MHLAC Opposes

Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (IOC)

Once again, there is a strong drive to push the Massachusetts legislature to enact a bill that would allow courts to order people to engage in “treatment,” which means drug therapy primarily. As in many years past, MHLAC opposes this move. See our testimony to the Judiciary Committee, as well as a white paper setting out why Involuntary Outpatient Commitment is bad public policy, a fact sheet about the bill, and a letter to the editor criticizing an OpEd piece from an IOC proponent that appeared in the Boston Globe.

And our community agrees: Read written testimony from all those who testified in opposition to IOC. Click on the letter images to view the text in full as a PDF.

Legal advocates and individuals’ testimony against IOC:

Testimony from Robert D. Fleischner

Testimony from Susan Stefan

Testimony from Jacqueline Hubbard, Esq. Deputy Director of Policy, Advocacy, and Communications of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

Testimony from Professor Lisa Cosgrove, University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB) and Faculty Fellow of Applied Ethics Center at UMB

Testimony from Sera Davidow, Director of Wildflower Alliance

Testimony from Colin Killick, Executive Director of Disability Policy Consortium

Testimony from Kathleen Flaherty, Esq., Executive Director of CT Legal Rights Project

Testimony from Steven Schwartz, Legal Director of Center for Public Representation

Testimony from Howard Trachtman, co-founder and President Emeritus of the NAMI Greater Boston Consumer Advocacy Network (NAMI GB CAN)

Testimony from Richard M. Glassman, Director of Advocacy, and Barbara L’Italien, Executive Director, the Disability Law Center (DLC)

Testimony from Jordan Goldstein, the Disability Law Center (DLC)

Testimony from David B. Fisher

Testimony from Rob Wipond

Testimony from Alex Green, Fellow of Harvard Law School Project on Disability

Testimony from Danna Mauch, PhD, President and CEO of Massachusetts Association for Mental Health (MAMH)

Testimony from Monica Luke

Testimony from Rae Simpson, independent mental health advocate

Testimony from Kim T. Mueser, Ph.D., Professor at Boston University

Critical analysis by Rob Wipond