TY - JOUR T1 - Commentary: Coerced Community Mental Health Treatment—An Added Burden on an Overstretched System JF - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online JO - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law SP - 300 LP - 302 VL - 34 IS - 3 AU - Charles C. Dike Y1 - 2006/09/01 UR - http://jaapl.org/content/34/3/300.abstract N2 - The sudden and massive depopulation of psychiatric institutions that occurred in the 60s and 70s overwhelmed a fragmented and undersourced community mental health system, leading, in part, to the high number of chronically mentally ill individuals currently residing in jails and prisons, a situation that has been described as reinstitutionalization or transinstitutionalization. Any process that forces more people out of jails into mental health treatment in the community without a sound, effective, available, and accessible community mental health system of care is potentially catastrophic. ER -