baker act
What is the
Baker Act? How is it Abused
in Florida Schools?
Enacted in 1971, the Florida Mental
Health Act,
commonly known as the "Baker Act",
helps protect the rights of the mentally ill who
could be a danger to themselves or the public.
It was originally intended as a means of
preventing elder abuse in which one or more
family members would have another family member
committed in order to gain control of their
estate prior to death. However, the Baker Act
also applies to children, and allows for their
voluntary or involuntary placement in a mental
health facility for psychiatric evaluation,
which can last up to 72 hours. Between January
2002 and November 2004,
over 49,000 certificates
were issued to Baker Act a child in the State of Florida.
Several
of these were initiated by public schools who
exercise the Baker Act to manage unruly or
disruptive students in the classroom. Often times
these children have documented disabilities,
like ADHD, Autism, or other disorders which are
often manifested as behavior problems. In
cases like these, teachers and administrators
abuse the Baker Act to get the kids out of their
classrooms and scare the parents into taking
their children out of school, or even
homeschooling their children for their own
safety.The story below is just one of
thousands which occur each year in Florida.
This 7-year-old boy undoubtedly had a
troublesome day at school, but does that warrant
spending the night alone in a mental hospital?
Did something happen in the classroom that
precipitated an outburst? Was this a child with a
documented disability? Could the situation have
been handled more appropriately in a less
threatening and restrictive manner? How
would you react if this was your child?
Police hospitalize 7-year-old under Baker Act
[Article copied from
tampabay.com
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/article975987.ece]
By
Jonathan Abel, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, February 14, 2009
LARGO —
Police this week removed an unruly 7-year-old from his classroom
and forced him to be hospitalized under the state's Baker Act —
against the wishes of his outraged parents.
The boy
spent the night alone at Morton
Plant Hospital before he was
seen by a child psychologist the next day and discharged.
"This is
a total abuse of police power," said the boy's father, Richard
Smith, 41. "My son has no mental health problems. He's never
hurt himself. He's never hurt anyone else."
Smith
and his wife, Barbara, said they want to consult a lawyer.
But
Largo deputy police Chief John Carroll said his officers did the right
thing.
By all
accounts, the second-grader threw a tantrum at Mildred Helms
Elementary on Wednesday. Carroll said the boy tore up the room
during his fit. In the process, he stepped on a teacher's foot
and "battered" a school administrator.
Carroll
said the tantrum was so bad that school officials had to
evacuate students from the classroom.
School
officials called the parents and police. When officers arrived,
they decided the boy needed a mental health examination.
This was
not the first time the boy had acted up, Carroll said, and the
lead officer, Michael Kirkpatrick, decided the boy couldn't just
go home again with his mother.
"He just
felt that this young man needed some mental health service he
wasn't getting," Carroll explained. "The Baker Act is a kind of
a Band-Aid that allows us to have somebody introduced to the
service providers that can actually do something for him."
Barbara
Smith said she could have defused the situation had officers let
her see her son. Instead, they kept her from him as they
conducted their investigation, she said.
When
police decided to take him to a hospital, she agreed to ride
with the boy in a police car to comfort him.
The
incident was terrifying for the boy, whose name is not being
used by the St. Petersburg Times. Barbara Smith is
keeping the boy and his 9-year-old sister out of school because
they are "scared to death" to go back, she said.
The
Baker Act allows people to be taken for mental health
examination against their will. But it requires a person show a
substantial likelihood of causing serious injury to himself or
others.
Absent
that, police cannot use the Baker Act to take someone into
custody against their will, even if they think the person needs
help, said Raine Johns, who handles Baker Act cases for the
Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender's Office.
"That's
not the purpose of the Baker Act at all," said Johns, who is not
involved in the case. "Stepping on somebody's foot doesn't rise
to the level of substantial bodily harm."
Martha
Lenderman, a Pinellas-based Baker Act expert, said a child can
be taken against parents' wishes, but only if he meets all the
criteria.
Johns
said she has seen children as young as 7 taken into custody
under the Baker Act before, but usually it's voluntary.
Pinellas
schools police report they have been involved in 83 Baker Acts
from the beginning of the school year to the start of this week.
That does not include any handled by other police agencies.
School
Board member Peggy O'Shea said she didn't think that sounded
like a large number given the 105,000 students in Pinellas
schools.
School
board member Janet Clark noted there were several other Baker
Acts in Pinellas schools that day. She plans to raise the issue
with the superintendent.
School
officials said a region superintendent has agreed to meet with
the Smiths and the principal.
Carroll
said the it's not as if police officers enjoy taking kids into
custody.
"We look
like the big tough cops with the tiny kid," he said.
But in
the case of this boy, it was justified.
"The
child got interviewed by mental health professionals," he said.
"He didn't get arrested. There's no criminal charges against
him."
Richard
Smith and his wife are not sure of their next step.
"We
can't just sweep this under the carpet," she said. "We do want
to talk to a lawyer. … Our main goal is to make sure this does
not happen to another family."
Blogger Comments:
In Largo, Florida, a 7-year-old boy misbehaved at school. That's because he's, like, only 7. In a free country, grade school children being unruly would not typically be a news story. But Florida isn't a free country. The Sunshine State is the home of the much-abused Baker Act. Under this law, any person of any age can at any time be transported to a psychiatric ward almost on the say-so of any other person. If you snap your finger, point at someone, and say, "Lock 'em up," off they go. And it's up to the facility to decide when to release the person. If some money-grubbing psych ward can get insurance money to keep somebody locked up, they will. In the latest case, police came to the school and promptly
transported the child to a mental ward - without his parents' permission. The boy spent the night alone at the facility before being released the following day. Police say the youngster attacked a school administrator, but if that's what the school told the cops, I frankly do not believe the school. Not for a second. A lot of folks have been falsely accused of attacking school personnel, and they've been wrongly called liars when they denied it. Happens to everyone in that situation, it seems. Local experts say that even if the boy did what the "official" story claims, the police taking him to a psych ward was still an abuse of the Baker Act, because he posed almost no real threat. It turns out that on the very same day as this incident, the county's schools also had several other Baker Act lockups. Is the school system going to say with a straight face that there was a sudden pandemic of classroom misbehavior? Welcome to the police state, folks. (Source:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/article975987.ece)
==================================
Little punk? The parents repentant? And ashamed of
themselves?
To respond to this article,
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Make all of the excuses you want for the educators, but anyone who cannot handle a seven year old without calling the police is in over their head and shouldn’t be teaching.
Small children don’t have the strength to hurt anyone beyond a sting...
A school psychologist should have been called. The mother was there. The grownups should have discussed the issues and come to some agreement about a future course of action. If the school officials weren’t satisfied with the parents response they could move the kid into a class for children with emotional issues or suspend him/her.
A parent was there, willing to deal with the child without involving the police.
Fear of a lawsuit is an excuse and, anyway, there is still the possibility of a lawsuit with the way this was handled.
Taking the kid to Morton Plant Hospital? How are they better equipped to handle a seven year old? Their website doesn’t mention psychiatric services and can’t administer medication without parental approval, anyway.
Yeah, and smacking a kid is always the answer. Why stop at a spanking? Whip him with a hose and lock him inside the bathroom like the couple up in Spring Hill. Taser him.
How dare a kid in a public school have problems! The punk! How dare he not fit into the pigeonhole public schools put him in! How dare the parents not be perfect in childrearing or have a perfect child! Stone them! Put them on the rack! Take the kid away from them and into the foster care system in Florida. We all know how well children do in foster care, right?
I know you believe in corporal punishment. I don’t. I’ve raised kids to adulthood and have, at times, had to restrain them. I have never had to spank or hit them. It takes more time to deal with them that way, it’s more inconvenient but so what? Time is the minimum of what you are supposed to be what you give to your kids.
The article stated that this wasn’t the first time this had happened. How many times are we talking about? What was the upshot of that(those)time(s)? Again, if there is a problem, all problems aren’t solvable in a half-hour, these things take time.
Yes, it is regrettable that the outburst inconvenienced the other students in the class, but that all it is to them, an inconvenience. If I was the parent of one of the other children in the class, I would be more concerned about the behavior of the adults than the child. If the behavior of one child can cause them to spaz out like this, what would make me think that they could handle 20?