Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: Needless institutionalization (including in psychiatric hospitals) of people with disabilities is generally a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ( 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.), and the failure to provide sufficient community-based services (such as supported housing, assertive community treatment, mobile crisis, peer support, and supported employment) has resulted in needless institutionalization as well as incarceration of persons with mental illness or an intellectual or developmental disability.
In the landmark 1999 Supreme Court case Olmstead v. L.C., the Supreme Court ruled that the unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination prohibited by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ( 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.). Regulations promulgated by the Attorney General in 1991 affirm that title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ( 42 U.S.C. 12131 et seq.) requires public entities to administer services, programs, and activities in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities (28 C.F.R. 35.130(d)).
The regulation defines the most integrated setting as one that enables individuals with disabilities to interact with nondisabled persons to the fullest extent possible (28 C.F.R. pt. 35, App. B). Yet today, persons with a mental illness or an intellectual or developmental disability are more likely to be incarcerated and to be subject to excessive use of force by law enforcement officers: One out of every four of the deaths caused by law enforcement officers is a person with mental illness.
Persons with a mental illness or an intellectual or developmental disability are often charged with minor, nonviolent offenses. For many of these persons, arrest and incarceration could have been avoided if they had access to intensive community-based services and stable housing. Many of the police encounters that lead to the incarceration (and in too many cases, death) of people with mental illness or an intellectual or developmental disability could be avoided by having in place systems that ensure that calls to 911 or to law enforcement result in dispatch of mental health professionals, peer support workers, or others rather than law enforcement officers.
Many people who are incarcerated would be better served in community services. If there were sufficient community services, and persons with mental illness or an intellectual or developmental disability were connected to those services rather than being arrested, thousands of people with mental illness or an intellectual or developmental disability would avoid needless admissions to hospitals or jails. Further, jails and hospitals would experience less crowding.
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