The Child's Right to Object to Hospitalization: Some Empirical Data

Abstract

This paper reports the implementation of a 1973 Pennsylvania ruling granting adolescents the right to receive a court hearing to determine the necessity of their psychiatric hospitalization. Over a 10 month period, nine of 43 adolescents objected to hospitalization. Only once was an adolescent actually released because of the new procedures. Staff were almost uniformly in favor of the new procedures. The Pennsylvania ruling granted partial rights to adolescents, rights later expanded in the Pennsylvania case, Bartley v. Kremens. The authors note that, whatever the past, psychiatric treatment of adolescents is unlikely to continue to be a private matter between parents and doctors.