This article was conceived and produced as a project for the Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being, a program of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2020 National Fellowship.
Parents, law enforcement, child advocates and even schools say something has to give. Florida’s Baker Act was never designed with kids in mind, yet they make up the fastest-growing segment of the population that’s finding themselves Committed.
These three charts illustrate Florida’s youth Baker Act crisis. There is no sole source responsible for the growth in involuntary psychiatric exams for minors. The world has grown more complicated and chaotic; Florida has school resource officers in most schools, and they have the sole authority to transport people who’ve been Baker Acted.
While the state cautions against making causations, the data appears to show correlation between the increase in Baker Acts, and the decrease in youth arrests.
Several years ago, the state began trying to decrease the number of children being arrested. In recent years, instead of referring kids to the Department of Juvenile Justice, law enforcement has switched to juvenile citations in an effort to curb the school-to-prison pipeline. But something else has emerged. As the number of Department of Justice referrals has gone down, the number of kids being Baker Acted has risen.
Source: Baker Act Reporting Center/ University of South Florida
This chart shows the correlation between major events, beginning with the 9-11 terrorism attacks, and the rise in Baker Acts among children (those 18 and under). Notable events include the passage of the federal “No Child Left Behind” Act (2002), the shooting at Virginia Tech and the introduction of the iPhone (2007), the Great Recession (2008) and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (2012). It culminates with the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub in 2016.
Source: Florida Department of Children and Families, Nov. 2017. Click on chart to make larger.
