THE WEEKLY REVEAL

Hello! In this issue:

• The country’s biggest psychiatric hospital chain is profiting off kids trapped in a broken child welfare system.
• We’ve got a major development in our investigation into forced labor at Dominican sugar plantations.
• ‘It just didn’t smell right for me’: an expert opinion on a case where an alleged rape victim was accused of false reporting.
• Our documentary has been nominated for a big award!

THIS WEEK’S PODCAST

Cashing In on Troubled Teens

Trina Edwards was 12 years old when she was locked in a psychiatric hospital for children for the first time. She was sure a foster parent would pick her up the next day.

Instead, Trina would end up spending years cycling in and out of North Star Behavioral Health in Anchorage, Alaska.

In several instances, she was ready to be discharged, but Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services couldn’t find anywhere else to put her. Trina would stay locked in at North Star, where she was violently restrained and forced into periods of seclusion. Then, shortly before her 15th birthday, Trina was sent to another facility 3,000 miles away: Copper Hills Youth Center in Utah.

Both North Star and Copper Hills are owned by Universal Health Services, a publicly traded, Fortune 500 company that is the nation’s largest psychiatric hospital chain. Trina’s experience is emblematic of a larger problem: a symbiotic relationship between failing child welfare agencies, which don’t have enough foster homes for all the kids in custody, and large for-profit companies like Universal Health Services, which have beds to fill.

This hour, Mother Jones reporter Julia Lurie shows how Universal Health Services is profiting off foster kids who get admitted to its facilities, despite government and media investigations raising alarms about patient care that the company denies.

READ: Inside the Psychiatric Hospitals Where Foster Kids Are a ‘Gold Mine’

NEW

Federal Agents Investigating Sugar Exporter Over Allegations of Forced Labor in Its Supply Chain

By Sandy Tolan and Michael Montgomery

U.S. federal agents have been interviewing Haitian cane cutters to investigate allegations of forced labor at sugar plantations owned by Central Romana.

In dozens of interviews with Reveal and Mother Jones over the last four years, workers and their advocates have described inadequate protective gear, poor medical care, low pay, chronic debt, and intimidation by the company’s armed security force.

If an inquiry by Homeland Security Investigations leads to criminal charges against Central Romana Corp. or company executives, it would be “unprecedented,” one former agent says.

Dig Deeper:

LISTEN: The Bitter Work Behind Sugar

READ: US Bans Sugar Imports From Top Dominican Producer Over Forced Labor Allegations

A Quote to Remember

Former Connecticut State Police sergeant Alain Bisson got involved with Nicole Chase’s case after she was arrested and charged with false reporting. The police department sought his opinion on whether the case was properly handled. Bisson told Reveal’s Rachel de Leon that after looking at the investigation, he felt Chase was “victimized twice.”

Listen: From Victim to Suspect

In Case You Missed It

Ending on a Good Note

🏆Our documentary, Victim/Suspect, has been nominated for a Critics Choice Documentary Award.

You can watch it now on Netflix, or if you prefer, you can read our investigation.