Little-Acorn
Gold Member
It used to be that a citizen could petition a court to have someone committed to a mental institution, and the court could grant such committment if enough valid evidence was presented.
This changed in the 1960s and 70s.
In 1967 two Democrats and a Republican in California's state legislature came up with the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, designed to end INVOLUNTARY commitments of mentallly ill, alcoholic, etc. people into large mental institutions. The LPS Act was hailed by liberals all over the country as putting an end to eeevil government practices of dictating to helpless victims where they would go and what treatments they would get whether they liked it or not. It was overwhelmingly passed by California's Assembly and Senate, and finally signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1967. Similar laws were quickly passed all over the country, advocated mostly by liberal groups and do-gooders.
The liberal ACLU kept pushing this agenda to get these patients out of mental institutions, and finally resulted in 1975 (coincidentally Reagans' last year as Governor) in the U.S. Supreme Court handing down a decision in O'Connor vs. Donaldson (422 US 563). This Court decision announced a new Constitutional right: The mentally ill could not be forced to stay in such institutions if they were not an actual threat to others. This opened the floodgates and let huge numbers of patients, in various degrees of helplessness, out of the institutions.
When it was discovered that these laws and court decisions had the effect of putting many people who could not, in fact, take care of themselves out on the street, the liberals did a fast 180, hastily forgot about their long, enthusiastic nationwide advocacy and support of the agenda, and invented a completely new accusation: That it was Ronald Reagan alone who had "kicked all those poor people out of their nice, safe hospitals and made them homeless".
From Wikipedia:
The LantermanPetrisShort (LPS) Act (Cal. Welf & Inst. Code, sec. 5000 et seq.) concerns the involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the State of California. The act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. It was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank Lanterman (R) and California State Senators Nicholas C. Petris (D) and Alan Short (D), and signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan. The Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:
To end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons, people with developmental disabilities, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism, and to eliminate legal disabilities;
To provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with serious mental disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism;
To guarantee and protect public safety;
To safeguard individual rights through judicial review;
To provide individualized treatment, supervision, and placement services by a conservatorship program for gravely disabled persons;
To encourage the full use of all existing agencies, professional personnel and public funds to accomplish these objectives and to prevent duplication of services and unnecessary expenditures;
To protect mentally disordered persons and developmentally disabled persons from criminal acts.
The Act in effect ended all hospital commitments by the judiciary system, except in the case of criminal sentencing, e.g., convicted sexual offenders, and those who were "gravely disabled", defined as unable to obtain food, clothing, or housing [Conservatorship of Susan T., 8 Cal. 4th 1005 (1994)]. It did not, however, impede the right of voluntary commitments. It expanded the evaluative power of psychiatrists and created provisions and criteria for holds.
This changed in the 1960s and 70s.
In 1967 two Democrats and a Republican in California's state legislature came up with the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, designed to end INVOLUNTARY commitments of mentallly ill, alcoholic, etc. people into large mental institutions. The LPS Act was hailed by liberals all over the country as putting an end to eeevil government practices of dictating to helpless victims where they would go and what treatments they would get whether they liked it or not. It was overwhelmingly passed by California's Assembly and Senate, and finally signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1967. Similar laws were quickly passed all over the country, advocated mostly by liberal groups and do-gooders.
The liberal ACLU kept pushing this agenda to get these patients out of mental institutions, and finally resulted in 1975 (coincidentally Reagans' last year as Governor) in the U.S. Supreme Court handing down a decision in O'Connor vs. Donaldson (422 US 563). This Court decision announced a new Constitutional right: The mentally ill could not be forced to stay in such institutions if they were not an actual threat to others. This opened the floodgates and let huge numbers of patients, in various degrees of helplessness, out of the institutions.
When it was discovered that these laws and court decisions had the effect of putting many people who could not, in fact, take care of themselves out on the street, the liberals did a fast 180, hastily forgot about their long, enthusiastic nationwide advocacy and support of the agenda, and invented a completely new accusation: That it was Ronald Reagan alone who had "kicked all those poor people out of their nice, safe hospitals and made them homeless".
From Wikipedia:
The LantermanPetrisShort (LPS) Act (Cal. Welf & Inst. Code, sec. 5000 et seq.) concerns the involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the State of California. The act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. It was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank Lanterman (R) and California State Senators Nicholas C. Petris (D) and Alan Short (D), and signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan. The Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:
To end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons, people with developmental disabilities, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism, and to eliminate legal disabilities;
To provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with serious mental disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism;
To guarantee and protect public safety;
To safeguard individual rights through judicial review;
To provide individualized treatment, supervision, and placement services by a conservatorship program for gravely disabled persons;
To encourage the full use of all existing agencies, professional personnel and public funds to accomplish these objectives and to prevent duplication of services and unnecessary expenditures;
To protect mentally disordered persons and developmentally disabled persons from criminal acts.
The Act in effect ended all hospital commitments by the judiciary system, except in the case of criminal sentencing, e.g., convicted sexual offenders, and those who were "gravely disabled", defined as unable to obtain food, clothing, or housing [Conservatorship of Susan T., 8 Cal. 4th 1005 (1994)]. It did not, however, impede the right of voluntary commitments. It expanded the evaluative power of psychiatrists and created provisions and criteria for holds.
