Am J Psychiatry 1986; 143:1575-1579
Copyright © 1986 by American Psychiatric Association
Changing a state mental health system through litigation: the Arizona experiment
JM Santiago, A Gittler, A Beigel, L Stein and PJ Brown
Litigation may be a viable means to change mental health systems for the
chronically mentally ill. Court orders achieved in the 1970s have been
ignored or proven inefficient over the years. However, in Arizona, a
strategy was designed by a team of lawyers and psychiatrists to deal with
failures seen elsewhere in court actions seeking adequate services for
chronically mentally ill patients. This novel approach produced a favorable
court outcome and triggered a chain reaction at the executive and
legislative levels to reform radically the system of care for the
chronically mentally ill in Arizona.
