News: Models beyond outpatient commitment

News: England's new law on forced treatments
iStock PhotoLaws compelling outpatient treatment took effect in England earlier in the week, and the controversy mirrors debates in the US. Proponents argue mandatory treatment reduces hospitalization and promotes public safety while critics oppose coercion and point to considerable side effects. Results inconclusive In the end, reports the Guardian, analysis of 28 studies led experts to conclude, "There is very little evidence to suggest that CTOs [community treatment orders] are associated with any positive outcomes and there is justification for...
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News: Court strikes down Kendra's Law in New Mexico
After the courts struck down an Albuquerque ordinance requiring forced medication for outpatient treatment, the mayor vowed to return this issue to the legislature. According to the Albuquerque Journal the state has cut back on funding for outpatient programs. According to Nancy Koenigsberg from the advocacy organization, Protection and Advocacy, The ordinance that was struck (down) acknowledged that for any kind of treatment to achieve its goal, it must be linked to a system of comprehensive care in which...
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Book Reviews: "The Insanity Offense," E. Fuller Torrey
reviewed by Sue E. Estroff* By Any Means Necessary? By No Means Necessary E. Fuller Torrey's most recent book, The Insanity Offense, continues his literary style of provocative, catastrophic language when referring to violent incidents attributable to people with psychiatric disorders. This is not a work in the scholarly convention. It is one activist psychiatrist's impassioned and purposeful argument for a reversion of mental health law, policy, and treatment to the 1950's when involuntary confinement and forced treatment qua medication...
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MIWatch webcasts: E. Fuller Torrey, panelist
E. Fuller Torrey, MD, is president of the Treatment Advocacy Center. Here he speaks on a panel about violence and mental illness at the Association of Health Care Journalists, Washington, DC, March 28, 2007....
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News: Brits debate Mental Health Bill and forced detention
Reminiscent of heated discussions about involuntary outpatient commitment in states in the US, the British Parliament is debating whether to force people with a mental illness into treatment. A survey conducted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists found that nearly three-quarters of respondents opposed the government's proposal allowing doctors to detain people against their wills in the absence of a crime. Health Minister Rosie Winterton explains why she disagrees with the House of Lords six amendments to the government's bill....
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News: Questions about civil commitment
A New York Times series raising doubts about the success of so-called civil commitment laws (extending the incarceration of convicted sex offenders), has been picked up nationwide by bloggers. The stories outline the failures of civil commitment for providing treatment and rehabilitation to sex offenders, and the expansion of the sex-offender industry. Says the Journal News: “It is hardly enlightened to stereotype mentally ill people as criminals.”...
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