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Dangerousness and mental health treatment: civil commitment in the USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Michael J. Vitacco  and
James Degroot
Michael J. Vitacco
Affiliation:
Georgia Regents University, Georgia, USA, email mvitacco@gru.edu East Central Regional Hospital, Augusta, Georgia, USA
James Degroot
Affiliation:
Georgia Regents University, Georgia, USA, email mvitacco@gru.edu Georgia Department of Corrections, Forsyth, Georgia, USA
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Civil commitment standards in the USA have undergone dramatic changes over the past 50 years. The relevant statutes have largely focused on treatment, but how this treatment has been administered and the placement of individuals undergoing commitment have been dynamic. There have also been changes in commitment as it relates to sexual offenders and individuals deemed not competent to proceed to trial. As legislatures strive to find a balance between mandated treatment and civil liberties, changing standards of commitment provide opportunities for scholarship and research.

Type
Mental Health Law Profiles
Information
International Psychiatry , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 40 - 42
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 2013

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