In the weeks before the election, fear and anxiety began to mount. Now mental health advocates and allies are getting ready to confront a new reality.
Peoria County Jail in Illinois has kept mentally ill charges in restraint chairs far past industry recommendations.
The United Nations has declared that chair restraints are torture. But Illinois jails use them routinely, according to this story from the Illinois Answers Project.
Physical abuse, rape, and emotional trauma is endemic to psychiatric residential treatment centers for kids and youth nationwide.
One year after being shot in his own building during a mental health crisis, the family of Abnerd Joseph still waits for answers: Why has the man who shot him not been charged?
One year ago, a 22-year-old man who was feeling lost and suicidal in the aftermath of a break-up was killed by police. His father, a crisis mental health worker, still wonders: What would have happened had he gotten a different kind of response?
A MindSite News investigation with the Medill Investigative Lab-Chicago documented widespread use of tasers in response to mental health-related 911 calls.
Restraints are often used by law enforcement on people in a mental health crisis, but advocates say there are better approaches.
For residents of Police Beat 1122 on Chicago's West Side – and for all who watched on TV or social media – the killing of Dexter Reed last month after he was stopped for an alleged seatbelt violation was a vivid reminder: Such violence could happen to them at any time.
For generations, indigenous Mayans from Mexico's Yucatan peninsula have been immigrating to San Francisco. Although there has never been an official count, estimates suggest that as many as 70,000 live in the area. Since many speak indigenous Mayan languages, not Spanish, they may be unaware of services or the dangers of fentanyl.
He took his case, arguing that extended solitary confinement was cruel and unusual, all the way to the Supreme Court – and lost. Today he's out of prison working to rebuild his life.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, veteran activists, dissatisfied by the services and stigma at Veterans Administration facilities, pushed for the creation of community-based programs. The result – the Vet Centers – have been enormously popular and successful. Now that success is under threat.
When police use force in the San Juan and Arecibo regions of Puerto Rico, about a quarter of the time they use it against people suffering a mental health crisis, according to an analysis by the Center for Investigative Journalism. In more than half of these cases, officers discharged their Tasers, which can cause serious harm.
The banging and groans from the cell above had been going on for days. Kory McClary didn't know the name of the man, but his distress was unmistakable. McClary heard him banging on his toilet and his bunk for days with only small breaks in between. He heard him battling guards who entered the cell. He heard him screaming in pain.
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.
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.
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 mental illness. (Illustration: Eric Turner)
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 of sorts that brings hundreds of thousands of adults and children to mental health facilities.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the 2022 fiscal year, more than 800 people died attempting to cross the southern border, making it the deadliest year on record for border crossings. Surviving family members now living in the U.S., must cope with the grief and loss.
Since last spring, more than 30,000 migrants have been processed at NYC shelters. Many are grappling with serious mental health problems, stemming from their migration, language barriers and housing insecurity.
