Rights-Based Legalism and the Limits of Mental Health Law : The United States of America’s Experience

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (10) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Paul Bowen

In ‘Almost a Revolution: Mental Health Law and the Limits of Change’, Prof. Paul Applebaum, writing in 1994, describes a period of tumultuous change in the United States during the late 1960s in civil rights and mental health law and which lasted nearly three decades. At the end of that period, he concluded, there had been little real and substantial change to mental health law in the United States. This article looks at some of the changes to mental health law that have already been wrought in England & Wales by the Human Rights Act 1998 and briefly considers its potential for creating real and substantial change in the longer term.


1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Jan Brakel ◽  
James L. Cavanaugh

There have been substantial developments in mental health law in the United States over the last 10–15 years. One focal point has been the insanity defence, discussed here. The operational consequences of the legal changes remain to be assessed empirically, but informed speculation is possible. Both a description of the reforms and the assessment of their potential effect are relevant to members of the psychiatric profession in Australia, whether they be forensic specialists or traditional practitioners or researchers. Selective consideration of the American experience, as opposed to contemplating wholesale transposition, is the appropriate posture for Australian policymakers.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L. Perlin ◽  

Written by esteemed legal scholar Michael L. Perlin, this indispensable Advanced Introduction examines the long-standing but ever-dynamic relationship between law and mental health. The author discusses and contextualises how the law, primarily in the United States but also in other countries, treats mental health, intellectual disabilities, and mental incapacity, giving examples of how issues such as the rights of patients, the death penalty and the insanity defense permeate constitutional, civil, and criminal matters, and indeed the general practice of law.


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