New York Governor Hochul seeks to expand involuntary commitment law targeting violent crime in subways

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is seeking to expand the state’s involuntary commitment law to allow hospitals to force more people with mental health issues into treatment.

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

Hochul said Friday she hopes to introduce legislation during the upcoming legislative session to amend the mental health care law to address a recent surge in violent crime on the subway.

“Many of these horrific incidents involve people with severe, untreated mental illness, which results from a lack of access to treatment for people living on the streets and disconnected from our mental health care system,” the governor said.

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“We have a responsibility to protect the public from random acts of violence, and the only fair and compassionate thing to do is to get our fellow New Yorkers the help they need,” she continued.

Mental health experts say most people with mental illness are not violent and are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than to commit it.

The governor did not elaborate on what changes would happen with her legislation.

“Currently, hospitals can treat individuals whose mental illness puts them or others at risk of serious harm, and this legislation will expand that definition to ensure more people get the care they need,” she said.

Hochul also said she will introduce another bill to improve the process by which courts can order people to receive assisted outpatient treatment for mental illness and make it easier for people to voluntarily sign up for those treatments.

Police patrol the F train platform at the Coney Island Stilwell Avenue station on Thursday, December 26, 2024, in New York City. (Associated Press)

The governor said she was “deeply grateful” to law enforcement who “fight every day to keep our subways safe.” But she said, “We can’t fully solve this problem without changing state law.”

“Public safety is my top priority and I will do whatever it takes to keep New Yorkers safe,” she said.

Currently, state law allows police to forcibly transport people who appear to be mentally ill and whose actions cause physical harm to themselves or others to a hospital for evaluation. The psychiatrist must then determine whether the patient requires involuntary hospitalization.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said asking more people to accept involuntary commitments “doesn’t make us safer, it distracts from addressing the root causes of the problem and threatens the rights and protections of New Yorkers.” free.

Hochul’s statement follows a series of violent crimes on New York City subways, including an incident in which a man pushed another man onto the subway tracks in front of an incoming train on New Year’s Eve, and on Christmas Eve A man stabbed two people with a knife.

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On December 22, 2024, in New York, USA, a woman riding a subway car was set on fire and died. The police were investigating at the Stilwell Avenue Station in Coney Island, Brooklyn. (Kyle Maza/Anadolu, Getty Images)

The medical histories of the suspects in the three incidents were unclear, but New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said the man accused of the knife attack at Grand Central Terminal had a history of mental illness and that the suspect’s father also The man who pushed the man onto the tracks told The New York Times that he began to worry about his son’s mental health in the weeks before the incident.

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Adams has spent the past few years urging the state Legislature to expand mental health care laws and previously supported a policy that would allow hospitals to involuntarily admit people who cannot meet their 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 immediate needs is a disservice to us,” the mayor said in a statement after Hochul’s announcement. An unacceptable abdication of moral responsibility.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.