Our society has long needed to rethink our mental health crisis response system — the very system that now puts the safety and lives of people with psychiatric disabilities at risk. One recent example: the murder of Jordan Neely, who was reportedly experiencing a mental health crisis, on New York City’s subway.
As the executive director of the new Center for Racial and Disability Justice at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law and someone with multiple disabilities, including psychiatric disabilities, I want to suggest some steps we must take today to shift mental health crisis response and prioritize the safety and dignity of people with psychiatric disabilities (the preferred term, rather than mental illness, among disability rights advocates).
