Alliance Alert: The Alliance for Rights and Recovery applauds Sakeena Trice for highlighting the importance of following the evidence as New York considers the future of Kendra’s Law. The recently released independent statewide evaluation makes clear that the state’s greatest opportunity lies not in expanding or making involuntary outpatient commitment permanent, but in expanding access to the voluntary, intensive community-based services that actually drive recovery. The researchers found that people receiving voluntary services achieved significant improvements comparable to those under court-ordered treatment, with outcomes that were equal or better on six of the ten key outcome measures examined. These findings reinforce what advocates have long maintained: access to housing, intensive treatment, peer support, case management, and other community services, not the court order itself, is what improves people’s lives.
The evaluation also documents serious concerns about the harms associated with the current AOT system. Researchers found that many people experienced little meaningful voice in treatment planning, hearings that were largely predetermined, confusion about their legal rights, and renewals that felt automatic rather than individualized. The report also identified troubling racial disparities, including greater law enforcement involvement and removals for Black New Yorkers, and described how structural inequities in housing, poverty, and access to culturally responsive services contribute to who becomes subject to court orders. Rather than expanding a system with these documented shortcomings, New York should implement the researchers’ recommendations by strengthening voluntary services, expanding Enhanced Voluntary Agreements as true alternatives to court orders, improving due process protections, increasing peer support and independent advocacy, and closely monitoring whether these reforms help eliminate the use of Kendra’s Law over time.
These critical issues will be explored in depth at the Alliance for Rights and Recovery’s 44th Annual Conference, where we will host a panel on Kendra’s Law and the newly released statewide evaluation. The session will feature Sakeena Trice, author of this commentary, along with members of the research team that conducted the independent evaluation and leading advocates who will discuss what the findings mean for the future of New York’s mental health system and the path toward a more voluntary, recovery-oriented approach to support.
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Letter to the Editor: Follow The Evidence before Expanding Kendra’s Law
By Sakeena Trice | Crain’s Commentary | August 11, 2026
According to a recent article in Crain’s entitled “Mandatory mental health treatment plan gets $16.5M boost,” New York State is pouring $16.5 million into expanding forced outpatient commitment, also known as Kendra’s Law, and building a new statewide tracking system. However, the state-wide study meant to show whether court-ordered commitments work was only just released at the end of July.
In 2023, the New York State Office of Mental Health paid the Human Services Research Institute $1 million to determine whether people under court order fare better than those offered robust voluntary services. With the evaluation finally available, the state can no longer claim that court orders are the drivers of improved outcomes without demonstrating that the evidence supports that conclusion.
Yet the state continues to standardize new agreements, expand oversight infrastructure and make it easier to place people back under court order within a short amount of time. This is policymaking without evidence.
The proposed enhanced voluntary agreements could be a meaningful step toward less coercive care, but only if they are not tied to court orders and they come with real safeguards: clear information about what people are consenting to, guaranteed access to counsel and an enforceable promise that the services offered will actually be delivered.
New York must follow the evidence presented in the study and invest in voluntary, community-based services, the care people will actually choose, trust and accept.
Sakeena Trice is a senior staff attorney at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
Note: This letter has been updated to reflect that the state study on Kendra’s Law was released at the end of July.