The torture chambers down the street

On the plight of children placed in so-called 'seclusion' in public schools

A school child.
(Image credit: Illustrated | isabella antonelli/iStock, urfinguss/iStock)

Once in a great while a piece of news rises above the omnidirectional tedium of our outrage cycle to demand everyone's attention. The Washington, D.C., radio station WAMU recently reported on the plight of hundreds of children placed in so-called "seclusion" in public schools. Some of these children were as young as 6 years old. Some of them were locked up by themselves as often as a hundred times a year. Many of them were intellectually or otherwise disabled. One autistic boy, Elijah Lickenfelt, was locked up for hours on end in a room with no windows.

These are not last-ditch efforts by desperate teachers. School buildings have been designed with the practice in mind. According to Elijah's mother, Anne, the seclusion rooms at her son's former school were "built like Russian nesting dolls, rooms within a room. The innermost room was reserved for children with egregious behavior issues." This is not a story from the imagination of Poe or Sade. It is an American public school attempting to address the apparently inexplicable reality that children misbehave. Reading about it is bad enough, but if you want to see what it looks like when a terrified boy is hauled into a dungeon by an adult who is ostensibly responsible for his well-being, watch this:

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.