Resource: D.P. v. School Board of Palm Beach County

Police employed by the School District of Palm Beach County illegally use the Florida Mental Health Act, also known as the Baker Act, to subject hundreds of students each year to involuntary psychiatric examinations, without their parents’ input, consent and, sometimes, over their objections. Police take students, some as young as five years old, from their classrooms and schools, handcuff them and sometimes put them in hobble restraints, and transport them to psychiatric facilities, where they wait hours or days for an examination to be completed.