EDITORIAL
Avoiding a descent into crisis: 
Reform of Baker Act can help families and law enforcement

The Legislature has a clear opportunity -- and an obligation -- to help both families and law enforcement officers by reforming the Florida Mental Health Act, known as the Baker Act.

The Baker Act took effect in 1972 as a comprehensive revision of Florida's laws governing the involuntary commitment of people with severe mental illness. While Baker Act cases can be initiated by mental health professionals, law enforcement officers or judges, the vast majority of cases are handled by police.

Since the act became law, advances in mental health care have made it possible for many people with severe mental illnesses to be released to community-based outpatient treatment rather than endure long stays in a hospital.

These releases can often be humane, but lack of mental health facilities in many Florida communities -- and the refusal of some patients to take required medication -- can lead to crises. One result is that law enforcement officers are increasingly forced to confront people with severe mental illness who turn violent. In 2000, Florida officers initiated nearly 100 Baker Act cases each day -- 40 percent more than the number of burglary arrests, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Recidivism and risk

Frequently, the officers deal with the same individuals -- over and over again. These individuals are often violent and dangerous. The risks to the officers are great, and the ultimate result can be fatal.

Consider the case of Alan Houseman, a Tampa resident who was fatally shot after striking an officer in March. Houseman, who had attended the University of Tampa on an academic scholarship, had stopped taking his medication for schizophrenia. He had been held under the Baker Act at least a dozen times; his family had filed papers to have him hospitalized for mental health treatment the day before he was killed.

In 1998, Seminole County Sheriff's Deputy Eugene Gregory was fatally shot by Alan Singletary, a 43-year-old man with untreated schizophrenia who had previously been committed under the Baker Act. Singletary also wounded two other deputies, firing hundreds of shots in a lengthy standoff -- not his first with deputies -- before he was killed.

In October 2000, Michael Gentile, a Sarasota man with a history of mental illness and crime, was charged in the nearly fatal stabbing of a patron of a North Port bar. In an all-too-typical "revolving-door" situation, Gentile had been treated numerous times for mental problems but refused to take medication. Such refusal is common among the severely mentally ill.

Impact on families

Blindness to the illness and the revolving-door phenomenon also can wreak havoc with the families of those with severe mental illness. An untreated paranoid schizophrenic can destroy a family's financial health ot threaten suicide. Some become violent and coerce, beat and sexually abuse others in the household. Repeated episodes of bizarre and cruel behavior can have lifelong consequences, especially for children.

Under Baker Act reforms proposed by the Florida Sheriffs Association and introduced in the Legislature (HB 1197), a judge could order individuals with severe mental illness to receive treatment, including taking medication to control the symptoms. Other states have found that a court order often assures compliance more effectively than a mental health worker's directive to a patient, greatly facilitating the success of community-based treatment. If the patients fail to comply, the reforms would authorize law enforcement officers to take them to a designated receiving facility, such as a hospital, for treatment.

The proposed reforms could help prevent a small group of recidivists from exhausting resources and keeping law enforcement officers from patrol duties. Rather than require an infusion of funding for services, in many cases the Baker Act reforms would save money by avoiding hospitalizations, violence and arrests.

Timely intervention

The proposed Baker Act reforms will allow intervention for people with untreated, severe mental illness before they descend into crisis. Florida would join 41 states that permit courts to order individuals to take part in community-based treatment, including taking medication. This makes especially good sense, considering that, in nearly half of Florida's counties, law enforcement officers, rather than medical professionals, are intervening when a mentally ill person becomes dangerous. Too often the outcome is a tragedy that could have been prevented.

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