states with legal corporal punishment use it more than others; states that paddle all students at high rates also paddle students with disabilities at high rates. For instance, Texas paddles the most students in the nation, as well as the most students with disabilities: OCR data show that 10,222 students with disabilities were subjected to corporal punishment in the 2006-2007 school year, more than in any other state.[85]

Table 1: The Ten States with the Highest Rates of Corporal Punishment                                           

Source: OCR Civil Rights Data Collection, 2006.

Students with disabilities are corporally punished at disproportionately high rates in almost every state that uses paddling heavily. In Tennessee, for example, students with disabilities are 2.1 times as likely to be paddled as all students.[86] Likewise, in Georgia, students with disabilities are 1.7 times as likely to be paddled as all students.[87] Of these states that use corporal punishment heavily, only Oklahoma paddles students with and without disabilities at roughly the same rate.[88] While some students with disabilities may have particular behavioral problems, this does not justify the disproportionate use of violence against these students. As discussed below, there are more effective methods of discipline that provide safe environments in which all students can learn.[89]

Table 2: Disproportionality for Students with Disabilities in the Ten States with the Highest Rates of Corporal Punishment                      

Source: OCR Civil Rights Data Collection, 2006.

Undercounting of Data on Corporal Punishment

While these figures and rates may already appear high, they likely undercount and therefore do not reflect the full extent of corporal punishment against students with disabilities in US public schools. First, the data record the number of students hit each year, not the number of incidents.[90] In other words, the data show that 41,972 individual students with disabilities were beaten in the relevant school year, but do not show on how many occasions corporal punishment occurred. Because many students likely were beaten more than once in the school year-a reasonable assumption given the evidence collected from our interviewees-the overall number of beatings administered each year is undoubtedly higher.

The data also very likely undercount the number of students paddled each year because some school districts fail to report all incidents to the federal government. A parent and advocate for students with disabilities in Mississippi told us "most schools don't know they have to report paddling."[91] One superintendent of a major Mississippi school district told us the reported numbers were low: "[W]e probably do it twice as much as reported.... [T]here is no documentation you have to send to the central office to say that you did it."[92]

Furthermore, the OCR data likely do not incorporate two major categories of violent discipline against special education students. First, violent discipline which might not be considered "corporal punishment" by the school district, yet nonetheless meets the definition of corporal punishment under human rights law, would not be reported.[93] Our interviews suggest that many incidents of corporal punishment outside of paddling take place, yet are not reported.

Second, school districts in states without legal corporal punishment may nonetheless use violent techniques against students with disabilities;[94] such instances are not reported to OCR.[95] For instance, in the course of restraint in states throughout the US, students are subjected to violent discipline that can amount to corporal punishment.[96] Furthermore, there is no federal reporting requirement for the use of restraint, and only two states (California and Connecticut) require annual reporting on the use of restraints.[97]

Lack of Information on Violence against Students with Disabilities

According to our interviewees, students with disabilities are routinely and repeatedly subjected to physical force in schools. Yet parents-who have particularly strong interests in knowing what happens to their children-report that they were unable to get information on the forms of punishment used against their children. If parents themselves are unable to gather information, any more general data or systematic reporting is surely lacking, suggesting chaotic, haphazard record-keeping at best.

Parents repeatedly reported that the school did not tell them when force was used against their children. May R., the mother of a then seven-year-old girl with bipolar disorder in Florida, noted that "most of the time, they didn't call me if they restrained or secluded her."[98] Sarah P., who is the grandmother of a then five-year-old boy with Asperger's Syndrome in Oklahoma, reported, "No-one called me, no-one told me anything. The principal really doesn't want parents to know about anything."[99]

Parents are left with an incomplete picture of the abuse against their children. A 2009 study on restraint and other abusive practices used against students with disabilities found that 71 percent of the 185 sets of parents interviewed did not consent to the use of these practices.[100]An Arkansas mother, Karen W., reported to us, "You've got to understand, there's no law here that says they have to tell us when they do this. I'm just telling you the ones [the incidents] I saw. [My son, who has autism] was probably restrained 20 or 30 times during this period, from August to October."[101] Anna M., the mother of a Florida boy with autism, struggled to find out what happened to her son: "I had to hire attorneys, I still don't know everything. No one will tell me everything."[102]

Children who have disabilities that hinder verbal communication may often be unable to tell their parents what happened to them. Sharon H., a Georgia mother of a now nine-year-old girl with autism, regrets that she does not know the extent of her daughter's beatings at the age of five: "I'm afraid I don't know [all that happened.] Brianna was afraid to talk. She was grabbed, yanked, pulled. But I don't know all that happened. She wasn't very verbal."[103] Anna M., a Florida mother, observed that "sometimes it took my son [who has autism] weeks to come out with things-I don't know if he couldn't process it, or find words. He's much better now [since moving from the abusive environment]."[104]

Some parents find out years later the extent of the abuse against their children. Sharon H., the mother of the now nine-year-old girl with autism, reported that her daughter has begun to tell her more about what happened at school: "Brianna is still coming out with things. It took her a whole year to tell me the other stuff."[105] Karen W., whose son with autism was physically punished between the ages of 8 and 10, found out more details now that he is 13 years old:

He wasn't very verbal back then ... It took him a long time to tell me what happened. But I'm a lot more fortunate than some of these parents. My son could at least tell me, he couldn't explain, but he could tell me.[106]