How can we 'recover' under psychiatric force?

Review of Community Treatment Orders in Ontario

Download the government's legislated review of CTOs. This report was released many months after the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care completed it and had it approved by the health Minister. Thanks are due to psychiatric survivor activist Lucy Costa for requesting this (public) report through the Freedom of Information Act! The Ministry acknowledged receipt of her request on May 7 and released the report on May 10, 2007.

This report is the result of a provincial review process, which was mandated by "Brian's Law" legislation when it was passed in 2000. Brian's Law was named after a sportscaster who was shot by a person later deemed mentally ill. Brian's Law introduced more relaxed rules around who could be detained in a psychiatric facility, and it introduced 'Community Treatment Orders' (or 'CTOs'). CTOs are legal orders that compel a person to take psychiatric treatments (usually injections of major tranquilizers called 'antipychotics') as an alternative to being locked on a psychiatric ward.

Brian's Law called for a review of the Ministry's use of CTOs within three years, and once every five years afterwards. The Ministry started the first review after three years, employing Dreezer & Dreezer Inc. Some researchers on the team had used CTOs or overseen their use while sitting on the provincial psychiatric tribunal. A few resigned as a result of the perception of conflict of interest. The second legislated review has not yet begun.

Download graduate research on psychiatric inmate experiences of CTOs by Erick Fabris, former coordinator for QSOS. Also find related research on the chemical management of youth in Canadian institutional settings. For research on psychiatric drugs being used in schools, prisons, and political prisons, please search our 'readings' page.

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