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Idaho Activities

Idaho statutes

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Reluctance to use available laws is usually rationalized as a defense of civil liberties. But what kind of freedom is it to eat from a garbage can, as 28 percent of homeless mentally ill people do? Or to sit in a jail cell, screaming at the voices assailing you?

- From "Prisons and jails are no place for people with mental illness,
The Idaho Statesman, November 25, 2002

Reform in Idaho Makes State’s Commitment Law Among the Nation’s Best

After sweeping through the legislature without the trace of a single nay vote, S.B. 1426 was signed into law by Governor Otter on April 1, 2008. The bill improves Idaho’s commitment process and standard and addresses some of the deficiencies in the current law.

S.B. 1426 provides assisted outpatient treatment as an option at all commitment hearings in the state. Assisted outpatient treatment is a less restrictive, less expensive treatment alternative for people who need intervention but do not require inpatient hospitalization.

The new law substantially broadens the definitions of “likely to injure himself or others,” and “gravely disabled,” which are now the eligibility criteria for court-ordered placement in both inpatient and outpatient treatment. The reform also allows courts the option of ordering individuals in crisis to receive outpatient treatment rather than releasing those in need of treatment into the community to await another crisis.
S.B. 1426 takes effect on July 1, 2008.

PREVENTABLE TRAGEDIES The Preventable Tragedies database includes summaries of news articles of which an individual with a neurobiological brain disorder (usually untreated) is involved in a violent episode, either as a victim or perpetrator. Search for Idaho episodes by choosing ID in the drop down box.

History

LETTER TO THE EDITOR The bad news for Idaho lies in the reduction of services, Medicaid-slashing proposals and inadequate funding for treatment.
The Idaho Statesman, Dec. 4, 2002

OPED Prisons and jails are no place for people with mental illness - Our prisons have become psychiatric hospitals. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 16 percent of inmates of severe mental illness. Idaho's prison system holds four times more people with mental illness than its remaining public hospitals. Ada County jail houses about as many as State Hospital South, the largest state psychiatric hospital.
The Idaho Statesman, November 25, 2002

LEGISLATION On March 20, 2002, Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne signed into law Idaho House Bill 595, which modifies - for the better - the state's definition of "gravely disabled." This change to Idaho's statutes, which goes into effect July 1, 2002, only comprises the deletion of a single word and the adding of a few more, but it will facilitate the treatment of those in the state who become overwhelmed by severe mental illness.

Previously, someone could not be placed in needed treatment pursuant to the gravely disabled criteria unless "in danger of serious physical harm due to the person's inability to provide for his essential needs." HB 595 more explicitly establishes that the person's inability can be to provide for "any of his basic needs for nourishment, or essential medical care, or shelter or safety." The substitution of the more encompassing "basic" for the restrictive "essential" broadens the definition. So too does the specific mention of the ability to provide for safety. The effect of this reform will be even greater if "essential medical care" is interpreted to include psychiatric treatment, as it properly should be.

This admirable reform should also make easier the use of the state's assisted outpatient treatment law, which was passed only a few years ago. Idaho advocates are to be congratulated.

Idaho has yet to join the rank of states with the most progressive laws, but it is steadily moving towards it. The course of reform in the state shows how rational laws do not necessarily have to be achieved with one grand revision, the same goal can be reached step by step and year by year.
- Jonathan Stanley, Treatment Advocacy Center

Treatment Advocacy Center

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