It’s a powerful lens into Florida’s mental health crisis.
The numbers. More than 161,000.
And the kids, nearly 30,000 of them.
That’s what stands out to us from Florida’s latest annual Baker Act report created by USF’s Center for Baker Act Reporting.
The Baker Act is a state law that allows designated professionals to initiate a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric exam on someone they deem to be a threat to themselves or others.
According to the state report, during the fiscal year 2023/2024, there were more than 16,000 Baker Act exams conducted in Florida. Just over 18% of those involuntary exams were on children.
Baker Act USF Annual Report 2023 2024 by ABC Action News on Scribd
That’s right, nearly one in five Baker Act exams in the past year was on a child, 17 years old or younger, according to the report.
For context, that’s down from a year earlier and the year before that when just over one in five Baker Act exams was on a child.
If you are looking for some good news here, taking population growth into account, the percentage of Baker Act exams on kids last fiscal year is the lowest it’s been since the pandemic.