Dear Senator Alarcon:

As the former supervising judge for twelve years of the Mental Health Departments of the Superior Court, Los Angeles, and as a judge of more than 20 years service, I am writing to urge your support of AB 1421.

Based upon my experience both in the Mental Health, Criminal, and Juvenile Courts, I have heard countless numbers of cases involving untreated persons with severe mental illness. I have found that present law is inadequate to address their needs for treatment and services and has been wasteful of limited fiscal resources as well as human lives.

Current mental health law in California is inadequate to ensure treatment compliance for those who have not yet reached the severe level of deterioration of their conditions to warrant involuntary hospitalization. Nor, for those released from mental hospitals, is there any mechanism by which both the patient and those responsible for providing treatment are held accountable to follow through with treatment acceptance and treatment provision. The result being that untreated individuals with persistent and severe mental illness cycle and recycle through our mental hospitals and our criminal justice system at enormous expense to the public and little, if any, consistent, sustained treatment upon release.

In limited circumstances and only after a judicial hearing before a neutral fact-finder, AB 1421 would authorize the court to order treatment for a limited time period and to conduct review of treatment acceptance and provision on petition of the treatment provider or the patient.

The bill is carefully crafted to balance the due process rights of the patient against the state's interest in both protecting the patient as well as public safety.

Opponents of the bill have taken an ideological approach that blinds itself to the reality that persons with persistent but untreated mental illness are themselves the victims of our current laws: These persons wander the streets hungry, homeless, and without hope. They cycle through our hospitals and are released with no assured after-care or plan to meet their human needs -- and, all too often in my experience, wind up in our jails and prisons, not because they are criminals but because there simply is no place for them in our society.

It is well known that the Los Angeles County jail and our state prison system constitute the largest mental institutions in the world. In our jails and prisons, other prisoners and even staff victimize those with persistent, severe mental disorders. When discharged, they are generally far sicker than when they entered custody. And the cost of their incarceration is astronomically higher than would be the cost of community-based, effective care. AB 1421, if enacted, will encourage the development of comprehensive, individually-tailored services and, in those counties choosing to participate in Assisted Community Outpatient Treatment, will provide a cost-effective, humane alternative to our present wasteful system.

I therefore respectfully urge you to support passage of this critical, well-balanced and carefully crafted bill.

Sincerely,

Harold E. Shabo
Supervising Judge (retired)
Mental Health Departments
Superior Court, Los Angeles

Treatment Advocacy Center