Broadening the Statutory Criteria for Civil Commitment: A Reply to Durham and La Fond

In its Spring 1985 issue, this Review published an article by Professors Mary L. Durham and John Q. La Fond attacking the use of therapeutically oriented criteria for involuntary civil commitment of the mentally ill. In their article, Durham and La Fond sharply criticized such criteria in general and the American Psychiatric Association's 1983 Model State Law on Civil Commitment (the A.P.A. Model Law) in particular.