About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 Dev. Mental Health L. 1 (1981)

handle is hein.journals/dvmnhlt1 and id is 1 raw text is: r A Quarterly Publication of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry & Public Policy at the University of Virginia - Forensic Psychiatry and Community Mental Health by John Petrila* The criminally insane are feared and reviled. They are kept in overcrowded, understaffed hospitals located in rural areas, surrounded by barbed wire, with entry doors easily opened and exit doors always locked. This population has as its members those not fit to stand trial, those acquitted by reason of insanity, transfers from correctional institutions and the special offenders who come with labels like criminal sexual psychopaths. This is the province of forensic psychiatry, long a stepchild of psychiatry and misunderstood by a public that thinks of Quincy when the word forensic is mentioned. Public attention, when given at all, is focused on notorious trials in which the insanity defense is pursued. The outcry which surfaces when a defendant is acquitted on the basis of psychiatric testimony is as predictable as the legislative tinkering with the defense which emerges every few years. However, there is today a great deal of ferment in forensic psychiatry. This acitivity is occuring largely out of the public eye. It is concerned primarily not with the clinical or legal aspects of forensic psychiatry (though certainly both are implicated), but rather with the administrative side. For the first time, public departments of mental health and corrections are paying attention to forensic psychiatry as practiced in the public sector. One visible sign of movement is in the increased numbers of states creating director of forensic services *Mr. Petrila, who received a L.L.M. in Mental Health Law from the University of Virginia in 1978, is presently Director of Forensic Services for the Missouri Department of Mental Health. positions. These are usually high-level administrative positions located in the department's central office. In most states, the creation of a position like this marks the first time that the particular state has had an individual with system-wide authority who spends all of his or her time working for forensic services. The creation of these positions has given forensic services much higher visibility within those mental health departments that have them. If there is no such position, the ranking forensic administrator may be the head of the state's forensic unit, a position often subordinate to hospital superintendents and department administrators and far removed from the actual locus of administrative authority. Increased visibility in a central administrative capacity means, among other things, an increased voice for forensic service in department debates over the budget. In public psychiatry, where budgets are subject to increasingly cost-conscious state governors and legislators, higher visibility for an advocate for a particular service becomes critical. Many states are moving away from a system in which one or two maximum security units provide all forensic services. In its place is a forensic continued on page 2 Institute Awarded Two Contracts The Virginia Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation recently awarded two major training contracts to the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. These contracts called for the creation within the Institute of two seperate Centers. Over the next two years, the Center for Forensic Evaluation Training and Research will provide intensive clinical training at the Institute to selected community mental health professionals in performing competency to stand trial and insanity defense evaluations on a local, outpatient basis. The immediate goal of the program is to train interdisciplinary teams of mental health professionals in Alexandria, Charlottes- ville, Henrico County, Richmond, Roanoke and Portsmouth to perform these two specific evaluations. The impact of the training on the quality of evaluations received by courts in these jurisdictions and the savings in the use of state hospital facilities and state transportation will be studied to determine whether the program should. be offered on a continual, statewide basis and whether changes in state law providing for these evaluations are merited. The Mental Health Law Training and Research Center's mission is a broader one, involving such services as -providing legal consultation and in- service training to community mental health programs throughout Virginia -drafting revisions of statutes and regulations affecting the rights of the mentally disabled citizen in Virginia -presenting conferences and preparing conference training materials for judges, lawyers, and mental health professionals -publishing Developments in Mental Health Law Developments In Mental Health Law Box 100, Blue Ridge Hospital, Charlottesville, VA 22901 (804) 924-5435 Vol. 1, No. 1 January 1, 1981

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most