@article{323512,
      recid = {323512},
      author = {Torrey, E. Fuller},
      title = {The insanity offense : how America's failure to treat the  seriously mentally ill endangers its citizens /},
      publisher = {W.W. Norton,},
      address = {New York :},
      pages = {xvi, 265 p. :},
      year = {2008},
      abstract = {Beginning in the 1960s in the United States, scores of  patients with severe psychiatric disorders were discharged  from public mental hospitals. At the same time, activists  forced changes in commitment laws that made it impossible  to treat half of the patients that left the hospital. The  combined effect was profoundly destructive. Today, among  homeless persons, at least one-third are severely mentally  ill; among the incarcerated, at least one-tenth. Of those  individuals living in our communities, many are the victims  of violent crime. Other untreated individuals commit  crimes, including murder and assault. Here, advocate Torrey  takes full stock of this phenomenon, exploring the causes  and consequences as he weaves together narratives of  individual tragedies in three states with sobering national  data on our failure to treat the mentally ill. In the  book's final chapters, Torrey outlines what needs to be  done to reverse this ongoing--and  accelerating--disaster.--From publisher description.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/323512},
}