Reveal | from The Center for Investigative Reporting

Introducing: American Rehab, a new podcast series from Reveal

Reveal exposes how a treatment for drug addiction has turned tens of thousands of people into an unpaid, shadow workforce.

All Work. No Pay.

They worked in sweltering heat for Exxon, Shell and Walmart. They didn’t get paid a dime

“I can’t fathom this being legitimate,” one former Labor Department investigator says of a drug rehab’s work program.

All Work. No Pay.

She said she’d free them from addiction. She turned them into her personal servants

“It’s like slavery,” said one rehab participant, “like we were on the plantation.”

All Work. No Pay.

They thought they were going to rehab. They ended up in chicken plants

“It was a slave camp. I can’t believe the court sent me there.”

All Work. No Pay.

Inside a judge’s rehab: Unpaid work at a local Coca-Cola plant

A judge started his own rehab where defendants must work at a bottling plant and other companies, under threat of prison if they don’t comply.

All Work. No Pay.

Drug rehab faces investigations into labor practices and Medicaid fraud

A Reveal exposé found that the drug rehab has sent thousands of patients to work without pay at hundreds of for-profit companies over the years.

Workers from a Servpro disaster recovery team wearing protective suits and respirators are given supplies as they line up before entering the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., to begin cleaning and disinfecting the facility, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. The nursing home is at the center of the coronavirus outbreak in Washington state. For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing health problems.

Who Owns Silicon Valley?

Silicon Valley is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the United States. While it’s known that a handful of tech companies are huge employers, what’s less obvious is that these firms are also some of the Valley’s biggest landowners. We spent nearly a year looking at half a million property records to figure out – Who Owns Silicon Valley? This series was produced by KQED, The Mercury News, NBC Bay Area, Renaissance Journalism and Telemundo 48 Área de la BahíaTelemundo. It is part of Reveal’s Local Labs initiative, which supports lasting, sustainable investigative collaborations across the country.

Recently Published

American Rehab

American Rehab Chapter Two: Miracle on the Beach

Reveal’s American Rehab exposes how a treatment for drug addiction has turned tens of thousands of people into an unpaid, shadow workforce.

Jul 4, 2020

American Rehab Chapter One: A Desperate Call

Penny Rawlings is relieved to finally get her brother into rehab at a place called Cenikor. She doesn’t realize that getting him out of treatment is going to be the bigger problem.

Jul 4, 2020