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Idaho ramped up investments in round-the-clock youth psychiatric care. But concerns over safety, accessibility loom
Parents of children who were turned away from Idaho Youth Ranch criticize its ‘unrealistic’ admissions standards. When Brittony Young’s 10-year-old son became too aggressive to live at home, doctors said he needed around-the-clock psychiatric care. For four months Young pleaded for help, and the state of Idaho...
A Washington teen was trafficked by a man she met on Tinder, she says. Two years later, she’s still waiting for justice.
As online recruitment and exploitation of child sex trafficking victims rise, Washington is doing little to stop it. Hannah Power was 16 when she first saw Max. One face among a sea of adult men that she scanned on her phone screen. It started as a way to get her...
Washington prisons delayed nearly a third of all inmate release dates last year, costing taxpayers millions
Inmates say late releases derail their efforts to find housing. In the summer of 2019, Antonio Castillo hitchhiked the last leg of his 280-mile return from the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton to his grandmother’s home in Okanogan County. He didn’t leave prison with a plan. He had spent...
Victims of trafficking in Idaho face coercion at every turn, both on the streets and inside the justice system
Experts say the system criminalizes survivors instead of offering help and safety. The choice is always the same, though not always explicit: Obey me or go to jail. Jay, a survivor of human trafficking in Boise, said she’s faced this choice from traffickers who want control over her body. From police officers who want information about her abusers. From judges who order her to follow strict probation requirements. From service providers who make a living off of survivors like her.
Idaho local and state agencies directed federal funding to safe house despite complaints and contractual violations
Funding agencies overlooked red flags that anti-trafficking safe houses allegedly exploited victims. Within days of leaving the safe house, Ally decided she needed to put it all in writing — the control, manipulation, the feeling like she’d been “trafficked and exploited” by the very place that was supposed to help trafficking survivors like her.
Four takeaways from InvestigateWest’s examination of an Idaho nonprofit that houses sex trafficking victims and of the state’s punitive approach to the issue
1. Survivors of human trafficking say they felt exploited and manipulated by a nonprofit that rose to prominence by operating “safe houses” for trafficking victims. Former residents of homes run by Community Outreach Behavioral Services, or COBS, describe an environment built on coercive tactics similar to those of their traffickers — one in which certain freedoms were taken away, communications were blocked, their private counseling notes were used against them, and they were punished for making negative comments about the organization. The founder of COBS, Paula Barthelmess, has reported clients to probation officers, sometimes having them put back in jail or extending their probation, in retaliation for insults to her or the program, former residents say.
An Idaho safe house claimed it was saving trafficking victims. Women said it was like being “trafficked all over again.”
Lacking accountability, program took federal money and billed Medicaid for services victims say they never received. Three years ago, Paula Barthelmess — the mother of Idaho’s first anti-trafficking task force, the fiery advocate with the ear of policymakers, the devoted social worker allowed inside police interrogation rooms — dropped by an Idaho jail to visit a woman called Franky.
Following InvestigateWest report, Idaho approves funding for teen’s long-awaited care — but now there’s nowhere for him to go
Idaho lacks options for teens requiring highest level of psychiatric treatment. For nearly a year, Brandon Wheeler has pleaded with Idaho’s Medicaid department to pay for expensive, life-saving care that doctors say his teenage son needs. Two days after InvestigateWest reported on Idaho’s refusal to fund that care, the...
Mayoral emails, collision reports, body-cam footage and firefighter thank-you’s: Public records tell a wide range of tales
A few of the other stories we stumbled across while testing the Pacific Northwest’s records’ systems. Ask for the records log of pretty much any city and you’ll find reporters looking for stories: mayoral parking tickets in Spokane, community court success rates in Vancouver, illegal tree cuttings in Tacoma, and rumors of secret tunnels in Boise.
Broken Records: Citizens face growing obstacles to public records — and legislators are making them worse
We asked for government records from 15 Northwest cities, and Spokane was the slowest to provide them. Emily Moyer, a 37-year-old photographer, was hoping public records could help save her fiance. With his criminal history and an arrest for drug and firearm possession charges, she said, he was facing life...
After Supreme Court ruling, some Oregon Democrats join Republicans in calling for changes to state camping laws
The issue could demand attention when lawmakers meet next year. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that cities are free to outlaw homeless encampments, Republicans in Oregon wasted no time calling for changes to a state law they say hamstrings local governments from cleaning camps. Now some Democrats...
Experts say a teen needs psychiatric residential care. Idaho still won’t pay for it.
Idaho funded less than one-third of requests for youths to receive the highest level psychiatric care since 2019, data reveals. In a dark and sterile hospital room, the light from a cellphone highlighted the exhaustion on Brandon Wheeler’s face as he checked for an email offering help for his son. It wasn’t there.
The Federal Government Just Acknowledged the Harm Its Dams Have Caused Tribes. Here’s What It Left Out.
The Biden administration said officials historically gave “little, if any, consideration” to impacts on tribal fishing. But some sought deliberately to upend the harvest, according to documents obtained by ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter...
Pierce deputy drove 83 mph in wrong lane during deadly 2020 crash
Records show the county settled for $3.5M after deeming the collision highly preventable, demonstrating the vague legal standards for officer driving. An urgent call crackled through Pierce County Sheriff Deputy Eric Lopez’s patrol radio. Shots fired. A drive-by. Lopez booted up his lights and siren, maneuvering his white Ford...
Providence’s medically fragile children’s center will offer respite care to first child amid leadership shakeup, staff concerns
Nurses say they’re still struggling to prevent the spread of infection among young residents. Two Providence executives who oversaw Oregon’s only skilled nursing facility for medically fragile children — where decisions to restrict the space and increase care for aging adults recently proved controversial — have resigned.
Four-year-old Oregon report identifies missing Native American women as a ‘emergency’ — but progress has been limited
Main recommendations remain unfinished, governor has not read the report, and critics say Indigenous voices have been left out. Carolyn DeFord was hoping for change. She was hoping for answers. She’s been hoping for 24 years. It was Feb. 18, 2019, and DeFord was making the long trip from...
What Idaho’s Republican Primary Tells Us About America’s Culture Wars
The heavily Republican state booted 15 incumbents across the party’s ideological spectrum. While the election led to net gains for hard-line members of the right, it also underscores how divided Idaho’s party remains. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to...
Meet InvestigateWest’s new development director
InvestigateWest is thrilled to announce a new addition to our growing team: Lynnie McIlvain will take a leading role in fundraising as development director for the nonprofit news organization, starting this week. Most recently, McIlvain served as grants manager for Degrees of Change, a Tacoma-based nonprofit, and brings with her...
How did Moms for Liberty end up on WA’s approved list of groups training teachers?
There are few rules guiding required professional development credits for public school teachers in the state. Under a new law, that’s about to change. By law, Washington teachers must complete 100 hours of professional development every five years to keep their licenses. But there are nearly no state rules...
Oregon patients needed fentanyl but got tap water — and it went unchecked for nearly two years
Poor data and coordination between regulatory agencies contribute to hospital drug thefts, experts say. The news out of Medford, Oregon, in December 2023 was explosive: A nurse in the intensive care unit of a local hospital had reportedly stolen patients’ intravenous fentanyl and replaced it with unsterile tap water for months. Dozens of patients developed infections. At least three died.
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