Almost 33,000 Baker Acts were initiated on children in 2015/2016. However this notoriety has not resulted in changes to the law that would protect the rights of children and parents.
Attorney Carmen Miller will be educating concerned citizens on the Baker Act, a Florida law that can result in an individual being forcibly taken to a psychiatric facility. The law even applies to children who can be taken into custody without parental consent. This important talk will be held at the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) center, 109 N Fort Harrison Ave, Clearwater, FL on August 8th from 6:30pm to 7:30pm.
Many parents are unaware that specific criteria must be followed for the Baker Act to be legally implemented. When these criteria are ignored, children and their parents suffer needlessly. There have even been cases where young children were transported to a psychiatric facility in a police car, their hands cuffed as if they were adult criminals. Even more disturbing is that in some instances, children have been forcibly given dangerous psychotropic drugs without their parents' knowledge or consent while incarcerated at these psychiatric facilities.
“To help prevent such abuse it is important that families understand their rights regarding the Baker Act,” stated Diane Stein, President of CCHR Florida. “Freedom and rights must be fought for and knowledge is what gives a person the power to fight.”
According to the Florida chapter of CCHR, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of children, the Baker Acting of children in Florida is a well known problem, one for which a Task Force was formed in 2017 to get to the root cause of why almost 33,000 Baker Acts were initiated on children in 2015/2016. However this notoriety has not resulted in changes to the law that would protect the rights of children and parents. For this reason, CCHR Florida holds regular events to educate families on their rights and has been working with law enforcement and school districts across the state to create uniformity in the initiation and execution of a Baker Act on a child.
There is something you can do to prevent the Baker Act from infringing on your rights or the rights of your children, other family members, your friends and your neighbors. All citizens should be armed with the basic information that will be presented on August 8th. To find out the truth about the Baker Act, and how you can protect yourself and your loved ones from its abuse or to reserve a seat at the next seminar by Carmen Miller please call 727-442-8820 or visit www.cchrflorida.org.
About CCHR: Initially established by the Church of Scientology and renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz in 1969, CCHR’s mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections. It was L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who brought the terror of psychiatric imprisonment to the notice of the world. In March 1969, he said, “Thousands and thousands are seized without process of law, every week, over the ‘free world’ tortured, castrated, killed. All in the name of ‘mental health.’"
