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The New York Daily News

June 1, 1999

Reprinted with permission. Copyright 1999 New York Daily News. All rights reserved.

Pass Kendra's Law

Editorial

Recent murders and assaults by mental patients who wouldn't take their medication highlight the importance of swift passage of Kendra's Law. The bill would permit involuntary commitment of patients who refuse prescribed drugs and become a danger to themselves or others.

It's smart to release mental patients from hospitals if they can live normal lives when medicated. This is compassionate and makes good fiscal sense. Community programs cost between $10,000 and $43,000 a year per patient, while warehousing in a mental ward costs $140,000. But when outpatients do not take their medicine, they can become a threat.

Witness Albert Goldstein, who in January pushed Kendra Webdale to her death under a subway train. Goldstein was a schizophrenic who had attacked 13 other people in two years. He knew he was dangerous and even begged to be committed — but to no avail.

In April, a paranoid schizophrenic named Charles Stevens terrorized passengers in Penn Station with a sword after he stopped taking his anti-psychotic drugs. And just last week, another mental patient, Rodney Mason, was shot and killed by police when he tried to stab an officer. Mason's mother was trying to reach counselors at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center when he became violent — yes, after he had stopped taking his drugs. Had there been a Kendra's Law, these tragedies might never have happened.

Some advocates for the mentally ill fear the law would give legal sanction to robbing patients of their freedom. Not so. Kendra's Law protects patients' civil rights by requiring that a judge make the final decision, and this only after a psychiatrist signs an affidavit attesting to the need for hospitalization. Plus, the patient has free legal counsel through the entire process.

Public safety is just as important as the rights of patients. Thirty-nine states already have involuntary commitment laws. So should New York.

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