Imprisonment

Homeschooling gives abusive parents the ability to confine their children permanently. There are stories of homeschooled children locked in cages, forced to wear shock collars, or bound with zip-ties. There are stories of homeschooled children chained to their beds, severely malnourished, and starved to death. Physical restraint becomes a means to intimidate and control. In some cases children have been kept in cages at night, locked in their rooms with a bucket to relieve themselves,imprisoned in a bathroom for months, or allowed out of their rooms for only one meal each day. When it comes to both physical confinement, abused homeschooled children are at the mercy of their parents.

Imprisonment played a role in each of the following cases in the HIC database: