Contra Costa County votes to embrace Laura’s Law

[KamaAina]

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Contra-Costa-County-votes-to-embrace-Laura-s-Law-6060304.php

Contra Costa County on Tuesday became the latest county to adopt Laura’s Law, the state measure that allows courts to compel outpatient treatment of people with a record of mental health hospitalizations and violence.

The county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to move forward with three years of outpatient services under the law once details of its implementation are sorted out between the health department and court officials.

Under Laura’s Law, family members or police officers can petition the court to force someone with serious mental illness to get help and stick with a treatment plan. The legislation was enacted a year after 19-year-old college student Laura Wilcox was killed by a Nevada County psychiatric patient in 2001....

Contra Costa joins San Francisco as well as Los Angeles, Yolo, Orange and Nevada counties in voting to implement a Laura’s Law program. The legislation has been slow to gain traction largely because of concerns that it infringes upon the rights of the mentally ill.

Apparently those concerns don’t mean much in the face of tearful testimony from people touched by tragedy, just as we’re seeing with Brittany Maynard’s family and assisted suicide.

[antiquie]

1. But Reagan