Public Education & Policy :: News Alerts

News Alert, August 2006

AB 2357 Goes to the Governor's Desk

AB 2357 - the AB 1421 expansion bill - goes to the Governor's desk to be signed into law or vetoed. This is very problematic since three quarters of the Senate and Assembly voted for the bill.

AB 2357 extends the sunset deadline of AB 1421, the bill which codified outpatient commitment. It extends the sunset deadline from 2008 to 2013. Extending the sunset deadline of AB 1421 will provide viability to outpatient commitment which is antithetical to the promise of transformation in California with the passage and implementation of the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA.)

If you want to write a letter to the Governor, address it to:

The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor of California
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 916-445-4633

Specific points that the CNMHC will make in its letter to the Governor urging him to VETO AB 2357 follow:

Give Voluntary Community Services (in the Mental Health Services Act) a Chance

Voluntary enhanced services are the answer to the mental suffering that surrounds us, not the expansion of forced treatment. With the passage of Prop 63, the Mental Health Services Act, California is moving in the direction of making adequate services readily accessible to Californians with mental disabilities, of improving access to voluntary services. California is fulfilling a promise made 30 plus years ago when it closed so many of its institutions. Give this initiative a chance.

In Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. (1999) the Surgeon General states, "Almost all agree that coercion should not be a substitute for effective care that is sought voluntarily". Making AB 1421 a viable program option by extending the sunset provision would substitute coercion for a mental health system based on effective care that is sought voluntarily envisioned in the MHSA.

Outpatient Commitment is an Old Idea Whose Time Has Passed

AB 1421 was an incorrect answer to an inadequate mental health system. In California, that system is now changing. The environment that created the perceived need for AB 1421 is changing. Outpatient commitment is an outdated and stigmatizing reaction to people with mental disabilities; it looks backwards, not forwards. Whereas the traditional system has used coercion and force in its attempt to solve problems, a transformed system will create options that maximize client self-determination and autonomy, goals of the MHSA. The implementation of the MHSA supports a new direction for mental health services, not the same old - unsuccessful - answers. Making AB 1421 secure by extending the sunset clause supports the same old answers and is antithetical to the immanent changes in California and throughout the country.

Coercive treatment is ultimately ineffective

The expansion of forced treatment will not stop "treatment noncompliance," which is viewed as a problem that more forced treatment will solve. In fact, researchers have found that forced treatment causes noncompliance. The Well Being Project, a research project supported by the California Department of Mental Health, found that 55 % of clients interviewed who had experienced forced treatment reported that fear of forced treatment caused them to avoid all treatment for psychological and emotional problems.

Choice is Essential for Recovery

Informed choice about treatment and control over one's own individualized path to health, is necessary for recovery. Treatment and civil rights are not antithetical to each other; in fact, good treatment can only occur in an atmosphere of choice and freedom.

Introducing the Issue of Forced Treatment is Divisive

The introduction of AB 2357 threatens to destroy the consensus of the mental health stakeholders that has been forged in the development, promotion and implementation of the MHSA. The MHSA has spurred a unique collaboration among mental health stakeholders. By focusing on what we all can agree on, voluntary community services, the MHSA has brought together the whole mental health community. In unity is our success in building a transformed mental health system; in divisiveness will lie our failure. AB 2357 is divisive at a time when we need to be working together and diversionary at a time when our energy needs to be focused on working toward the one goal of transforming the mental health system.

MHSA Funds Can Not be Used for AB 1421 Programs

A rational for AB 2357 is that AB 1421 needs to become a secure option (through extending the sunset deadline) because of the funding opportunities that the MHSA provides it. In fact, MHSA funds cannot be used for AB 1421 programs. This is underscored in the following DMH's Requirements for Community Services and Supports Programs. "Individuals accessing services funded by the Mental Health Services Act may have voluntary or involuntary legal status which shall not affect their ability to access the expanded services under this Act. Programs funded under the Mental Health Services Act must be voluntary in nature."

There is No Justification to Expand the Sunset Deadline of AB 1421

No County in California has chosen to implement AB 1421. The RAND report commissioned by the Senate Rules Committee (2001) to study outpatient commitment throughout the country cites that one reason for the lack of implementation of outpatient commitment laws nationwide is that mental health providers don't like it; they don't want to undermine their therapeutic relationship with coercion. Only one California County is considering implementing AB 1421: Nevada County promised to implement the law as a lawsuit settlement with the Wilcox family over their daughter's death. Because there has been no implementation of AB 1421, there are no program outcomes to justify its continuance. There is no new money that can support AB 1421; the MHSA can not support involuntary programs. There is no rationale for continuing the sunset deadline beyond what is in the law. AB 1421 should die as we enter the 21st century and commit ourselves to transforming the mental health system.