California Lawmakers Propose Involuntarily Confining Individuals With Mental Illness

Gov. Gavin Newsom, speaking at a mental health treatment center in San Jose, Calif., announces "Care Court," a program that would target people suffering from psychosis who have lost their ability to care for themselves, on March 3, 2022. Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group via AP

California state Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) teamed up with other local officials and health agencies to update the state’s current mental health system and conservatorships laws.

Bill SB43 was introduced to legislators in March, which would allow for early intervention in response to an individual’s mental health crisis and update the criteria for determining if a person is “gravely disabled,” the bill states.

The reform would tie into California’s existing Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) conservatorship law in an effort to prevent serious physical and mental harm to oneself or others due to a serious mental illness.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed (C) speaks during a press conference as San Francisco police chief William Scott (L) and San Francisco Department of Public Health director Dr. Grant Colfax (R) look on at San Francisco City Hall on March 16, 2020. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Eggman is the chairperson of the California Senate Committee on Health.

“Over the last couple of years, we have made critical investments and instituted important changes in our behavioral health laws, including the adoption of better data gathering requirements and, of course, the adoption of the CARE Act. More work remains to be done—and this is the year to finally enact critically needed reforms for the LPS Act. People are suffering needlessly, many on our streets, and we are leaving family members who are seeking help for their loved ones with few tools and little help. It is time to do better,” Eggman said in a statement.

San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed is co-sponsoring the bill as part of the Big City Mayors coalition.

“We are long overdue to improve our conservatorship laws to better address the current mental health and substance use crises we see every day in our cities, and to get people the care they deserve,” Breed said in a statement. 

Breed thanked Eggman for her support and said that they couldn’t sit back and do nothing to help those who are most in need.

“It is not compassionate to leave people who cannot [take] care of themselves to suffer on our streets and it is inhumane to let our current laws stand. I want to thank Senator Eggman for her leadership and work to bring forward legislation that will help cities like San Francisco provide care and support to people who are desperately in need of assistance so they can live healthy, fulfilling lives,” she added.

Disability and civil rights advocates disagree and say that changes to the conservatorship laws will violate an individual’s equal protection rights under the state constitution.

In a statement to the LA Times, Disability Rights California, which advocates for people with disabilities, accused the bill of being “highly speculative,” saying it would make mental health patients lose their “fundamental rights and liberty.”

Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher believes policy changes are what’s needed to improve mental health services and the government can’t continue to spend money without successful results.

“We cannot simply throw billions of dollars at the issue and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. We need policy changes to ensure that vulnerable and seriously mentally ill individuals who are incapable of taking care of themselves in the most basic ways receive the help they need,” Gallagher said in a statement.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) California CEO Jessica Cruz says updating the LPS Act is needed to help families gain more effective ways of helping family members who are struggling with mental health issues.

“Families are often left feeling helpless and hopeless as their loved ones languish in their illness. Updating our age-old LPS Act to provide clarity will get us one step closer to helping our loved ones get the help they need,” Cruz said in a statement.

Dr. Ronald Thurston, president of the Psychiatric Physicians Alliance of California, says it’s about providing individuals with “lifesaving care.”

“Treatments for mental illness can be wonderfully effective, but our laws often prevent us from providing them to individuals who are at mortal risk on our streets. SB43 will help us provide lifesaving care,” Thurston said in a statement.