Miss. schools barred from handcuffing students

[Hum]

Public schools in Jackson, Miss., will no longer be allowed to handcuff students to poles or other objects, under a settlement with the Southern Poverty Law Center reached in U.S. District Court.

Jody Owens, director of the Mississippi office of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the Capital City Alternatives school in Mississippi's largest district must immediately stop handcuffing students, a practice used to punish even such things as dress-code violations.

"The focus should be education, not incarceration and it's tantamount to child abuse when children are handcuffed to railings for something as simple as not having the appropriate belt or inappropriate shoe strings," Owens said.

The way students had been disciplined in the school was abusive, she said.

"We have some students who have gone on record to say it's happened to them three or four days in a row," Owens said. "We know there are some students who actually had to eat their lunch with one hand handcuffed to a railing."

According to the settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Tom Lee, district employees will stop handcuffing students younger than 13, and can only handcuff older students for crimes, and no student may be handcuffed to railings, poles, desks, chairs or other objects.

more

[Stephen Veteran]

o_0

[Nihilus]

What the hell?

Lol, just lol.

[Hum]

Golly gee --- they just have to take all the fun out of school ... :/

[The Teej]

I thought this was outlawed decades ago!

[Anibal P]

I thought this was outlawed decades ago!

It's Mississippi, they live in their own time warp bubble

[moloko]

start using tie wraps instead.