1967 Mental Illness Law Needs Revision

Patients who struggle with mental disorder try the patience of those who struggle to assist them.

Whether family caregivers, state hospitals, or private charities, the problem of treating individuals who display dangerous,  dysfunction, or deadly symptoms associated with psychiatric illness require prompt and consistent care.

Two problems have emerged in the state of California following the passage of the Lanterman-Petris,-Short Act of 1967: Legal rights for incapacitated individuals pose a growing danger to themselves and others in public, and in many cases they are incapable of taking care of themselves, yet because of disappearance, violence, or stealth, they resist proper treatment.

From the painful beating and homicide of a schizophrenic man in Fullerton, to the growing number of indigent individuals on the streets of Los Angeles who cannot care for themselves, granting legal rights to individuals with mental illness, without proper interventions in the event of failure or relapse, have created increased costs in our overburdened and underfunded jails while undermining the peace and safety of our streets. Of course, those who need yet still refuse necessary treatment only continue to suffer and fail in a state which cannot discharge its yearly deficits while still cutting core services.

Opinions who favor or discourage repealing or modifying Lanternman-Petris acknowledge that some patients do not need psychiatric services. In many cases, patients with mood disorders and cumbersome circumstances are misdiagnoses by professionals more inclined to offer medication than to promote a much-needed change of mind about one's challenges in life.

Still, the growing number of individuals who need yet lack greater supervision, whether by the state or private caretakers, indicates that the 1967 mental health law inadvertently eviscerated common law by ignoring the required mental status for an individual  to be deemed self-supporting and worthy of legal independence. Returning necessary care, even if involuntary, to patients with staggering mental illness should be the top priority for the state of California, which can no longer afford to mislabel and misplace individuals in improper government institutions, at great cost to taxpayers, state employees, and the patients themselves.

I hope that Assemblyman Michael Allen investigates and proposes the least restrictive reforms necessary to protect the mentally ill lost and abandoned in our state's jails and streets, without increasing costs or decrease quality care for these individuals in need.