Involuntary commitment laws and the mental health system in Seattle/King County have been under scrutiny after the murder of Shannon Harps by the mentally ill James Williams on New Years Eve. I wrote in January that the mental health system will always be flawed, a thought echoed by many others in the region. A specialized task force recently made a list of recommendations that, if implemented, could likely (and hopefully) reduce the chance of this type of incident occurring again. Here are a few of the 57 recommendations made:

~Providing more tools for enforcing outpatient treatment in the community.
~Reducing privacy barriers so police can know the mental health histories of people they deal with in “real time.”
~Allowing those who make involuntary treatment decisions more leeway to consider past history of violence.
~Allowing juries a new option of “guilty but mentally ill” in addition to “not guilty by reason of insanity.”
**Via this Seattle PI article**

The recommendations could likely help a portion of those diagnosed mentally ill, prevent the early release of the extremely unstable, and in my opinion, help reform the current outpatient process with a better system of checks and balances. These recommendations came from a mixed group of psychiatrists, corrections officers, police officers, mental health counselors, county- and state-level executives, criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors and legislators (Seattle PI) who worked together to coordinate a comprehensive list that focuses on the entire support network, not just one area.

The task force, per the same PI article, also takes a look at the role of key areas that need help. Washington’s psychiatric hospitals are overflowing with patients, lacking about 900 beds. Each of those patients that are turned away from the psychiatric hospital end up in the ER, on the streets, or in care homes that lack the resources to properly treat them. Currently, Washington ranks last in the country in the number of community psychiatric beds for either voluntary or involuntary commitments, said Amnon Shoenfeld, director of mental health for King County. This is unacceptable.

Similar to the situation in which the growing number of homeless find themselves in, the mentally ill face a dwindling number of beds and services as the system is simultaneously reduced and overwhelmed. Instead of waiting for another murder that spotlights the inadequate system in place, the state and county need to implement these and other changes and bring the current system up to the standards of modern times. Adding 20 beds to serve the hundreds that need help will only plug one small leak in the dam.