Mississippi Agrees to Stop Handcuffing Students to Poles [View all]

[limpyhobbler]

(JACKSON, Miss.) — Students will no longer be handcuffed to poles in a Jackson, Mississippi public school.

The Capital City Alternative School, Mississippi’s second largest school district, reached the agreement with the Southern Poverty Law Center in U-S District Court on Friday. They agreed to immediately stop the practice of handcuffing their students to poles and other objects, and must immediately place new methods of discipline in dealing with non-criminal behaviors.

According to the settlement, no student under the age of 13 can be handcuffed. Students over the age of 13 may be handcuffed only for crimes, but must not be handcuffed to stationary objects.

Jody Owens, director of the Mississippi office of the Southern Poverty Law Center, says the way the school dealt with discipline in the school was tantamount to child abuse, “We have some students who have gone on record to say it’s happened to them three or four days in a row. We know there are some students who actually had to eat their lunch with one hand handcuffed to a railing.”
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via: http://www.classichitsandoldies.com/v2/2012/05/27/mississippi-agrees-to-stop-handcuffing-students-to-poles/