I love Janet McCabe and have known her for probably 30 years, but I am not a fan of Mental Health Court. It is basically a “take your drugs or go to jail” program. She listed five objectives of Mental Health Court, and not one of them is about improving the life of the defendant. Four are about lessening the burden on the state. The fifth is about increasing safety, but it is not true that mandated mental health treatment increases safety.
At the end of her piece, Ms. McCabe asserted that Mental Health Court saves lives, but I doubt that is true because the drugs people are required to take in Mental Health Court shorten people’s lives by 20-25 years and cause some people to commit suicide andhomicide.
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights’ white paper on improving mental health outcomes in Alaska was published a year ago and given to the top mental health officials in the state as well as every legislator, but has been ignored. Alaska should do much better. The way is known.
— Jim Gottstein
Anchorage
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