An Empirical Study of Emergency Commitment 182 Am] Psychiatry 146:2, February 1989

The authors examine the emergency commitment process in one Oregon county and present data that document the impact of a local detention facility. The study reconfirms the dependence of commitment pro-cesses on the mental health system in which they occur, illustrates the relative inability of specific laws to de-termine the actual nature of commitment processes, provides support for the concept of community care f or the people involved, and points to the need for additional research to clarify the effects of commit-ment procedures. (Am J Psychiatry 1989; 146:182-186) E mergency commitment is a provision of most state civil commitment statutes (1, 2). its stated purpose is usually to provide for the hospitalization of thos