ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to expand the state’s involuntary commitment laws so hospitals can force more mentally ill people into treatment, following a series of violent crimes on the New York City subway system.
In a statement Friday, Hochul, a Democrat, said she would push to change mental health laws during the upcoming legislative session in an effort to address what she described as a surge in crimes in the metro.
“Many of these horrific incidents involved people with serious, untreated mental illness, the result of the inability to get treatment for people living on the streets and disconnected from our mental health system,” she said.
Trusted news and daily treats, straight to your inbox
See for yourself: The Yodel is the source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories.
“We have a duty to protect the public from random acts of violence, and the only fair and compassionate thing we can do is get our fellow New Yorkers the help they need.”
Most people with mental illness are not violent and, according to mental health experts, they are much more likely to be victims of violent crime than the perpetrators.
The governor did not specify exactly what her legislation would change or provide other details of her plan. Instead, she said, “hospitals are currently able to admit individuals whose mental illness puts themselves or others at risk for serious harm, and this legislation will expand that definition to ensure more people get the care they need.” ”
Hochul also said she would introduce another proposal to improve the process by which courts can order people to undergo assisted outpatient treatment for mental illness, and to make it easier for people to voluntarily sign up for those services.
State law currently allows police to force people to be taken to hospitals for examination if they appear to be mentally ill and their behavior poses a risk of physical harm to themselves or others. Psychiatrists must then determine whether such patients should be hospitalized against their will, in a delicate and complex process involving several factors.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said forcing more people into involuntary commitment “does not make us safer, it distracts us from addressing the roots of our problems, and it threatens rights and freedoms of New Yorkers.”
It’s unclear how the governor’s plan will play out in the state Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats and begins its annual legislative session later this month.
Carl Heastie, the Democratic speaker of the state Assembly, told reporters that there is “a global recognition that we need to do more on mental health,” but that he would have to see what exactly the governor is proposing. A spokesperson for Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic majority leader, said: “It is clear that public safety is a major concern of the majority. We want all New Yorkers to feel safe. We look forward to seeing the details of the Governor’s plan so we can discuss it further.”
Hochul’s statement came after a series of violent encounters on New York City subways, many of which have drawn national attention and heightened fears about the safety of the nation’s busiest subway system.
In recent weeks, a man was pushed onto the subway tracks in front of an incoming train on New Year’s Eve, a sleeping woman was burned to death, and a man stabbed two people with a knife at Manhattan’s Grand Central subway station on Christmas Eve.
The medical history of the suspects in these three cases was not immediately clear, although New York Mayor Eric Adams has said that the man accused in the Grand Central attack had a history of mental illness and that the father of the suspect in the pushing said to the New York newspaper New York City. Times when he worried about his son’s mental health in the weeks before the incident.
Violent crime is rare on the subway, which carried more than a billion passengers in 2024. Still, random stabbing and shoving movements, along with other incidents, have unnerved travelers and attracted a lot of attention online.
Major crimes in the metro fell in November compared to the same period last year, but homicides rose from five to nine, according to police data. Still, some have pointed to an increase in attacks since before the pandemic: 326 were recorded through November 2019, compared to 521 in the same period in 2024.
Adams, a Democrat, has spent years pressing the state Legislature to expand mental health laws and previously approved a policy that would allow hospitals to involuntarily commit a person if he or she is not in his or her own right. basic needs for food, clothing, shelter or medical care.
“Denying a person life-saving psychiatric care because his mental illness prevents him from recognizing his desperate need for it is an unacceptable abdication of our moral responsibility,” the mayor said in a statement after Hochul’s announcement.
