Second look at forcibly committing the mentally ill?
Connecticut is one of a handful of states in America that does not have an “assisted outpatient treatment” law. Under AOT laws, like the kind proposed and ignored earlier this year in Connecticut, states can force a mentally ill person into treatment if there is a risk of harm to others. Without them, states typically cannot institutionalize someone unless they’ve already done harm to themselves or others.
Confusion occurs because there isn’t a uniform code used for involuntary confinement.
In New Hampshire, for example, a doctor’s note is enough to trigger an initial confinement but the person requesting the lock-up must then present evidence before a district judge within three days showing probable cause or the patient walks…
According to the Center for Public Policy Priorities, the national average for spending on mental health services is $109 a person. Texas spends just $36 and ranks last in the country. The Texas Department of State Health Services is asking for a $100 million increase in their budget but the likelihood of that happening is slim. In their last session, state lawmakers cut $25 million from mental health programs.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
The lawyers lick their chops.
Mimzey on December 22, 2012 at 10:10 PM
Here, the guy had started to burn himself (don’t know how many times.)
ACLU worked hard in CT. to get the bill defeated. What’s the ACLU’s role in the massacre?
rbj on December 22, 2012 at 10:17 PM
I have three words for you:
Motivated Social Cognition
Browncoatone on December 22, 2012 at 10:18 PM
Those thin, cold, humorless men with whitecoats?
tommy71 on December 22, 2012 at 10:22 PM
Let’s define mentally ill first.
The way things are going, it could mean anyone who believes the Constitution is the law…
katy on December 22, 2012 at 10:22 PM
You’re dangerously parinoid for believing that and should be locked up.
/irony immune liberal off
29Victor on December 22, 2012 at 10:29 PM
Who gets to decide who is mentally ill? I could see this being used in a lot of divorce cases!
dczombie on December 22, 2012 at 10:50 PM
UGH! Why should Connecticut be confused about New Hampshire’s laws. The only thing in Connecticut that needs to be uniform is Connecticut’s laws.
I think what they are talking about is not confusion, but indecision, or laziness, or indifference, or cowardice or a combination of all on the part of the Connecticut state legislature.
Dusty on December 22, 2012 at 11:02 PM
Who gets to decide who is mentally ill? I could see this being used in a lot of divorce cases!
[dczombie on December 22, 2012 at 10:50 PM]
I’m pretty sure they got that covered back when you could have your spouse committed. One of those ‘oldest trick in the book’ things.
That’s not to say Congress wouldn’t leave it a loophole for a while until enough of them got to utilize it, so I won’t say it.
But I’ll still think it.
Dusty on December 22, 2012 at 11:10 PM
Re-education camps, anyone?
ProfShadow on December 23, 2012 at 12:17 AM
I am all for containing the dangerous, but hesitate when thinking about poor Rosemary Kennedy. She was only about a year younger than her brother JFK, but she had a hard time in school and was deemed an embarrassment beside her brainy, competitive siblings.
Back in the 1930s, having an intellectual disability was seen as a moral failing (her I.Q. was supposedly at Forrest Gump level). The family also said at different times that Rosemary was mentally ill and/or epileptic. But look at one of her diary entries when she was still an adolescent:
Sounds fine to me! So she tripped and almost faceplanted while doing a curtsey for Elizabeth of England and her dad, King George. Blame that on the pressure of trying to live up to Papa “UK Ambassador” Joseph’s need for perfect kids.
Around 20 Rosemary started to become “willful” and “assertive”. Also, being quite beautiful, she started becoming interested in young men who were naturally interested in her.
Get thee to a nunnery!
When her father was told that Rosemary was sneaking out of the convent at knight, her father heard about a permanent solution; a new medical cure…Lobotomy. He ordered the operation without telling his wife Rose.
Rosemary Kennedy was 23 years old. Here is Wikipedia’s first-person account of the surgery:
“We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch.” The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. “We put an instrument inside,” he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord’s Prayer or sing “God Bless America” or count backwards. … “We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded.” … When she began to become incoherent, they stopped.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 23, 2012 at 1:05 AM
Way to cut through the mud. EXACTLY.
John the Libertarian on December 23, 2012 at 1:50 AM
That’s the part that bothers me. A lot.
As history shows, leftists love to use accusations of mental illness as a pretense for political persecution and incarceration.
petefrt on December 23, 2012 at 7:37 AM
That’s why you leave it at the state level, Pete. We’re not talking about doubt. Adam Lanza was a sick individual. His own mother begged the state of Connecticut for help. 20/20 hindsight? Perhaps, but there are some things in this world that are absolute settled questions. That there are people who are dangers to themselves and others and should not be free to harm anyone is one of those things.
Unless, of course, you believe that 20 dead children were worth Adam Lanza’s “due process” rights.
gryphon202 on December 23, 2012 at 10:05 AM
Right, keeping the feds out of it would be essential, not optional. The potential for political abuse is too high.
petefrt on December 23, 2012 at 10:20 AM