An Act to Strengthen Emergency Restraint for Persons Suffering Dangerous or Violent Mental Illness
Lead Sponsor: Representative Kay Khan and John J. Cronin
Impetus
General Laws c. 123, § 12 currently allows for emergency hospitalization for a three-day period for persons when there is a reason to believe that failure to hospitalize such person would create a likelihood of serious harm by reason of mental illness. This bill would create a new category of emergency hospitalization where a person’s mental illness specifically creates a serious threat of violence toward another person, and would create a period of supervision for persons hospitalized under this section at their release. In addition, the bill strengthens 1) the requirement that hospitals share medical information about a person committed under this section with the social workers who supervise them upon release, and 2) allows a supervising social worker to petition for recommitment of a person who has been released, but is not compliant with treatment or supervision.
Need
Persons who present a deadly danger to others may benefit from supervision for a period of time at their release from a hospital under MGL chapter 123, section 12 in order to ensure another person’s and the public’s safety. In recent years, in Middlesex County, there have been many tragic instances of persons suffering from acute mental illness harming their family members and themselves: a young man with longstanding violent tendencies, whose neighbors feared him, is alleged to have stabbed two people in a library, killing one; a young man who had been hospitalized for mental illness is alleged to have killed his grandmother; another young man with a history of mental illness killed his mother and then himself;. Mental illness is also a factor in police shootings, with people in the throes of mental illness accounting for an estimated twenty-five percent of those fatally shot by police. Such incidents traumatize not only victims, but families, police officers and entire communities.
Legislative Fix
- Amends G.L. c. 123, § 12 to:
- Create a new category of emergency admissions for people who by reason of mental illness are violent, homicidal or pose a serious risk of physical harm to another person, and who shall be supervised at their release;
- Require hospitals that admit such patients to share medical information with the social workers who supervise such persons during their release;
- Create a mechanism whereby a social worker or police officer may petition to re-commit a patient who, after release, is relapsing into violent mental illness or is otherwise noncompliant.