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Policing the Psych Unit

Annie Goodman

Tens of thousands of people are involuntarily confined in a hospital each year in connection with their mental illness or disability. In response to misconduct by people who are civilly committed, hospitals often call the police, setting in motion a chain of events with devastating consequences for the person who is transferred to criminal custody. Despite the frequency with which it occurs, little research has explored this phenomenon. This Note aims to shed light on the practice and expose its tension with constitutional norms, using the Court’s decisions in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson and Robinson v. California as points of departure.