HARRISBURG -- A state lawmaker is proposing to expand the criteria for requiring mentally ill patients considered dangerous to be committed involuntarily for treatment, but some advocacy groups say the measure is too harsh.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Stephen R. Maitland, would broaden the definition of someone dangerous enough to need an involuntary treatment to include anyone who would experience "serious physical or mental debilitation" within 30 days if psychotropic medication is not prescribed.
The primary intent of the bill is to ensure that psychiatric patients whose moods can be controlled by medication continue taking their medicines after they are released from involuntary commitment, said Maitland, R-Adams.
"We see a revolving door in the justice system of the kinds of people that get themselves in trouble and become a danger and get committed to jail or probation or mental health treatment," he said. "Then they're stabilized and released, but don't take their medication, and they go into a downward spiral."
Maitland introduced the bill in February after a constituent called him with concerns that her daughter had been stalked for the past 10 to 15 years by a mentally ill man, and there was little the family could do to stop him. The measure is the subject of a hearing today before a task force on forensic sciences law, which Maitland leads.
The measure's supporters include the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va., a nonprofit national organization that lobbies to improve access to treatment for the severely mentally ill.
Pennsylvania would join 15 to 20 other states that have already expanded the criteria for involuntary treatment if Maitland's measure is passed and becomes law, said Jonathan Stanley, the center's assistant director.
"We support this measure because our system right now mandates tragedy. We're talking about people going to jail because of what they did when they're sick. We're talking about people becoming homeless," Stanley said.
But Pennsylvania advocates for the mentally ill said Maitland's bill would force too many patients to be hospitalized unnecessarily at the expense of other types of programs that would enable them to live more independently while receiving treatment.
"It goes against the current mental health system's focus on recovery, which can and does happen. You're really taking away people's civil rights," said Shelley Bishop, executive director of the Pennsylvania Mental Health Consumers Association.
The Pennsylvania Psychiatric Society, a statewide organization of 1,750 psychiatrists, believes that the existing law adequately ensures that mental patients who pose the greatest danger to themselves and others receive adequate treatment, executive director Gwen Lehman said.
"There needs to be limits on what we can force other people to do, and the trick is in having society define these circumstances," Lehman said. "Hospitalization is a big deal. It's extremely disruptive to a person's life, and when it's done it needs to be done, we think, under narrower circumstances."
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