Opinion: Wider use of assisted outpatient treatment could help individuals with mental illness

In the wake of back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump raised the wrath of some mental health advocates when he called for increasing the number of psychiatric hospitals and making greater use of involuntary hospitalization, also known as civil commitment, for individuals with serious mental illness who become dangerous when they go off treatment.

“I think we have to start building institutions again because you know, if you look at the ’60s and the ’70s, so many of these institutions were closed. And the people were just allowed to go onto the streets,” the president told reporters. “And that was a terrible thing for our country.”

In an earlier statement that we “must reform our mental health laws to better identify mentally disturbed individuals who may commit acts of violence and make sure those people not only get treatment but, when necessary, involuntary confinement.”