Detroit Never Left: Disabled Children and Institutionalized Violence in America’s Schools

A wake-up call on the use and abuse of restraints against disabled children in public schools

Over 100,000 students are restrained and secluded in locked rooms throughout US public schools; the overwhelming majority are students with disabilities. Despite pleas from parents, disability rights organizations, and at least seventeen state Attorneys General, Congress has refused to pass laws to protect these students from the horrors of harmful restraint and seclusion practices. In No Restraint, Charles Bell argues that seclusion and restraint are so harmful and traumatic that they provoke night terrors, a profound aversion to school, and self-harm in children. Students reported being subjected to aggressive restraint tactics that left bruises on their arms and legs, dragged into seclusion rooms that resemble solitary confinement cells in prisons, and locked inside.

Featuring extensive interviews, ranging across fifteen states, with parents of Black and white children with disabilities as well as university teacher education program directors, Bell explores how parents of children with disabilities perceive the impact of school seclusion and restraint on their families and investigates how the training school officials receive contributes to the misuse of these practices. Among parents, the trauma associated with their child’s restraint and seclusion in school led to physical and mental health challenges, as well as long-term job loss as they advocated for their children. Additionally, as parents challenged harmful restraint and seclusion practices in legal proceedings, school officials often retaliated by filing claims with child protective services, targeting spouses employed within the district, and involving law enforcement.

A deeply moving and timely work, No Restraint exposes how schools function as structurally violent anti-disability institutions. This book will encourage school officials and policymakers to rethink harmful disciplinary strategies and craft stronger policy guidelines that protect children from these practices.

Charles Bell (Author)
Charles Bell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences at Illinois State University. He is the author of Suspended: Punishment, Violence, and the Failure of School Safety, which was a finalist for the 2021 C. Wright Mills Book Award.