Keynote

Date: Friday, 9/25

Time: 8:30-9:45am

Across the United States, civil commitment is undergoing its most significant expansion in decades. States are broadening eligibility criteria for both inpatient and outpatient commitment, lowering thresholds for what constitutes “need for treatment,” extending commitment durations, and building new infrastructure to support coercive interventions at scale. These shifts are unfolding alongside intensifying public discourse linking “serious mental illness” to homelessness (houselessness) and public safety, steadily reshaping the landscape in which people with psychiatric disabilities access (or are forced into) services. In this presentation, Dr. Jones will map the national landscape of expansion, situate it within broader social and political trends, and examine what these changes mean on the ground for people subject to coercive treatment and the systems putatively designed to support them– including downstream effects on system-level planning and financing, program-level operations, individual and community outcomes, and public trust. Drawing on research, practice developments and policy analysis both within and outside the US, she will conclude with suggestions as to how activists, legal advocates, providers, and researchers can respond and work towards a system of genuinely voluntary, rights-affirming support.