Bill to make civil commitment in Oregon easier moves forward

An

Oregon bill that would make it slightly easier

to have someone civilly committed has advanced to the Legislature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee.

Civil commitment is the practice of mandating mental health treatment. In Oregon, such treatment can be ordered by a judge who has determined someone is suffering from a mental illness that poses an “imminent” threat to themselves or others. Under current state law,

how immediate that threat must be

remains undefined.

Were it to pass,

House Bill 2467

would give judges a slightly broader time horizon than the near immediate risk that many look for now. Judges could also more easily take into account a person’s past threats of suicide or violent behavior. The bill would allow a judge to consider whether it is “reasonably foreseeable” that a person might become a danger to themselves or others “in the near future.”

The Joint Subcommittee on Public Safety advanced the bill, 6-2, Tuesday with minor changes to the definition of “serious bodily harm” and the addition of $6.5 million to implement the bill. Most of that money, $5.4 million, would go to the Oregon Health Authority to administer the expected uptick in cases of people being civilly committed.

Some lawmakers raised concerns about whether the Oregon Health Authority would use the money effectively.

“(Oregon Health Authority), if you’re listening, none of us up here actually trust you to spend the money the right way,” said Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, chair of the subcommittee. “Just being honest. That said, you can actually go a long way in rebuilding the reservoir of trust by proving that you can actually spend this the appropriate way.”

The remaining $1.1 million would go to providing legal representation to people undergoing commitment hearings who could not afford their own attorneys.

Father, attacked by son in mental health crisis, says changes to Oregon’s civil commitment laws are badly needed

Lawmakers to consider a slew of potential changes to Oregon’s civil commitment laws Thursday

This is at least the fourth time since 2019 that lawmakers have considered changing Oregon’s civil commitment law. A work group organized by State Rep. Jason Kropf, D-Bend, and composed of representatives from mental health advocacy groups, criminal defense attorneys and prosecutors, among others, worked for months to hash out the details of the bill.

Chris Bouneff, executive director of Oregon’s National Alliance on Mental Illness chapter, is the driving force behind the bill. He said civil commitment should be an action of last resort in an attempt to help a person with severe mental illness. But, he said, the opening for getting a loved one committed whose mental health is in rapid decline has become vanishingly narrow.

“Typically, the danger is not immediate enough,” Bouneff previously told The Oregonian/OregonLive. He said it can feel to families as if the potential danger posed by their loved one must be likely to occur “in the next five seconds” to meet the criteria for mandated treatment.

Advocates for disabled people, including leaders at Disability Rights Oregon, have raised objections to the broadened time frame, saying it is impossible to determine exactly when a threat may occur and that making the window too wide will result in unnecessary and excessive involuntary commitments.

Out of nearly 8,000 civil commitment filings in Oregon in each of the last three calendar years, fewer than 500 people were actually committed,

according to the Oregon Judicial Department

.

Nationally, about 25,000 people are currently civilly committed,

according to the Prison Policy Initiative

, an advocacy group for people who are incarcerated. Of those, some are held because they have a substance use disorder, which is not currently legal in Oregon.

However, one concern likely to be raised as lawmakers continue to debate House Bill 2467 is whether the new language provides latitude to consider drug use “serious bodily harm” to one’s self. Currently, it is not legal to civilly commit someone for drug use alone, even if the use is causing physical harm to the user.

Rep. David Brock-Smith, R-Port Orford, asked if the new language, which states that serious bodily harm includes “serious and irreversible deterioration of any bodily organ,” would encompass extreme drug use.

Lori Anne Sills, senior deputy legislative counsel, said that for someone’s consumption of substances to be considered a reason for commitment, it would have to be proven that that consumption created an imminent risk of bodily harm that made the person incapable of caring for themselves and meeting their own basic needs.

“There’s also a pretty high standard for the danger to self for that person to be involuntarily committed,” she said. “It’s a higher standard under this bill than it is if it’s a danger to other people.”

The bill now goes to the Joint Ways and Means Committee for further discussion. If it passes on from there, it will go to the House floor for a vote

.

Lillian Mongeau Hughes covers homelessness and mental health for The Oregonian. Email her with tips or questions at


lmhughes@oregonian.com


. Or follow her on Bluesky

@lmonghughes.bsky.social

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@lrmongeau


.

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