N.J. Mental Health Bill (A2304) - Please Help Families and the Severely Mentally Ill in Crisis

  • by: Jen Wilk
  • recipient: All N.J. Assembly Representatives
New Jersey's outdated mental illness treatment law makes it nearly impossible for mental health professionals and families to help severely mentally ill people who, as a result of their disease, refuse treatment. New Jersey is one of only eight states without Assisted Outpatient Treatment, which means that people who are in crisis end up on the streets or in jails instead of in treatment.

New Jersey needs a more humane
treatment law.


We should not have to stand by and wait for an individual with mental illness to be harmed or to harm someone else before we provide them with the treatment they urgently need.

A Personal Story: For three years, my family has tried numerous times to get our mother (who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia) treatment. Her reality consists of murderers, child molesters, and mafia members. She hides in her car and at cheap hotels. She hasn't paid the taxes on her house for over a year and her utilities are shut off. She has become abnormally thin, but she's afraid "they" will find her if she makes a doctor's appointment.


The Governor’s Task Force on Mental Health has recommended that New Jersey, like 42 existing states, adopt legislation that would establish involuntary commitment to outpatient treatment for individuals who have a history of refusing or discontinuing mental health treatment and as a consequence become a danger to themselves, others or property.

A2304 would establish involuntary outpatient commitment to outpatient treatment as an alternative to the only current option, commitment to a state or county psychiatric hospital. People who were exhibiting behaviors that by history had led to dangerousness in the reasonably foreseeable future and refused voluntary services would be eligible for a court ordered plan of treatment to be carried out by treatment providers designated by the Commissioner of Human Services.

We ask that you, the New Jersey Assemblypersons, join as a co-sponsor of the vital legislation.

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