TY - JOUR T1 - Commentary: Civil Commitment Statutes—40 Years of Circumvention JF - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online JO - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law SP - 365 LP - 368 VL - 38 IS - 3 AU - William H. Fisher AU - Thomas Grisso Y1 - 2010/09/01 UR - http://jaapl.org/content/38/3/365.abstract N2 - There is a longstanding body of literature that describes how states’ civil commitment statutes have been stretched or circumvented to accommodate institutional and systemic needs. The paper by Levitt and colleagues provides yet another example of this phenomenon: Arizona's use of its civil commitment statutes to detain unrestorable, incompetent criminal defendants for whom other provisions have not been developed. This commentary provides a brief overview of other examples of the stretching of commitment laws, providing a broader context for viewing the findings of Levitt and colleagues. ER -