How often do restraint and seclusion occur?
The Hartford Courant first reported on the nationwide extent of restraint and seclusion in 1998, reporting at least 142 deaths due to the use of restraint and seclusion in psychiatric hospitals and developmental centers over a 10-year period. In 1998, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimated deaths due to such practices at 150 each year across the nation. Children were noted to be at especially high risk for death and serious injury. In 2009, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported to Congress that there were hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death related to the use of these methods on school children during the past two decades.[2] Only a few states require reporting of incidents in schools and have data on how often children are restrained and secluded in school. Texas and California, two states that together contain more than 20 percent of the nations children, reported over 33,000 restraint or seclusion incidents in the 2007-8 school year. The GAO concluded
