Faced with the threat of a federal lawsuit, Los Angeles County reformed its disciplinary practices.
K.I.P.P. schools adopted the method with considerable success, as did other charter networks formerly known for punitive disciplinary practices.
The task force examined disciplinary practices in the city's 1.1 million-student system during the 2011-2012 school year.
The prosecutors, after a three-year inquiry into police disciplinary practices, are prepared to file a lawsuit seeking reforms if they fail to negotiate a settlement on changes.
Facilities also overuse dangerous restraint and disciplinary practices in which children are handcuffed, hog tied, bound to chairs or wrestled to the floor and held down.
Judge Wake said that disciplinary practices against mentally ill inmates had caused "needless suffering and deterioration" and that the jails must ensure they receive prescription medication.
In January, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed a law requiring periodic submission of reports to the City Council on disciplinary practices and police activity in the schools.
He also cited five practices as vestiges of segregation: tracking of students by ability, unequal disciplinary practices, disproportionate special-education referrals for blacks, inadequate provision of student services, and inadequate instruction for students with limited English skills.
The senior investigator, Kurt Andrews, responding to a letter from Ms. Cupo-Cruz, reviewed disciplinary practices among the elite Special Investigations Division -- the department's internal affairs unit, which often looks into claims of racial discrimination.
Its legal codes divested the convict of rights; its ritualized disciplinary practices stripped away his identity; it exposed him to arbitrary and discretionary violence at the hands of his keepers; it buried him alive in a solitary cell.
The paddling of a child to the point of being bruised and fearful of returning to school illustrates the lack of control that states have over their schools' disciplinary practices.
