Thread by @reveal

1/ NEW INVESTIGATION: Across America, drug and alcohol recovery programs claiming to help the poor and the desperate are instead conscripting them into forms of indentured servitude.

For the first time ever, we have a sense of how big the issue is. revealnews.org/article/at-hun…

2/ This story was more than three years in the making.

Back in 2017, reporters @shoeshine and @amyjharris found that judges were steering defendants into rehabs that are little more than lucrative work camps for private industry. revealnews.org/article/they-t…

3/ They later investigated how people seeking addiction treatment were sent to work in adult care homes with little training or sleep, sometimes charged with administering the very drugs that landed them in treatment in the first place. revealnews.org/article/drug-u…

4/ They uncovered allegations of sexual harassment by one administrator ... revealnews.org/article/admini…

… and met residents who’d been maimed while working for no pay at some of America’s largest companies. revealnews.org/article/they-w…

5/ Each rehab they looked at seemed to lead them to others employing similar tactics.

Now, hundreds of interviews and thousands of document pages later, we finally have a sense of just how big this issue is.

6/ @shoeshine found at least 300 rehab facilities in 44 states that have required participants to work without pay. In recent years, at least 60,000 people a year attended such rehab programs, she discovered.

7/ The programs claim the work is treatment, often calling it “work therapy.”

Former labor officials say failing to compensate workers is illegal.

“I don’t think there’s any real ambiguity about what the law requires,” one of them told @shoeshine.

8/ Although rehab directors said they deployed the model in order to fund their programs, @shoeshine found that several rehab operators have exploited the model for financial gain, using the unpaid workers to staff their own for-profit businesses.

9/ At least a quarter of the facilities we identified charge participants fees in addition to requiring them to work without pay.

10/ Although they are typically affordable, these programs carry severe costs, captured in thousands of pages of workers’ compensation files, court documents and medical records.

11/ The vast majority of work-based recovery programs we ID’ed are not licensed, thanks to state laws exempting programs that don’t provide medical care or licensed counseling.

12/ Other states explicitly exempt faith-based programs from state standards and oversight, leaving abuses in those programs virtually unchecked.

13/ Want to know if one of these rehabs is operating near you?

We’ve built an interactive that helps you do just that. revealnews.org/article/at-hun…

14/ Do you have experience with one of these programs?

We want to hear about it. Tell us your story here: reveal.forms.fm/what-s-your-ex…

15/ Are you a local reporter interested in digging into this issue in your own community?

We built our Reveal Reporting Networks to help you take our tips, data and resources and turn them into meaningful local stories. revealnews.org/network

16/ Today’s investigation is only the beginning. If you want to *really* understand how we got to this point, subscribe to American Rehab, our first serialized podcast. revealnews.org/article/introd…

17/ And if you want to stay up to date on all of our reporting, please consider subscribing to our newsletter. revealnews.org/newsletter