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In 2012, a 16-year-old boy named Tyler Haire was locked up in a Mississippi jail cell after committing a violent crime against his father’s girlfriend. Tyler ended up spending years behind bars while waiting for a psychiatric examination, despite having a history of issues dating back to early childhood. Sarah Smith‘s ProPublica story, “What Are We Going to Do About Tyler?” was a recent No. 1 pick here on Longreads. It offers a sobering look at America’s failures when it comes to treating mental illness.
I spoke with Smith recently about her reporting process, and the remarkable way she discovered the story: dialing up all 82 sheriffs in Mississippi in order to find a case like Tyler’s.