Word: virginias
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...Gunman Kills Three at Virginia School Police Seeking Motive In Montreal College Shooting Bush Takes On School Shootings...
...very interesting intersection of these issues," Mary Zdanowicz, director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center, said. From the "easy" commitment laws in the first half of the 20th century, the pendulum has swung over the past couple of decades to the point that it has been increasingly more difficult to get a troubled individual committed involuntarily, she said. Now, she argues, the pendulum is starting to swing back in the other direction. "From my perspective, it's a good thing," Zdanowicz said...
...that "equilibrium" in state laws so that troubled individuals can be ordered into treatment, particularly when they fail to take their medications or exhibit potential for violence or self-destruction. Zdanowicz believes that some states rely on arcane law enforcement language to set out standards for involuntary commitment - in Virginia, for instance, the person must be adjudicated to be an "imminent danger" to himself or others. The center endorses more flexible language found in states like Arkansas and Wisconsin, where a judge is allowed to determine if there is a "reasonable probability" someone will harm themselves or others...
...Long before this week's horrifying events at Virginia Tech, the rewriting of Virginia's commitment laws was already a major focus of a yearlong study of the state's mental health laws launched last fall by Leroy R. Hassell Sr., the chief justice of the Virginia State Supreme Court. Zdanowicz, who serves on the task force, said the chief justice had become concerned that the criminal justice system was, in effect, becoming the state's mental health care system, where jails are poor substitutes for failing and too few mental health care facilities. The Cho shootings will bring even...
...campaign gets off to a fast, early start, the notion of tweaking the mental health laws rather than pushing gun control legislation in vain has its obvious appeal, particularly among centrist Democrats who are hesitant to alienate the gun lobby in key battleground states. In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre none other than former President Bill Clinton, who in the past has blamed some national Democratic party losses on the gun control debate, has added his voice to a chorus of others this week calling for a different approach. When Larry King asked Clinton Thursday about gun control...