Involuntary Treatment Could Have Saved Jordan Neely’s Life

​​The shocking killing of Jordan Neely has once again pulled the country’s attention towards our mental health-care system. The deadly act seems to me to be clearly criminal, but many others are already making the case for and against the prosecution of the man who killed him.

What I can’t stop thinking about is how Neely might possibly have been saved—and that leads me inevitably to the unpopular, permanently-controversial topic of involuntary commitment.

Neely’s troubled history has quickly become a matter of public record. It’s a tragic story: He spent years drifting into and out of psychiatric care, was well-known to city public health officials as a vulnerable individual, and frequently demonstrated instability and a tendency to sudden outbursts. Many have pointed out that the shocking murder of his mother in his adolescence profoundly destabilized him. Years of living an itinerant lifestyle, often without a reliable place to live, could only have contributed to his difficulties; use of dangerous substances like synthetic marijuana couldn’t have helped.

Read more at The Daily Beast.