Risk of Suicide Is Insufficient Warrant for Coercive Treatment for Mental Illness

Mental health laws in many jurisdictions currently permit coercive treatment for persons with mental illness who are thought to be at risk of harm to themselves or others. These laws are often used to provide involuntary treatment to persons who are thought to be at risk of suicide. In this article we argue that legislated coercive psychiatric treatment should not be triggered by an assessment of the likelihood of harm, including a likelihood of suicide, but should be available only where a person is found to lack capacity to make their own decisions about their own health risks, after appropriate support has been given. We suggest that current opposition this approach may find its origin in factors including uncertainties about the idea of vulnerability and its relationship to capacity as well as tendency to minimise the real costs of psychiatric treatment and coercion against the aim of suicide prevention. Given the limits of suicide risk assessment, we argue that a public policy that allows involuntary preventative detention of competent persons thought to be at risk of suicide, places too great a burden on all persons living with mental illness to be justified. We suggest that we are better placed to serve the interests and respect the human rights of people with mental illness if we respect and support the right of persons to make decisions, rather than focussing on perceived vulnerabilities and calculations of suicide risk

Sexual Orientation and the Law: A Research Bibliography Selectively Annotating Legal Literature through 2005

Sexual Orientation and the Law: A Research Bibliography is a project of the Standing Committee on Lesbian and Gay Issues of the American Association of Law Libraries. This almost-500 page volume includes several features that the Standing Committee hopes will be useful to librarians and their patrons. These include: a description of the bibliography project from its origins in 1987; an introduction by Brad Sears, Executive Director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy that places this literature into intellectual, historical and legal perspective; a reprint of the original 1994 bibligraphy as it appeared in Law Library Journal; and 877 new citations that have been annotated by members of the Standing Committee. Annotated citations are indexed by author and by cited cases. Updates to this volume are posted quarterly at lgbtbib.org.https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facbookdisplay/1061/thumbnail.jp

The Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Act: Evidence, ethics and the law

Summary: The Northern Territory Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Act 2013 (AMT Act) permits mandatory residential alcohol rehabilitation for up to 3 months. International guidelines and human rights law confirm that mandatory rehabilitation should only be used for short periods. Evidence concerning the efficacy of long-term mandatory alcohol rehabilitation is lacking, and minimal data concerning the efficacy of the scheme have been released. Specific legal issues also arise concerning the AMT Act, including its potentially discriminatory application to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The program only permits referral by police, despite the fact that it is ostensibly a medical intervention. Use of a treatment as a method of effectively solving a public intoxication problem is highly dubious, and should be of concern to the medical community. Given that more cost-effective and proven measures exist to combat alcohol dependence, the utility of the AMT Act is questionable