Maribel Morey (Princeton University – Department of History) has posted The Civil Commitment of State Dependent Minors: Resonating Discourses that Leave Her Heterosexuality and His Homosexuality Vulnerable to Scrutiny (New York University Law Review, Vol. 81, 2006) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The courts are unlikely to serve as watchdogs of qualified mental health evaluators’ vast discretionary powers when mental health evaluators’ recommendations for the involuntary civil commitment of state-dependent minors complement a state’s judicially recognized interests in promoting heterosexual behavior among state-dependent minors while controlling state-dependent girls’ heightened heterosexual behaviors. The contemporary resonance between the courts’ and the mental health community’s discourses on adolescent sex facilitates the civil commitment of state-dependent heterosexual girls and nonheterosexual boys, solely on the basis of their sexual behaviors. This powerful resonance threatens the personal autonomy of healthy state-dependent heterosexual girls and nonheterosexual boys. Morey proposes that qualified evaluators should be required to express in writing how the adolescent’s behavior is a direct symptom of an emotional disturbance from past sexual abuse before qualified evaluators can recommend adolescent wards of the state to psychiatric wards for sexualized behaviors. Otherwise, qualified evaluators’ ability to rely on gender-based stereotypes of what constitutes appropriate or risky sexual behavior among state-dependent minors will remain largely unchecked.
Morey recommends that the contemporary American legal community dedicate further research to the resonance between the courts’ and mental health community’s discourses on state-dependent minors’ sexual behaviors. Legal advocates should research the civil commitment process of state-dependent minors in their states, question the local mental health community’s focus on these minors’ sexual behaviors, and examine the appropriateness of the courts’ role as watchdog of the mental health community’s discretionary power.