Worst in the nation is not good enough

The deaths of 33 people at Virginia Tech should have been a wake-up call to legislators to provide real reform to the state’s broken commitment laws. Instead, the General Assembly is considering little more than lip-service reform.

Virginia’s mental illness treatment laws are among the most restrictive in the nation. To get help via involuntary treatment, the state currently requires that someone incapacitated by the symptoms of an illness such as schizophrenia be an immediate physical danger to themselves or others. That’s simply too little, and often too late.

The only proposals now still alive for reform in the General Assembly require that individuals be visibly dangerous before getting treatment. These slight modifications to the existing law would keep Virginia’s treatment standard among the worst in the nation. Read more....