Involuntary Commitment

Fatou Bamba

The issue of involuntary commitment and its place in the mental health community has become increasingly controversial. Interestingly, both sides of the debate use an argument based on the violation of rights and the protection of rights in an attempt to prove a point. This is a complex issue that involves the question of individual civil liberties versus the question of safety of the individual and of the society.   There are many legal cases that have been brought before the court system both at the state and federal levels on this topic, ranging back a number of decades. State laws regarding whether a patient can be involuntarily committed are generally where law enforcement and mental health professionals must seek their legal guidance. There are also federal laws pertaining to rights and civil liberties that come into the picture when there is a question of how to balance the freedom of the individual in a democratic society, versus whether that individual should be protected from inflicting self-harm, and of course, if there is the potential for harm to others, then the question of involuntary commitment takes on different angles and perspectives legally if there is a danger to the public.   The issue of what involuntary commitment means, how it is defined, what it describes, and whether there is a parallel between incarceration (as in jail confinement) vs. involuntary commitment; these are legal and social issues that have shifting definitions according to time, place, and the legal case at hand. Historically involuntary commitment has been asking to incarceration in earlier decades, and therefore a certain ‘bad social reputation’ from a humanistic point of view accompanies social opinion about involuntary commitment. State mental hospitals in the early part of the 20th century, even until the 1970s and 1980s, were known to be ‘backwater’ holding grounds for individuals who received little or no help during their involuntary commitment and in...