LITTLE more than six months ago opponents of Kendra’s Law shouted ominous warnings of Gestapo dragnets that they predicted would pull in and confine thousands of innocent citizens who posed no risk to themselves or others. They made it seem that jackboot thugs would lock up these people merely for being mentally ill.

Playing on the public’s fear, these doomsayers greatly exaggerated the potential for abuse and claimed that Kendra’s Law would turn treatment into court-ordered punishment.

• Harvey Rosenthal, director of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, labeled the law "an awful proposal" and criticized those who supported the measure by saying, "I think we’re into a lock-’em-up mentality that almost approaches a witch hunt."
• The National Stigma Clearinghouse warned that "all of us will pay dearly if Kendra’s Law is enacted," and that the law would "pit parents against their adult children and caregivers against people in their care, jeopardizing a crucial trust with the mental health constituency."
• The New York Civil Liberties Union threatened a lawsuit and claimed Kendra’s Law violated "the fundamental freedoms of competent, nondangerous persons with psychiatric disabilities."

The many knee-jerk responses to this thoughtful and judicious law, as proponents of it expected, were wrong. Only 20 people have been court-ordered to take medication for their illness and only one of those was committed to a psychiatric facility for failing to do so since November, when the law took effect. Barely 90 more have voluntarily accepted treatment rather than face a judge.

Typical of most states with strong treatment laws, New York has thus far underused what is at its disposal.

Even Rosenthal, once a chief opponent of Kendra’s Law, is seeing the merits it brings to those who need it most: He admitted to the Associated Press earlier this month that the law has forced county mental-health officials to become more closely involved in the cases of the seriously ill.

That’s what we have said all along: Kendra’s Law not only commits the patient to the treatment system, it commits the system to the patient. It will end the revolving-door syndrome of hospital admissions, readmissions abandonment to the streets and incarceration that usually engulfs those not receiving treatment.

Kendra’s Law is holding the mental-health system accountable for providing treatment by the court. Individuals are ordered into treatment and not into hospitals, thanks to strict eligibility criteria and numerous patient protections included in the law. And patients are now assured of needed medical care, outreach and rehabilitation.

Also proving false are the claims that Kendra’s Law would dry up mental-health money for everything except assisted-treatment plans. In addition to money committed for implementing Kendra’s Law, Gov. Pataki has proposed increasing spending on the state’s mentally ill by $125 million this year. This will include significant new resources on the screening and treatment of those who truly need medical care.

Kendra’s Law is proving to be what its authors designed it to be: A safety net protecting the severely mentally ill and the communities in which they live.

While they have yet to fully embrace the promise Kendra’s Law brings to the state’s most vulnerable, we hope these well-intentioned yet misguided civil libertarians eventually recognize that defending an individual’s right to remain psychotic is mindless.