They followed doctors’ orders. Then their children were taken away | Published in partnership with The New York Times magazine, this investigation found that hospitals across the country are reporting women and new parents to child welfare authorities for doing nothing more than following a doctor’s orders and taking prescribed medications during pregnancy. We found women reported to authorities for taking antidepressants, anxiety and ADHD medications, even the fentanyl they received in their epidurals. Thousands of women were reported for taking nothing but addiction treatment medications, leading to hundreds of child welfare investigations and in some cases, the removal of newborn babies. Listen to the story here.
American Rehab | In the midst of the worst opioid crisis in America’s history, this eight-part podcast series uncovers a type of rehab that is flourishing by turning tens of thousands of people desperate for treatment into an unpaid labor force.
At hundreds of rehabs, recovery means work without pay | More than 60,000 people per year work without pay in their drug rehab programs, often in dangerous conditions that have led to injuries and deaths. Rehab participants have picked cotton, disposed of dead animals at a zoo, stocked luxury clothing stores, labored on construction sites, in warehouses, and for Fortune 500 companies. Despite decades of documented harm, the Department of Labor has failed to stop it.
She said she’d free them from addiction. She turned them into her personal servants. | “It’s like slavery,” said Denise Cool, who was addicted to crack cocaine when a judge ordered her to the rehab in 2011, “like we were on the plantation.”
They thought they were going to rehab. They ended up in chicken plants | The worst day of Brad McGahey’s life was the day a judge decided to spare him from prison.
In secretive marijuana industry, whispers of abuse and trafficking | The trees towered above them, limbs etched in black against the night sky. He steered his pickup down a narrow path of mud and rocks and parked in front of a trailer. He tried to kiss her. She froze.
Gun-toting guards armed with poor training, little oversight | Armed security guards have become a ubiquitous presence in modern life, projecting an image of safety amid public fears of mass shootings and terrorism. But often, it’s the guards themselves who pose the threat.
Guard industry welcomes ex-police officers despite shady pasts | Greene lost his position at the sheriff’s department. But he did not lose his ability to don a uniform and carry a gun. He went on to become an armed guard at a suburban apartment complex, getting into fights, pulling out his gun, and escalating tensions with residents, until on Sept. 11, 2012, he shot a man to death.
Florida clubgoer’s death shows weak links in security guard licensing | Kendle called 911. “How you doing?” he greeted the dispatcher in a calm, steady voice. “There’s a shooting at Club Rol-Lexx.” “Where’s the gunman now?” “I am the gunman,” Kendle said. “I’m the security officer here.”
Shootings by security guards rarely reported, investigated | Only 12 states require security guards or their employers to report the use of their guns. And regulatory agencies monitoring armed security guards rarely discipline them or their companies for not reporting a shooting.