From: "Mental Illness Policy Org" <office@mentalillnesspolicy.org>
Subject: DOJ certifies Kendra's Law/Laura's Law/AOT helps mentally ill
Date: March 28th 2012

Department of Justice certifies Assisted Outpatient Treatment as an "Effective Crime Prevention" Program.

Assisted Outpatient Treatment has been widely hailed as a way to help people with mental illness lead better lives. In fact, 80% of people who have experienced AOT said it helped them "get well and stay well.". Earlier this week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Justice Programs certified Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) as an Effective Crime Prevention Program. This comes on top of previous recognition by the DOJ Office of Community Oriented Policing Initiatives.

AOT allows courts to order mental health departments to provide treatment to a small group of people who meet very limited criteria: those with serious mental illness who are likely to become dangerous or gravely disabled without treatment and who have a history of violence, incarceration or needless hospitalization as a result of refusing treatment. Historically, many mental health departments like California and New York elected to require psychotic individuals who don't recognize they are ill to become "danger to self or others" or "gravely disabled" before offering treatment. Because of this "no-treatment" policy, seriously mentally ill individuals who refuse treatment deteriorate and the police are forced to intervene. Too often, this is after the individual becomes a "psychotic killer on rampage" headline and has resulted in three times as many people being incarcerated for mental illness as hospitalized.

AOT laws allow courts to require mental health departments to provide treatment before that happens. In California, Laura's Law reduced hospitalization 46%, reduced incarceration 65%, reduced homelessness 61% and reduced emergency contacts 44%. Results in New York on Kendra's Law were equally impressive.

AOT laws were originally proposed by people with serious mental illness and families of people with mental illness as a way to help there loved ones. The Department of Justice researched implementation of AOT programs like Laura's Law in California and Kendra's Law in New York. DOJ noted

The goal of AOT is to improve access and adherence to intensive behavioral health services in order to avert relapse, repeated hospitalizations, arrest, incarceration, suicide, property destruction, and violent behavior.

Police Chief Michael Biasotti recently released a major survey of senior law enforcement officers that found police and sheriffs are being overwhelmed "dealing with the unintended consequences of a policy change that in effect removed the daily care of our nation's severely mentally ill population from the medical community and placed it with the criminal justice system."

A sheriff in Summit County, Ohio recently took action to prevent seriously mentally ill people from entering his jail arguing they need treatment instead. A Sheriff in Illinois is threatening to sue the mental health department to get them to treat people with mental illness. States are closing psychiatric hospitals in record numbers, further shifting the burden of care from the mental health system to the criminal justice system.

AOT programs exist in many states but are rarely used. You should share this information with mental health and criminal justice officials and legislators in your county and state.

More information on Assisted Outpatient Treatment: http://mentalillnesspolicy.org

More information on Laura's Law: http://lauras-law.org

More information on Kendra's Law: http://kendras-law.org

Housekeeping: Please subscribe to our blog at http://mentalillnesspolicyorg.blogspot.com/

-- To remove yourself use this link: http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/Dadamail1/mail.cgi/u/mipo/example/example.com/ Privacy Policy:
We don't share your info with anyone.

DJ Jaffe
Mental Illness Policy Org
50 East 129 St., PH 7
New York, NY 10035
office@mentalillnesspolicy.org
http://mentalillnesspolicy.org
Follow us:
Twitter: @mentalillPolicy
Huffington Post: http://huffingtonpost.com/dj-jaffe
DONATIONS APPRECIATED

Mailing List Powered by Dada Mail