For the first time, the number of Baker Act exams in Florida decreased. Investigative Reporter Katie LaGrone explains why, and some say, the pandemic doesn’t explain it all.

5-year history of Baker Act exams on children in Florida. Source: USF Center for Baker Act Reporting 2023/2024 Annual Report. 2023/2024- 29,612; 2022/2023- 33,685; 2021/2022- 34,234; ...

FLORIDA (WKRG) — The Baker Act was enacted by the Florida legislature in 1972. What does it do? The law allows families to place family members in a temporary detention center to be examined … ...

The Baker Act, passed in 1971, was supposed to protect the rights of Floridians in need of psychiatric care and to ensure public safety. It has failed miserably at both those goals, ...

The Baker Act started with the best of intentions: to bring more rights to the mentally ill. But in the almost 50 years since it became law, it routinely has been misused by school officials and ...

In the weeks following the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and leading up to Saturday's March For Our Lives, there's been a lot of talk about the Baker Act in Florida.

The Baker Act was groundbreaking when it first passed in the early 1970s because it created new protections for individuals with mental illness while getting them treatment. Today, it is still a ...

The arrest of a six-year-old girl with special needs in Jacksonville earlier this month is renewing calls to change Florida's Baker Act. The child was taken to a behavioral health center for two ...

The Baker Act is a roughly 50-year-old state law that allows courts, law enforcement officers and certain medical workers to order people who could be a harm to themselves or others to be taken ...