Laura's Law: Mental Health Disabilities

Laura's Law has been on the books since 2002, promoting expensive, involuntary treatment of people with mental health disabilities on the basis that they might become dangerous to themselves or others.

Although The Chronicle editorializes that it would be a crime for Laura's Law to sunset, the real crime is that as a result of California's bad economic climate, the state and counties too often have made drastic cuts to mental-health and other social-services funding, depriving individuals of the community-based services they need to avoid hospitalization.

Read more about the ineffectiveness of Laura's Law on the S.F. Chronicle written by Daniel Brzovic, the associate managing attorney for the Oakland office of Disability Rights California. www.disabilityrightsca.org