New York Governor Hochul Seeks to Expand Involuntary Commitment Laws for Violent Subway Crimes

Governor of New York Kathy Hochula Democrat, seeks to expand the state’s involuntary commitment laws to allow hospitals to force more people with mental health problems into treatment.

This comes in response to a series of violent crimes in the New York City subway system.

Hochul said Friday that he wants to introduce legislation during the next legislative session to amend mental health care laws to address the recent rise in violent crimes in the subway.

“Many of these horrific incidents have involved people with untreated serious mental illness, as a result of failing to provide treatment to people living on the streets and disconnected from our mental health care system,” the governor said.

HOCHUL’S SAFER METER CHRISTMAS JACURA ARRIVED AMID A STRING OF ALARMING VIOLENT ATTACKS

“We have a duty to protect the public from random acts of violence, and the only fair and compassionate thing we can do is give our fellow New Yorkers the help they need,” he continued.

Mental health experts say that most people with mental illness are not violent and are much more likely to be victims of violent crimes than to commit them.

The governor did not provide details on what her legislation would change.

“Currently, hospitals can admit people whose mental illness puts themselves or others at risk of serious harm, and this legislation will expand that definition to ensure more people receive the care they need,” he said.

Hochul also said he would introduce another bill to improve the process by which courts can order people to undergo assisted outpatient treatment for mental illness and make it easier for people to voluntarily enroll in those treatments.

The governor said she is “deeply grateful” to the law enforcement agencies who “fight every day to keep our subways safe.” But he said “we cannot fully address this issue without changes to state law.”

“Public safety is my top priority and I will do everything in my power to keep New Yorkers safe,” he said.

Currently, state law allows police to force people to be taken to hospitals for evaluation if they appear to be mentally ill and their behavior poses a risk of physical harm to themselves or others. Psychiatrists must then determine whether patients need to be hospitalized involuntarily.

New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman said requiring more people to be subjected to involuntary commitment “does not make us safer, distracts us from addressing the roots of our problems and threatens the rights and freedoms of New Yorkers.”

Hochul’s statement comes after a series of violent crimes on the New York City subway, including an incident on New Year’s Eve when one man pushed another onto the subway tracks in front of an arriving train. , and on Christmas Eve, when a man slashed two people with a knife. at the Grand Central subway station in Manhattan and on December 22, when a suspect set a sleeping woman on fire and burned her to death.

NEW YORK MAN CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER AFTER ALLEGEDLY PUSHING COMMUTER ON SUBWAY WAY

The medical histories of the suspects in those three incidents were not immediately clear, but New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said the man accused of the Grand Central knife attack had a history of mental illness and That the father of the suspect who pushed a man onto the tracks told the New York Times that he had worried about his son’s mental health in the weeks before the incident.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Adams has spent the last few years urging the state legislature to expand mental health care laws and has previously supported a policy that would allow hospitals to involuntarily commit a person who cannot meet their own basic needs for food, clothing, shelter or medical care.

“Denying a person life-saving psychiatric care because their mental illness prevents them from recognizing their desperate need is an unacceptable abdication of our moral responsibility,” the mayor said in a statement after Hochul’s announcement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.