Background
In 1999, there was a series of incidents involving individuals with untreated mental illness becoming violent. In two similar assaults in the New York City subway a man diagnosed with schizophrenia pushed a person into the path of an oncoming train. Andrew Goldstein, age 29, while off medicines, pushed Kendra Webdale to her death in front of an oncoming NYC subway train. The law is named after her. Her family played a significant role in getting it passed. Subsequently Julio Perez, age 43, pushed Edgar Rivera onto the subway tracks. He lost his legs and became a strong supporter of the law. Both men had been dismissed by psychiatric facilities with little or no medication. Kendra's Law, introduced by Governor George E. Pataki, was created as a response to these incidents. In 2005, the law was extended for 5 years.
As a result of these incidents, involuntary outpatient commitment moved from being a program to help the mentally ill to a program that could increase public safety. Public safety advocates joined advocates for the mentally ill in trying to take the successful Bellevue Pilot Program statewide. What was formerly known as involuntary outpatient commitment, was re-christened as assisted outpatient treatment, in an attempt to communicate the positive intent of the law .
Read more about this topic: Kendra's Law
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)