ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises a new conceptual framework for understanding outpatient commitment and other forms of "mandated community treatment". People with a disability, such as a serious mental disorder, may qualify under federal or state laws in the United States to receive certain social welfare benefits. Each of the forms of leverage is described: money, housing, avoidance of jail, and avoidance of hospitalisation. The chapter argues that what policy makers and practitioners need in order to make informed decisions about mandated community treatment is an evidence base that includes answers to central, cross-cutting empirical questions, and a thorough airing of legal, moral, and political questions as well. The use of actuarial approaches to improve the prediction of violence, the MacArthur Risk Assessment Study assessed a large sample of male and female acute civil patients at several facilities on a wide variety of variables believed to be related to the occurrence of violence.
