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Besieged by reports that Jehovah’s Witnesses shield child sexual abusers from prosecution, the religion’s top leadership appears to have settled on a strategy: “Let the story die.” A Portuguese news documentary released in October was yet another report from across the globe to detail the Witnesses’ policy of not reporting child abusers to law enforcement. As in other media reports, top officials refused to speak to the journalists who produced it. After it...

Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced new guidance Tuesday designed to help law enforcement prevent gender bias when responding to sexual assault and domestic violence incidents. "We know that sometimes this bias, whether implicit or explicit, can stand in the way of effective law enforcement and can severely undermine law enforcement’s ability to hold the offenders accountable," Lynch said. "We have seen situations where false assumptions about things like alcohol use, or the...

Christine White was a preteen when she went on her first diet. At school, she was bubbly and sociable, an honors student immersed in social causes. But at home, she would carefully ration her food. By the time she was 14, she had developed bulimia. It was easier to hide the purging from her family than it was to explain why she wasn’t eating. In her darkest moments, she would scribble her anxieties into a blue-lined journal. “When I eat food now I feel guilty,” she wrote in...

Nearly one in four people that responded to an informal survey conducted by the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department reported having at least four or more adverse experiences during childhood. More than 500 people, mostly in the Kanawha-Putnam County region, took the Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey that was made available through the department’s website from Nov. 12-28. Dr. Michael Brumage, the executive director and health officer at KCHD, said 28.2 percent of respondents had an...

A new study shows that more California college students are seeking mental health treatment — and that’s a positive trend according to the authors. Researchers from the nonprofit RAND Corporation report in the study published Thursday that the proportion of students at the state’s public universities and community colleges increased by more than 10 percent between 2013 and last spring. During that time, county governments directed a combined average of $8.7 million a year...

It’s that time of year again. Online retailers spam your inbox with holiday deals and gift ideas. You click, and click, and click, and soon find yourself bleary-eyed and weary. The Marshall Project is here for you. We’ve compiled a gift guide unlike any out there: specifically, gifts for people in your life who care about criminal justice. Most of the items were produced in programs providing prisoners with work experience, job skills, and, sometimes, the opportunity to earn a...

Brent Wager lined up with a few dozen other people in a Vancouver alleyway on a smudgy October afternoon, waiting to get into the small, peaked-roof house with a tiny balcony facing the lane. Queued up with him were young couples, some with toddlers, older couples without, and a mix of all kinds of people in between. The crowd had gathered to inspect what has become a Vancouver phenomenon: little houses built in the backyards of single-family homes. They’re the product of an innovative...

For the first time, improving the educational outcomes of foster youth is part of the nation’s education law. The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, signed Thursday by President Barack Obama, requires states to track achievement test and graduation data for foster youth as a separate subgroup. It follows what California has already done for foster youth through legislation such as the Local Control Funding Formula. “Without California, these things...

While mass in­car­cer­a­tion in Amer­ica came to dom­in­ate the do­mest­ic polit­ic­al and policy de­bate this year, the im­pact of im­prisoned par­ents on chil­dren has largely re­mained a side is­sue. Two new re­ports make a strong case for cen­ter­ing chil­dren and fam­il­ies more squarely in the fore­ground of dis­cus­sions on crim­in­al justice —and with­in...

It's been three years since a gunman forced his way into a Newtown, Conn., elementary school and killed 20 young children and six staff members before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life as police responded to the scene. The shootings were a catalyst for discussions that continue today about schools' responsibility to keep students safe. For many educators, those discussions have led to a broader understanding of what safety means for students—both physically and...

There are very few things considered more taboo in the world of mental health than the suggestion that problematic family dynamics can lead to a child developing a psychotic disorder. And yet, when we look honestly at the history and research of psychosis and the broader concept of “mental illness,” it becomes apparent that there are few subjects in the mental health field that are more important. I’d like to invite you, then, to join me on a journey into this taboo...

Michael was not in New York on September 11, 2001. But for years afterwards, when an elevator opened at work, he would imagine people on fire rushing out, their screams filling the lobby. When he closed his eyes, he would sometimes see limbs trapped in rubble, unattended by their bodies. He was plagued by moments of violence and destruction that he had not witnessed. On sleepless nights, he would wander the streets of his neighborhood, trying to exorcise other people’s demons. Michael,...