Reveal reporters Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter have been uncovering the ways that some drug rehabs exploit their desperate clients.
“It’s like slavery,” said one rehab participant, “like we were on the plantation.”
Reporters Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter’s investigation of forced labor at drug rehab centers one of two finalists for journalism’s top honor.
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.
Jim Hendren’s use of a work camp program shows how beneficiaries of unpaid labor stretch from top companies to high levels of state political power.
Because of the intervention, many recovery programs in Oklahoma remain exempt from state oversight.
Brad McGahey was sentenced to a year in prison for buying a stolen horse trailer. But when he went before a judge, he was sent to CAAIR instead.
Reveal’s Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter investigate an Oklahoma recovery center called Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery, or CAAIR.
“That sounds like something from the early 1900s. And this is going on right now? And how is it legal?”
“It was a slave camp. I can’t believe the court sent me there.”
