Richard Bonnie states in his Power Point Presentation on the DMHMRSAS website http://www.dmhmrsas.virginia.gov/OMH-MHReform/080604Bonnie.pdf on page 11 that about 15% of cases are dismissed. This is what we call spin in polite circles. In fact only 9% of cases were dismissed in the research paid for by taxpayers and carried out by researchers at UVA with the cooperation of folks involved in the system all over the Commonwealth. This research belongs to the taxpayers, the public and stakeholders no matter what Richard Bonnie states on his presentation about needing his permission to use the statistics on a state agency’s website of research paid for and carried out with public money and taking the time of public employees. In reality, Mr. Bonnie made a choice to eliminate all long term re-commitments from the statistics, thus bringing the percentage up from 9% released to 15%. Contrary to Mr. Bonnie’s opinions on the matter, my opinion is that the liberty interest and the repercussions of recommittments are far direr and important than those of initial short term commitments. We are talking about citizens who are committed for 6 months at a time and then re-committed and who practically never win release at their follow up hearings. We are talking about the citizens who lose years of their lives to being warehoused in state hospitals. We are talking about the most vulnerable to abuse, rights violations and isolation and despair and disconnection from their families and community that may never be repaired.
*One in a series of deconstructing the interpretations of research paid for by the taxpayers of Virginia by the Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.*
