PSYC 268 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Voluntary Society, Ant-Zen, Mental Health Tribunal

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 268
• Professor: Deborah Connolly

Document Summary

Civil commitment is a legal process whereby an individual with symptoms of severe mental health illness is court-ordered into treatment in a hospital or in a community. A persona can be involuntarily committed to a forensic psychiatric hospital if found unfit to stand trial or not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. The two regimes differ on several dimensions including . Civil commitment is preventive while criminal commitment is punitive (punishment). Civil commitment is intended to minimize potential harm in the future while criminal commitment is a response to crimes committed in the past. Civil commitment does not judge the morality of actions whereas criminal law sees the actions as amoral (indifferent). In most of this unit, we are concerned with civil commitment. Civil commitment occurs when a person is involuntarily committed to a mental health facility because he or she poses a risk to themselves or others on account of mental disorder.