Investigations
California Prisons Fail to Uphold Transgender Rights Despite State Law
A 2020 California law aimed to make prison safer for transgender people. But for many trans women, abuse and harassment inside has continued to harm their mental health.
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911 Call-Takers Are Demoralized, Overwhelmed and Dealing With Their Own Mental Health Woes
Inadequate training on mental health crises, poor working conditions and a crazy quilt of dispatch codes from city to city puts both dispatchers and callers in crisis at risk.
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Deadly Consequences: When Police Response to Mental Health Calls in New Hampshire Proves Fatal
More than 60% of people shot and killed by New Hampshire police over the last decade had a mental illness, according to ‘Shots Fired,’ a Concord Monitor analysis published in 2021. Two years later, little has changed. Of the eight people shot and killed by police in New Hampshire since the analysis was published, five had a history of…
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Florida’s Baker Act Has Seized Kids & Adults for Forced Mental Health Holds Almost 2 Million Times in Past Decade. Are Advocates Finally Forcing Change?
In Florida, seizing children and adults and placing them on involuntary mental health holds happens so frequently, it has become a verb: Baker Acted – a reference to a 1971 law. That law was intended to reduce the horrors of asylum care while allowing mentally ill patients to be forcibly evaluated and treated. Instead, it has become a dragnet…
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Their families said they needed mental health treatment. Mississippi officials threw them in jail
In Mississippi, serious mental illness or substance abuse can land you in jail, even if you aren’t charged with a crime. The state is a stark outlier in jailing so many people for so long, but many officials say they don’t have another option. A Mississippi Today/ProPublica investigation.
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As New York Boosts Residential Treatment, Regulators Turn a Blind Eye to Conditions
Residential treatment programs have become a key plank of New York state’s response to addiction and mental illness, and one that is slated to expand. But New York Focus has found that residents of these programs are subject to the whims of providers and landlords – and subject to eviction.
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Backdoor Expulsion: Even Preschoolers are Being Transferred as Punishment
It’s not just teenagers being pushed out of schools. Research suggests pre-schoolers may be most likely to be transferred out as a form of punishment.
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Hidden Expulsions? California Schools Kick Students Out but Call it a ‘Transfer’
Thousands of California students are being transferred for disciplinary reasons – with little or no legal protection. The transfers are demoralizing, advocates say. “Any disruption to a child’s education program is a problem,” said Chelsea Helena, an attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County.
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New Mexico Cities Hope to Reduce Tragedies by Sending Trained Civilians to Answer Mental Health Calls, Instead of Police. Will it Be Enough?
Las Cruces has become the latest city in New Mexico to start a program using mental health workers instead of police to respond to people in crisis. A similar program in Albuquerque, started in 2020, has not led to a reduction in police shootings of people with mental illness.
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