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This article was signed by several members of the Minnesota Legislature. Their names are listed below.
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Sleeping outside during Minnesota winters can be deadly. It can also be cruel. Despite exhaustive efforts by his loving family, Jeremy was sleeping in a cold alley when a garbage truck ran over his legs, inflicting compound fractures. Jeremy has schizophrenia. He has no insight into the fact that he has a terrible brain disease. He was civilly committed. Say what?
The whole purpose of going through the trauma of obtaining court-ordered treatment is to provide care even when the person’s brain doesn’t allow them to know they need it. We need more accountability to ensure that the few people who meet this high bar don’t fall between the cracks.
We Republican and Democratic legislators are offering legislation to address this. We believe this is the year for taking bipartisan stock of how our mental health system is failing people who need it the most. People like Jeremy who are dangerous enough to themselves or others to qualify for civil commitment surely fit that category and need our help.
The Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), a national organization that works to eliminate barriers to care for people with serious mental illness, rates Minnesota’s civil commitment statute as the best in the nation. Our structure is exemplary; our follow-up, unfortunately, is not. TAC’s data shows that people who receive follow-up after court orders have very different outcomes from those who don’t. States with good follow-up save money, another goal that interests us and many Minnesotans across the state.
