The current system in California / some other states are broken.
From personal experience, in Illinois, someone can receive hospital care involuntarily if the doctors deem that they would deteriorate without intervention / become dangerous to others.
One look at the differences in law between the two is illustrative:
In CA -
To qualify for mandated treatment in a hospital or other inpatient facility, the person must be:
- dangerous to self/others; or
- unable to provide for basic personal needs for food, clothing, or shelter.
in IL:
- be a reasonable expectation of danger to self/others
- be unable to provide for basic physical needs so as to guard against serious harm without the assistance of others, OR
- refuse or not adhere to treatment, unable to understand need for treatment, and, if not treated, reasonably expected to suffer mental or emotional deterioration and become dangerous and/or unable to provide for basic physical needs
Your sister conceivably wouldn't have reached that state because once she reached the stage in paragraph 3, if you brought her to a hospital in IL, a evaluation would've determined that she should be involuntarily hospitalized, and she would've received medication.
I know a schizophrenic woman who was committed to involuntary psychiatric hold in California in just about every decade from the 1960s through 1990s, each time she had psychotic breaks. These would be some number of weeks before transitioning to periodic out-patient care.
To my knowledge, she was never really aggressive, violent, nor into self-harm. She was only a risk to herself or her children due to impaired decision making. Her encounters with law enforcement would be things like running a red light while in a delusional panic or because she called to report imaginary prowlers. I think her family and doctor were instrumental in getting her committed when she resisted treatment and her condition regressed. It's possible that her first encounters in the 1960s happened when the system was more willing to declare someone unfit, and then her existing history made it easier to repeat the process in later decades. It takes someone to track and pursue, rather than just expecting some random public servant to recognize the need based on one transient encounter with the case.
But, it was also her family that kept her going outside the brief psychiatric holds. This supportive environment is what seems to be most lacking in modern society, but also is the least feasible for the state itself to provide. I don't see how you can expect much better than the kind of institutional living that has been dismantled. How many patients have to share one doctor, nurse, or orderly?
And, from what I know of this woman, even her successful case took a huge toll on those family members who provided ongoing support. Where can the state find caregivers to provide similar effort for all the less fortunate patients who do not have the supporting family or friends?
From personal experience, in Illinois, someone can receive hospital care involuntarily if the doctors deem that they would deteriorate without intervention / become dangerous to others.
One look at the differences in law between the two is illustrative:
In CA -
To qualify for mandated treatment in a hospital or other inpatient facility, the person must be:
- dangerous to self/others; or - unable to provide for basic personal needs for food, clothing, or shelter.
in IL:
- be a reasonable expectation of danger to self/others - be unable to provide for basic physical needs so as to guard against serious harm without the assistance of others, OR - refuse or not adhere to treatment, unable to understand need for treatment, and, if not treated, reasonably expected to suffer mental or emotional deterioration and become dangerous and/or unable to provide for basic physical needs
Your sister conceivably wouldn't have reached that state because once she reached the stage in paragraph 3, if you brought her to a hospital in IL, a evaluation would've determined that she should be involuntarily hospitalized, and she would've received medication.