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Outpatient Commitment

Official Coercion in the Community

  • Chapter
Coercion and Aggressive Community Treatment

Part of the book series: The Springer Series in Social Clinical Psychology ((SSSC))

Abstract

Coerced mental health treatment in the community that is mandated by court order is known as outpatient commitment. This official mandatory mental health treatment in the community grew out of the 1960s and 1970s civil rights reform of mental health law when basic principles of due process and protection of individual liberties were applied to mental patients (Chambers, 1972; Hiday & Goodman, 1982; LaFond & Durham, 1992). Interpreting the Constitution as requiring a state to use the least drastic means when basic liberty is at stake (Shelton . Tucker, 1960), both state statutes and federal appellate courts called for application of the least restrictive alternative in civil commitment cases.1

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27695, USA

    Virginia Aldigé Hiday

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  1. Virginia Aldigé Hiday
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Policy Research Associates, Inc., 12054, Delmar, New York, USA

    Deborah L. Dennis

  2. School of Law, University of Virginia, 22903, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

    John Monahan

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© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Hiday, V.A. (1996). Outpatient Commitment. In: Dennis, D.L., Monahan, J. (eds) Coercion and Aggressive Community Treatment. The Springer Series in Social Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9727-5_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9727-5_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-9729-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-9727-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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