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Guilty By Reason Of Insanity: Unforeseen Consequences Of California's Deinstitutionalization Policy, Jen Rushforth

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Beginning with the passage of the Lanterman-Petris- Short Act in 1969, deinstitutionalization in California has had a devastating effect on the mentally ill. Instead of affording the mentally ill with more rights and protections, the process of shutting down state psychiatric hospitals and impeding psychiatric care for those in need caused a cascade effect leading to an increase of homelessness and incarceration. Over the past four decades, prisons and jails in California have become the de facto state mental hospitals, with severely mentally ill individuals having nearly a four-to-one chance of ending up in jail or prison over a psychiatric …