Wyatt v. Stickney: assessing the impact in Alabama

In 1971 U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., ruled that patients involuntarily committed to Alabama mental institutions have a constitutional right to treatment. The following year he issued a court order containing 35 minimum constitutional standards for adequate treatment of the mentally ill and appointed human rights committees at the institutions to oversee their implementation. Focusing primarily on Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, the author examines the extent to which compliance with the standards has been achieved, problems that have arisen in implementing the standards, and issues that still must be dealt with. He briefly discusses changes in the state's mental health system that preceded the filing of the case, and he emphasizes that those changes may have contributed significantly to the improvements that have occurred in mental health care in Alabama after Wyatt.