Civil Commitment Is Disappearing in Oregon

Over the past 20 years, in Oregon, the number of individuals entered into the civil commitment process has risen, but the number of those actually committed has gone down dramatically. This commentary compares commitment data during a time when the state’s population has increased substantially, while commitment rates have dropped by 50 percent. There are many possible factors that have contributed to this decline in commitment rates, including a stricter functional definition of “danger to self or others, ” but perhaps the most significant reason is the shortage of the acute psychiatric beds that are essential in the commitment process. It is hard not to conclude that civil commitment in this state is headed toward functional extinction. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 34:534–7, 2006 I hold an enduring belief that from a public policy point of view civil commitment is the most impor-tant forensic mental health statute. I explored this position in an earlier commentary1 in which I fo-cused on a history of civil commitment in Oregon along with a discussion of the many apparent con-flicts that exist in these statutes in a national context