This research paper summarizes the principal provisions of the Florida Mental Health Act or Baker Act, 42 FLA. STAT. ANN. secs. 394.451-4789, insofar as it deals with the involuntary commitment of mentally disabled or ill persons and analyzes its pros and cons. The Baker Act, first enacted in 1971 and subsequently amended, represented Florida's attempt to regulate the involuntary examination and commitment of persons who allegedly were mentally ill. With its large influx of elderly persons, and with a similar problem in dealing with increased numbers of homeless persons, Florida adopted a law which makes it relatively easy to examine and commit such persons to public mental health institutions. As such, the law has been criticized by civil libertarians and mental health activists as being reactionary and destructive of the rights of the mentally ill. Others who have experienced more liberal involuntary examination and commitment laws such as California's think that the states should have broader rather than lesser latitude to cope with the mentally ill 'on the streets.'
Sec. 394.453 of the Baker Act provides in part that "it is the intent of the Legislature" with respect to persons having "mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders" that "such persons be provided with emergency services and temporary detention for evaluation when required" and that "they be admitted to treatment facilities" either voluntarily or subjected to "involuntary placement" . . . "only when expert evaluation determines that is necessary."
This broadly enabling language is consistent with how persons exhibiting mental problems in public have been traditionally treated. According to Perlin (Mental Disability Law, 1989), public "approval of 'informal' mechanism(s) that treat institutionalization decisions, as medical, not legal, [problems], . . . can be traced to . . . the mid-1700s" (Mental Disability Law, pp. 130-131).
The involuntary commitment of...