Mental health laws surrounding psychiatric treatment under coercion have remained largely
unchanged since the eighteenth century. The grounds for involuntary treatment in psychiatry …

Few people doubt the fundamental importance of housing. It is, after all, where we live. It
gives us shelter from the elements; thus, we want it to be decent, safe, and sanitary. We also …

Approximately half the people receiving treatment in the public sector for mental disorder
have experienced some form of “leverage” in which deprivations such as jail or …

This article describes the approach of therapeutic jurisprudence, an interdisciplinary form of
legal scholarship that has a law reform agenda. It then illustrates the approach by applying it …

Approximately 700,000 people with major mental disorder enter United States jails each
year (US Department of Justice, 1999), many of whom are arrested repeatedly for minor …

Coercion is one of the most fascinating and controversial subjects in psychiatry. It is a highly
sensitive, and hotly debated topic in which clinical practice, ethics, the law and public policy …

In civil commitment the state applies its police and parens patriae powers in order to coerce
mentally ill persons into treatment. Coercion, thus, is central to civil commitment. It also has …

It has been said that how a society treats its least well-off members speaks volumes about its
humanity. If so, our treatment of the mentally ill suggests that American society is inhumane …

In American jurisprudence, two justifications have traditionally been put forth to support the
government's social control of persons with mental illness: police power and parens patriae …