Seclusion and restraint have been used in various situations to deal with violent or noncompliant behavior. One of the most common settings for their use has been psychiatric hospitals, but seclusion and restraint have also been used in other residential facilities and in schools. Because of congressional interest in the use of seclusion and restraint in schools, this report focuses on the legal issues concerning the use of these techniques in schools, including their application both to children covered by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and to those not covered by IDEA. Several reports have documented instances of deaths and injuries resulting from the use of seclusion or restraints in schools but until the Department of Education (ED) issued reporting requirements in March 2010, there was no general reporting requirement. On May 19, 2009, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), in conjunction with a hearing in the House Education and Labor Committee, released a study examining the use of seclusion and restraint in the education setting, finding hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death due to the use of seclusion and restraint. GAO also examined state laws and noted that it "could not find a single Web site, federal agency, or other entity that collects information on the use of these methods or the extent of their alleged abuse." On March 16, 2010, the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education added seclusion and restraint data to its collection of educational information. On July 31, 2009, the Secretary of Education sent letters to Chief State School Officers noting the problems identified by the GAO report and in the May 19 hearing in the House Education and Labor Committee. The Secretary encouraged each state to review its current policies regarding the use of restraints and seclusion in schools and, if appropriate, develop or revise the policies prior to the start of the 2009-2010 school year. He noted the approach used in Illinois, which includes an emphasis on the use of positive behavior intervention and supports, and concluded by stating that the Chief State School Officers would be contacted by ED by August 15, 2009, to discuss relevant state laws, regulations, policies, and guidance. The results of these discussions are posted on ED's website. Generally, the information from the states indicates varied approaches to the use of seclusion and restraint. Federal law does not contain general provisions relating to the use of seclusion and restraint, and currently there are no specific federal laws concerning the use of seclusion and restraint in public schools. However, certain uses of seclusion and restraint in health care facilities that receive federal funds and in certain non-medical, community-based facilities for children and youth are prohibited by the Children's Health Act of 2000. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities, and an argument could be made that some uses of seclusion and restraint would violate this requirement. In addition, certain procedures may violate constitutional rights or state laws. In the 111 th Congress, H.R. 911 , a bill that would prohibit some use of seclusion and restraint in certain residential programs for children, passed the House on February 23, 2009. Legislation specifically regarding the use of seclusion and restraint in public and private schools, H.R. 4247 , S. 2860 , and S. 3895 , 111 th Congress, has been introduced, and H.R. 4247 passed the House on March 3, 2010. Prior to examining legal principles involved in the use of seclusion and restraint in school, it is helpful to define the terms. The terms have been defined by the Department of Education for the purposes of the 2009-10 Civil Rights Data Collection. Seclusion is defined by ED as: [t]he involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving. It does not include a timeout, which is a behavior management technique that is part of an approved program, involves the monitored separation of the student in a non-locked setting, and is implemented for the purpose of calming. ED defines restraint for the purposes of the 2009-10 Civil Rights Data Collection as including two parts: physical restraints and mechanical restraints. Physical restraints are defined as: A personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a student to move his or her torso, arms, legs, or head freely. The term physical restraint does not include a physical escort. Physical escort means a temporary touching or holding of the hand, wrist, arm, shoulder or back for the purpose of inducing a student who is acting out to walk to a safe location. Mechanical restraints are defined as: The use of any device or equipment to restrict a student's freedom of movement. The term does not include devices implemented by trained school personnel, or utilized by a student that have been prescribed by an appropriate medical or related services professional and are used for the specific and approved purposes for which such devices were designed, such as: •    Adaptive devices or mechanical supports used to achieve proper body position, balance, or alignment to allow greater freedom of mobility than would be possible without the use of such devices or mechanical supports; •    Vehicle safety restraints when used as intended during the transport of a student in a moving vehicle; •    Restraints for medical immobilization; or •    Orthopedically prescribed devices that permit a student to participate in activities without risk of harm. There is no specific federal statutory definition of the terms as used in school settings, although the terms have been defined in the context of community-based facilities for children and youth under the Children's Health Act of 2000. For community-based facilities, seclusion is defined as the involuntary confinement of an individual alone in a room or an area from which the person is physically prevented from leaving. Restraint is defined as a manual method, physical or mechanical device, material, or equipment, that immobilizes or reduces an individual's freedom of movement. At times, the use of seclusion and restraint in public schools has been subject to constitutional challenge. Such challenges have primarily been based upon the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process and the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures, although other types of constitutional claims have been asserted at times. The Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the government from depriving an individual of his liberty without due process of the law. Although the Supreme Court has not directly considered whether the use of seclusion and restraint in public schools violates the Due Process Clause, the Court has considered a related case involving restraint of a mentally retarded adult confined to a state hospital. In Youngberg v. Romeo , the Court applied a reasonableness standard, holding that there is a constitutionally protected liberty interest in reasonably safe conditions of confinement and freedom from unreasonable bodily restraint. However, in order to determine what is reasonable, courts must defer to the judgment of qualified professionals. In the public school setting, due process challenges to the use of seclusion and restraint have generally been rejected if such tactics are deemed to be reasonable, especially if such use constitutes a routine disciplinary technique. For example, in Wallace by Wallace v. Bryant Sch ool Dist rict , the court held that the plaintiff's isolation in a music room for three class periods was not a due process violation, and in Dickens v. Johnson County B oar d of Educ ation , the court similarly rejected a due process challenge to a brief "timeout" imposed on a student because his seclusion "was not unduly harsh or grossly disproportionate." In some cases, however, the use of seclusion and restraint may be actionable under the Due Process Clause if it is found to be unreasonable. Courts are even more likely to find the use of seclusion and restraint to be unreasonable if such use is so extreme that it "shocks the conscience." Although many of these cases involve more extreme disciplinary methods, such as corporal punishment, there have been some cases that involve seclusion and restraint. In Orange v. County of Grundy , the court declined to dismiss a substantive due process claim, ruling that "placing school children in isolation [in a storage closet] for an entire school day without access to lunch or a toilet facility 'shocks the conscience.'" Indeed, the court emphasized that the use of seclusion must be reasonable, and school officials bear the responsibility to supervise students who are in isolation. Ultimately, however, the due process inquiry, and the reasonableness standard upon which it relies, are subjective and highly dependent on the facts in a given case, thus making it difficult to predict the outcome of a due process challenge to the use of seclusion and restraint in public schools. Meanwhile, some plaintiffs have also claimed that the use of seclusion and restraint violates the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the government from subjecting individuals to "unreasonable searches and seizures." As with due process claims, courts assess such Fourth Amendment claims using a reasonableness standard. For example, in Rasmus v. Arizona , the court refused to dismiss a student's claim that his brief seclusion in a locked closet constituted a seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment, reasoning that the seizure could be considered unreasonable because it violated the fire code and behavior management guidelines. In contrast, the court in Couture v. Board of Education of the Albuquerque Public Schools found that the use of supervised timeouts for a student who engaged in disruptive and threatening behavior was reasonable, particularly in light of the fact that the use of timeouts was authorized by the student's Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Ultimately, like due process cases, the resolution of Fourth Amendment claims involving the use of seclusion and restraint generally depends on the facts of a given case, with a violation unlikely to be found except in cases involving excessive or unreasonable uses of such tactics. Finally, it is important to note that constitutional claims have, in some cases, been limited by courts that may be reluctant to find constitutional violations for actions that could ordinarily be remedied under state tort law.