California Takes a Real Step toward Helping the Mentally Ill

New York and other states should take note.

Individuals with serious mental illness and their families lost their most prominent advocate a week ago when DJ Jaffe, the executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org., died after battling leukemia. But Jaffe would be elated to see the fight for those he championed take a major step forward in California last Thursday when the state senate voted to make Laura’s Law permanent.

Laura’s Law was enacted in 2002 when 19-year-old Laura Wilcox was shot and killed by a man with untreated serious mental illness. It was inspired by the success of a similar law in New York that Jaffe was instrumental in establishing, named for Kendra Webdale, who was pushed to her death in front of a subway car by a man with untreated schizophrenia. Other states have since followed suit, having learned what works to keep patients and the public safe.

In more specific terms, Laura’s Law and Kendra’s Law both created programs for assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) in their respective states. AOT allows judges to mandate community-based treatment for a small, highly specific population of adults with serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or bipolar depression, who have a history of noncompliance with treatment that has led to multiple hospitalizations, violence, or arrests. While in the program, individuals are able to continue living in their communities and receive monitored treatment—and, importantly, the mental-health system is held accountable for providing it.

Continue reading the entire piece here at the National Review Online

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Carolyn Gorman is a Paulson Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute.

Photo by Maria Korneeva/Getty Images