The United States is in the midst of a mental health crisis.
Fifty years of systematically limiting access to needed psychiatric treatment have left those with a severe mental illness and their families with nowhere to turn. The costs are unimaginably high – people with the most severe psychiatric diseases make up only 3% of the total US population but are vastly overrepresented in our jails and prisons, emergency rooms and homeless shelters.
At the heart of this crisis are mental health policies that have failed to keep up with medical research or ignore the realities of severe mental illness and the consequences of non-treatment.
Help us fix the system.
As a policymaker, you have the power to help us eliminate barriers to treatment of severe mental illness. The following materials help detail the failures of our mental health system and, more importantly, what can be done about it.
Civil commitment laws and standards differ vastly from state to state. The most progressive provide for needed care before people are so sick they pose a danger to themselves or others.
Understand Where Your State Ranks
The Treatment Advocacy Center compares states based on a number of criteria, including quality of treatment laws, psychiatric hospital bed availability and the likelihood of incarceration versus receiving psychiatric inpatient care.
Understand the Criminalization of Mental Illness
Law enforcement and jails have become the nation’s default psychiatric crisis response system. Learn about the personal, societal and economic costs of failing to treat mental illness as we would any other medical illness.
Learn more about Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT)
AOT is the practice of delivering outpatient treatment under court order to adults with severe mental illness who meet specific criteria, such as a prior history of repeated hospitalizations or arrest. AOT laws have been shown to reduce hospitalization, arrest and incarceration, homelessness and violent acts associated with mental illness.
Learn More about Bipolar Disorder
Severe bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic-depressive illness, is a psychiatric disease that affects 2.2% of the population.
Learn More about Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disease that affects 1.1% of the population.
Anosognosia, also called "lack of insight," is a key reason individuals with severe psychiatric disorders do not take prescribed medications.