Modern Responses to Mental Illness
Thousands of severely mentally ill Americans are falling through the cracks of our broken mental healthcare system. The failure to focus on treatment outcomes for the severely mentally ill has created a national crisis with devastating consequences:
Current legal definitions of what constitutes an immediate threat of “dangerousness” to oneself or others. is inconsistent and lacking in specificity—making involuntary commitment tricky or impossible.
THE SOLUTION
Expand Civil Commitment Powers
Broaden the legal definition of “dangerousness” beyond imminent harm to include:
Reorganize Disability Rights Groups
Reform Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) advocacy organizations to add oversight and outcomes reporting.
Increase Psychiatric Bed Capacity
Build infrastructure to increase capacity from the current national average of
WHY IT MATTERS
Failure to treat patients with SMI undermines the basic tennets of medical care to “do no harm” and puts lives in danger.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Reforming civil commitment laws, reorganizing advocacy groups, and expanding psychiatric bed capacity will focus treatment on solutions that save patient lives, protect families, reduce homelessness, and improve public safety.
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