PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Dike, Charles C. TI - Commentary: Coerced Community Mental Health Treatment—An Added Burden on an Overstretched System DP - 2006 Sep 01 TA - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online PG - 300--302 VI - 34 IP - 3 4099 - http://jaapl.org/content/34/3/300.short 4100 - http://jaapl.org/content/34/3/300.full SO - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law2006 Sep 01; 34 AB - 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.