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| Subject: Despicable California Governor Seeks to Expand Involuntary Treatment Fri Feb 21, 2020 1:02 am | |
| SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to make it easier for the government to force psychiatric treatment for people with mental illness and expand statewide a still-developing test program that allows officials to more easily take control over those deemed unable to care for themselves. In a State of the State address Wednesday devoted almost entirely to the issue of homelessness, the Democratic governor said the state should broaden those laws “within the bounds of deep respect for civil liberties and personal freedoms — but with an equal emphasis on helping people into the life-saving treatment that they need at the precise moment they need it.” Newsom drew support from members of both political parties. But civil libertarians have concerns, while advocates for the mentally ill warned that proper services must be in place and voluntary options exhausted first. ”We often look too quickly to getting individuals off the street involuntarily without assuring that the resources are available, the treatment is available first. And I think the governor candidly acknowledged that in his address," said Curtis Child, legislative director at Disability Rights California.
San Francisco, with one of the nation's most visible homeless populations, is on the verge of trying a new conservatorship program to allow court-ordered mental health treatment for people deemed incapable of caring for their own health and well-being because of serious mental illness or drug addiction. Temporary conservatorships could be triggered with an individual's eighth 72-hour involuntary mental health hold in a 12-month period. Such commitments are commonly called “5150s," after the legal code section for detaining someone considered to be a danger to themselves or others due to mental illness.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/02/19/us/ap-us-california-state-of-state-forced-treatment.html |
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