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(Jan. 11, 2013) “From a classroom at Virginia Tech to a strip mall in Tucson to a movie theater in Colorado, a common thread runs through many of the nation's tragic mass murders: severe and untreated mental illness,” the USA Today editorial begins.

“Fixing problems with the nation's mental health system is a tall order,” “Fix broken mental health system” (Jan. 10) concludes. “Some require state action, some federal. But no response to Sandy Hook will be complete without them.”

We agree. To illustrate:

“In recent years, society has learned a lot about mass killers,” the editorial says. “All but one of the 62 worst mass killings in the past 30 years were carried out by males. The perpetrators have typically been young men who are psychopaths, or are suffering from suicidal depression or psychotic breaks.”

In the cases of Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho, Tucson killer Jared Loughner and accused Aurora killer James Holmes, “even strangers noticed something terribly wrong long before the killings. Yet none was receiving treatment at the time of their crimes.”

“How can that be?”

It can be, we know, because of five decades of failed mental health policies that have focused on making treatment for the most severe mental illnesses harder to get.

The Treatment Advocacy Center has proposed three public policies to address these failures and reduce the consequences of non-treatment of mental illness:

• REFORM civil commitment laws that present barriers to treatment – and use them. 
• STOP closing the public psychiatric hospitals that provide treatment to people with acute or chronic severe psychiatric disease and restore sufficient inpatient treatment facilities to treat them. 
• STOP viewing mental illness as a state of freedom to be protected at all costs from involuntary treatment that would set individuals with mental illness on the road to recovery.

If you support these policies, here are three actions you can take:

• IDENTIFY the deficiencies in your state so you know what your state needs to make treatment possible.
• CALL OR WRITE your elected state leaders and demand that they take needed action.
• URGE THE VICE PRESIDENT to include our common-sense policy proposals in his upcoming recommendations to President Obama.

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(Jan. 10, 2013) Today, on the 12 year anniversary of a mass shooting in Nevada County that resulted in a number of injuries and the death of three people including Laura Wilcox, Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) announced legislation that will help counties implement Laura’s Law, a program that allows enforcement of assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) orders for some potentially dangerous mentally ill patients.

Specifically, Yee plans to remove unnecessary and cumbersome barriers to implementation of Laura’s Law, such as allowing counties to use existing mental health funds to implement the program as well as removing the requirement of a vote of the local county board of supervisors.

“While we should not draw direct correlations between mental illness and all acts of violence, both mental health treatment and reasonable gun control should be part of a comprehensive response to protect children and families,” said Yee. “It is imperative that we find ways to implement Laura’s Law throughout California.”

Laura's Law allows counties to assure that court-ordered treatment reaches people who are not complying with voluntary treatment programs, have a history of hospitalization, arrest or violent behavior and are potentially dangerous to themselves or others.

Many counties have failed to implement Laura's Law despite the fact that the policy has proven to result in less hospitalization, less homelessness, fewer arrests, less incarceration, increased collaboration between the mental health and justice systems, as well as a more efficient and effective cross-agency delivery system.

Wilcox, a 19-year-old high school valedictorian, was shot to death at a Nevada County mental health clinic in 2001 by a man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia who consistently refused treatment.

“Senator Yee's bill will make it easier for counties to implement Laura's Law and will get persons with severe mental illness engaged in needed treatment,” said Amanda Wilcox, Laura’s mother.

“It’s time we get serious about providing the benefits of Laura’s Law more fully in California,” said Randall Hagar of the California Psychiatric Association. “We can do a better job of protecting both patients and the public from the effects of untreated mental illness, among which are arrest, incarceration and hospitalizations that are often too late.”

Read the entire announcement on Senator Leland Yee's website.

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