The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "mental institutions" ...
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Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America
This book documents how the per-capita disability rate due to mental illness has increased six-fold since 1955, when Thorazine was introduced into asylum medicine. The number of adults on government disability has tripled since 1987, the year Prozac was introduced. Finally, the number of children receiving disability due to a serious mental illness has risen 35-fold since 1987.
Tags: medicine; psychiatry; psychiatric medicine; Thorazine; Prozac; disability; mental illness; National Institute of Mental Health; World Health Organization; American Psychiatric Association;
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"Deaths at the State Hospital"
This ongoing investigation reveals major misconduct by the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo, the largest public psychiatric hospital in the state. The investigative team exposed and detailed the deaths of four patients that resulted from the "mistakes, lack of training, incompetence and possible criminal neglect" carried out by hospital employees. The series also reveals the attempt of state human services officials to cover up the mistakes.
Tags: mental health; patients; grand jury; DA; Pueblo; Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; database; Pueblo State Hospital; Nexis-Lexis; 441.com; CoCourts.com; Colorado Bureau of Investigation
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The Forgotten
This story is an inside look at the systematic warehousing of more than 17,000 adults and children in Serbia's mental institutions. Dateline NBC gained unprecedented access to remote, government-run facilities and found alarming and sometimes life-threatening conditions. The institutions are remnants of Serbia's communist past and symbols of a deeply ingrained prejudice against the mentally disabled and their families. Serbia's medical establishment continues to advise parents to put their mentally disabled newborns into institutions, and the government provides virtually no support for those who choose not to. In mental institutions throughout Serbia, Dateline found adults and children crammed into fetid rooms and metal cribs, their bodies emaciated, atrophied and disfigured. Some residents appeared to be children but they were actually young adults whose growth had been stunted by years of institutionalization. One of our most disturbing discoveries came while staying overnight in a dangerously overcrowded institution. There we learned that children are routinely tied to their bed railings for long periods of time - a practice that one disability rights organization says meets the legal definition of torture under international law.
Tags: mental health; Serbia; child abuse; patient abuse; patient rights; mental institutions
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The Death of Timothy Souders
CBS investigated the death of mentally-ill Timothy Souders at the Southern Michigan Correctional Center. During their investigation they discovered that "inmates with psychological problems are more likely to get in trouble with corrections officers, and thus more likely to be sentenced to solitary confinement and to stay in prison longer."
Tags: prison; mentally ill; solitary confinement; Timothy Souders; state institutions; mental illness
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Head Games
Alan Pendergast, staffwriter for Denver's Westword reports that in 2004, 20% of Colorado's jail population was diagnosed with severe mental illness, and "the true number may be much higher, since some inmates' illnesses are never properly diagnosed." The story compares cost of psychiatric lock-up versus community mental health care. Pendergast advises other journalists doing similar stories should "insist that someone in the accontable chain of command review and comment on the records, even if the actual treatment providers are refusing to be interviewed."
Tags: prison mental illness; correctional systems; lockdown; supermax prison; ADHD; Department of Corrections; forensic psychiatry; head cases; administrative segregation; HIPPA; San Carlos Correctional Facility; Offenders WIth Serious Mental Illness; OSMI; National Institute on Drug Abuse; Mental Health Occupations Grievance Board
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Taking the Cuffs off at Carswell
Fort Worth Weekly reporter Betty Brink has been covering medical and sexual abuse of female inmates at Carswell Federal Medical Center, in Texas, since 1999. As a result of her coverage, and his own investigation, a retired judge, Ross Sears is asking for a Congressional investihgation into the deadly conditions at "the only prison hospital in the country for mentally or chronicallly ill or dying women who have been convicted of a federal crime."
Tags: medical negligence; sexual abuse; Carswell Federal Mediacal Center; medical records; Bureau of Prisons; FOI requests; U.S. Office of Special Counsel; Dr. Roger Guthrie; Ross Sears; retaliation; compassionate release; John Peter Smith Hospital; Tarrant County Medical Examiner; autopsies; prison deaths; women inmates; femaile prisoners; Baylor Regional Transplant Institute; Huguley Memorial Medical Center; brain damage; whistleblower complaints; medical malpractice; sentinel event; rape;
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Twin Towers
'Twin Towers' (L.A. County Jail and also the nation's largest mental institution), was investigated for three months and found the jail to be a 'terrible place to house the mentally ill'. But because community clinics are full to capacity, caring for persons with mental problems continues to fall onto the lap of 'under-trained and overwhelmed' law enforcement personnel.
Tags: jail; L.A. county jail; mentally ill inmates; psychiatric disorders; prison guards; mental health
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The State Boys rebellion
This book reveals the practice of eugenics in America throughout the 20th century. Thousands of normal children were held in mental institutions because they were deemed "deficient" through crude IQ tests. United States health officials wanted to keep them from having children and degrading the American gene pool, a so-called "menace of the feebleminded." While institutionalized the children were beaten, raped and forced to fight each other. The story follows the lives of a group of boys from the Fernald State School.
Tags: BOOK; eugenics; gene pool; State Boys; government experiments
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Armed and Dangerous
WKMG found the State of Florida issuing concealed weapons permits to people who were prohibited by Federal and state law from even possessing guns because they were involuntarily committed by judges to mental institutions or drug-and-alcohol-treatment centers. The politically potent National Rifle Association and its allies have stifled any discussion in Florida about using public records to check on the mental health of the gun buyers. They claim the information is private, but this investigation shows how easily it could be done--if wanted to. This tape also looks at cases of mentally ill patients who have walked into public places like churches and opened fire to kill people.
Tags: TAPE; gun; National Rifle Association; NRA; mental; Florida; weapon; concealed weapon; permit; judge; mental institution; drug treatment; alcohol treatment; public records; mental health; gun buyer; privacy; concealed weapon permit; drug and alcohol treatment; psychotic disorder; concealed weapon permit holder; concealed weapon permit program; US Marshall Service; kill; concealed firearm; scheme; mental health record; health record; Florida legislature; gun control law; mentally ill; killing
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An Act of Desperation
This article from the Tampa Tribune reveals that there are a large number of children locked up in mental facilities based on the Baker's Act in Florida. The Baker's Act is essentially for people who are suicidal. As this reporter found out, the number of children being held under this law is increasing each year. What is also revealed in this article is the fact that the Baker's Act is valid for only a 72 hour period after which the person has to be released if found stable - a law that most mental institutions do not follow.
Tags: mental health; mentally ill; metal health and children; Baker's Law; mental institutions; mental institutions for children