What responsibility does government have to protect people with serious mental illnesses who refuse treatment? How should it balance the right to liberty with the need for care?
At the heart of the long effort to answer these questions is a law signed in 1967 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. Aimed at safeguarding the civil rights of one of society’s most vulnerable populations, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act put an end to the inappropriate and often indefinite institutionalization of people with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities.
It’s an argument that has repeatedly stymied bills to force seriously mentally ill people to get care. This year, several were proposed. At the moment, only one—Senate Bill 1045—is left.
SB 1045 would create a 5-year, opt-in pilot program for San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego Counties, making it easier to conserve individuals with serious mental illness and substance abuse disorders who refuse treatment and have been detained frequently by police. Counties would have to prove that they could provide housing and wraparound services before they could participate.
Diane Shinstock and her husband worked on a second bill with Assemblyman Phillip Chen, a Republican from Brea. That bill, Assembly Bill 2156, would have expanded the definition of “gravely disabled” to include a person’s capacity to make informed decisions about food, clothing, shelter and medical care. (Current laws don’t speak to decision-making capacity, and their criteria don’t include medical care.)
Meanwhile, The Steinberg Institute, a nonprofit focusing on mental health policy, co-sponsored a third bill. Assembly Bill 1971 didn’t address decision-making, but also would have made it easier to conserve people with mental illnesses who refused medical treatment.
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