Veterans Deserve Truth, Not Blindfolds, Before They’re Drugged

by Diane Stein, President, Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida | Apr 21, 2026 | Opinions & Reports

Walk into any VA clinic or community mental health center serving veterans in Florida and you will hear the same heartbreaking themes: “I was never told,” “No one warned me,” “They just put me on more pills.” Men and women who once wore the uniform of this country are...

The Numbers Don’t Lie — But the System Does

by Diane Stein, President, Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida | Apr 13, 2026 | Opinions & Reports

Florida Baker-Acted 161,000 People Last Year. Why Is No One Asking Whether It Worked? Last year, Florida law enforcement officers, nurses, and physicians stripped 161,576 people of their freedom; not because they had committed a crime, not because they had been...

Florida’s Mental Health Crisis: Why We Keep Funding What Doesn’t Work

by Diane Stein, President, Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida | Apr 6, 2026 | Opinions & Reports

Florida’s mental health system is at a crossroads, and the latest state reports show that the “solutions” being put forward are the same ones that have failed far too many families: more beds, more drugs, more coercive interventions; just with bigger budgets and...

Florida Is Locking Up 161,000 People a Year and Calling It Mental Health Care. The Data Say Otherwise

by Diane Stein, President, Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida | Apr 2, 2026 | Opinions & Reports

Somewhere in Florida today, a child will be handcuffed by a police officer, placed in the back of a squad car, and driven to a locked psychiatric facility; not because the child committed a crime, but because a school administrator decided the child needed a mental...

CCHR QUARTERLY REPORT: Evidence That Coercive Psychiatric Detention Fails and Harms Those It Purports to Help

by Diane Stein, President, Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida | Mar 31, 2026 | Opinions & Reports

Executive Summary Florida’s Baker Act, the Florida Mental Health Act of 1971, authorizes law enforcement, health professionals, and courts to involuntarily detain individuals experiencing a mental health crisis for up to 72-hour psychiatric examinations. The...

“Biomarkers Aren’t Proving ‘Mental Illness’, They’re Exposing How Often Real Disease Gets Missed”

by Diane Stein, President, Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida | Mar 18, 2026 | Opinions & Reports

Biomarkers in psychiatry should be a wake‑up call about missed physical illness, not a green light to double down on labeling people “mentally ill” while their bodies are quietly failing. A story psychiatry should not ignore The USA Today piece opens with a chilling...