Leveling the Playing Field in School Safety: National Data Reveal Who Is Most Harmed by Restraint, Seclusion, and Corporal Punishment

We want to share with you an honors thesis project by former Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint intern Lauren Sukhu. The thesis offers powerful, data‑driven evidence that restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment in U.S. public schools are not used equally; they fall most heavily on students with disabilities, Black students, students of two or more races, boys, and students in Republican‑led states.

Purpose and data source

Lauren Sukhu’s honors thesis, Level the Playing Field in School Safety, analyzes national Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) data from 2017–2018 to ask a central question: which students are most likely to be subjected to physical restraint, mechanical restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment in school, and by how much? Using chi‑square analyses, the study looks across disability, race, gender, and political affiliation of states, including combinations of these factors (for example, race by disability, race by gender, and race by state partisanship).

The analysis focuses on pre‑pandemic data to avoid distortions from COVID‑19–era schooling and uses the U.S. Department of Education’s own CRDC database on restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment events.

Key findings: Who is most at risk?

Across all forms of restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment, the study finds large and statistically significant disparities between student groups.

Students with disabilities

Students with disabilities were 26.6 times more likely to be physically restrained and 22.4 times more likely to be secluded than students without disabilities.
For mechanical restraint, students with disabilities were 4.6 times more likely to be restrained; for corporal punishment, they were still 1.3 times more likely to be punished than nondisabled peers.

Race

Black students and students of two or more races consistently had the highest rates of physical restraint, mechanical restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment, while Asian students had the lowest.
Black students were about 1.8 times more likely than White students to experience physical restraint, 3.8 times more likely to experience mechanical restraint, and 2.3 times more likely to experience corporal punishment.
Students of two or more races had the highest seclusion rates and, among students with disabilities, were more likely than White peers with disabilities to be restrained or secluded.

Gender

Male students were 4.5 times more likely than female students to experience physical restraint and seclusion, and about 2.9 times more likely to experience mechanical restraint.
For corporal punishment, boys were about 4.3 times more likely than girls to be subjected to these practices.

Political affiliation of states

Students in Republican‑governed states were more likely to experience physical restraint and seclusion than students in Democratic states, even after accounting for population differences.
For seclusion, students in Republican states were about 1.2 times more likely to experience an event than those in Democratic states.
When race and politics are considered together, Black students and students of two or more races in Republican states face especially elevated risks.

Taken together, the findings show that “school safety” measures are deeply unequal: children with disabilities, Black children, children of two or more races, and boys, particularly in Republican‑led states, are significantly more exposed to restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment than their peers.

Why this study matters for policy and advocacy

The thesis situates its findings in a context in which there is no comprehensive national law governing restraint, seclusion, or corporal punishment in schools, and in which states vary dramatically in their protections. Only some states have strict limits or training requirements, many have weak or no policies, and numerous states still legally allow corporal punishment in schools.

Sukhu’s analysis goes beyond simple counts and percentages by accounting for each group’s underlying population size, revealing that disparities are even larger than many earlier reports suggested. The study also echoes federal concerns about the quality of CRDC data, underreporting, inconsistent definitions, and missing data, but shows that even with these limitations, the inequities are stark and statistically robust.

For advocates, this research underscores that restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment are not neutral safety tools; they are mechanisms through which discrimination and ableism are enacted in schools. The disproportionate impact on disabled students and Black students aligns with parents’ experiences and prior smaller‑scale studies, but here it is documented across the entire national public school population.

Recommendations from the Author

Based on these findings, the thesis calls for national action rather than leaving student protections to a patchwork of state and local policies. The author argues that:

National restrictions on the use of restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment in schools are needed to prevent unequal and discriminatory treatment.
Stronger disability protections must be enacted, specifically aimed at preventing the routine use of restraint and seclusion on students with disabilities.
Anti‑discrimination protections should address racial disparities, particularly for Black students and students of two or more races, and for boys who are disproportionately targeted.
Mandatory training in evidence‑based de‑escalation and crisis prevention should replace reliance on coercive and punitive practices.

The thesis also points to critical directions for future research, including examining the psychological impact of these practices, studying effective de‑escalation strategies, and using newer CRDC cycles to track whether reforms are reducing harms and disparities.

Read the full study

The full honors thesis, Level the Playing Field in School Safety by Lauren Sukhu (University of Texas at Austin, 2026), provides detailed tables, statistical analyses, and a comprehensive literature review on restraint, seclusion, and corporal punishment in U.S. schools.