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Deinstitutionalization

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Deinstitutionalization

Axia College of University of Phoenix

Veronica Cole

Human Services in the United States

May 6, 2011

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Deinstitutionalization was signed into law the Community Mental Health Centers Acts by John F. Kennedy on October 31, 1963 when he established community health centers. It was meant so that the mentally ill could leave mental hospitals and move into a home that was run by the local states of where they were from. With the discovery of new medications it was easier for people to be deinstitutionalized and with the help of social workers and psychiatric rehabilitation; it helps patients gain their independence and freedom.

The article that I chose was about a guy whose brother was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenia. It tells about all the trouble that he put his family through until they had him committed. They could only keep him for observation because of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act that was first started in California in 1967. It was written with good intentions so that a person could not be locked up by someone else because, people were locked up for no reason by a family member. Because of this law a lot of mentally ill people are not being locked up that really need to be. These people are ending up homeless, in jail, and cemetery. It is harder now to have someone committed even though they may need to be. A judge can have someone committed for a short time for observation if they are considered a threat to their self of someone else but, then can be released.

This article talks about different people and how they were over looked by the state and how the mentally ill end up homeless or end up committing crimes. It also tells about a woman who was forced into the mental hospital and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hired a lawyer to get her out. While she was in there they

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