Wealth & Poverty from Marketplace APM

The cost of criminalizing disability


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Kevin Matthews loved to give people things. Every Tuesday he would go to Church’s Chicken and bring back a leg, thigh and biscuit for his mom, $1.69. Sometimes he would come back with the box soaking wet, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes late into the evening, sometimes having helped himself to some of the chicken.His mom and sisters laughed as they talked about the times he’d come home with gifts he seemed to have plucked off the curb: a dirty teddy bear, pieces of paper. He loved Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, all excuses to give gifts to his mom.He called his family multiple times a day, they said, and he was fond of telling people he loved them, over and over. Sometimes Kevin would go missing for a day or two, but then he would turn up at his sister’s house and stay for a week, offering to mow her lawn or clean the house while she was at work.“We wrapped our arms around him, our whole family did," Kim Matthews, his older sister, said. "Because he was special. From the day he was born, as he started growing up and we saw something was wrong, we extra loved him hard.”Kevin was diagnosed at age 11 with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He saw doctors and took medications throughout his life, but his main support system was his family: his mom, Valerie Johnson; his sisters, Kim and Karen Matthews; and his little brother, Lavell Matthews.In their working-class neighborhood on the northwest edge of Detroit, Kevin always had a place to stay, usually living with his mom. And when he was sick, his whole family knew how to care for him — comforting him when the fear and paranoia kicked in, accepting his quirky and sometimes childlike way of moving through the world.But the 35-year-old, generous and friendly, was easy to take advantage of, so the family worried. His older sister said he was beat up and robbed many times. A few times, he was hauled off to jail, or just picked up and driven home by police officers — often for something as simple as going to s...
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Wealth & Poverty from Marketplace APMBy American Public Media

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