Kendra’s Law works. Now make it stronger.
Andrew Goldstein, so psychologically sick that he shoved a young woman to her death on subway tracks just because, is out of state prison after serving 19 years for manslaughter — and in an unspecified state facility.
Kendra Webdale, the woman whose life he ended with that push, lives on in the name of a law that for just as long has ensured that deeply disturbed individuals like Goldstein get the help they need to avoid hurting others.
Goldstein’s transition last week from inmate to relatively free man marks a moment to value all that Kendra’s Law has accomplished since its 1999 advent. And to repair its persistent shortcomings.
Judges have invoked Kendra’s Law more than 15,000 times to order individuals who have shown themselves to have the psychotic propensity to physically attack others, or themselves, to get medical help. Mayor de Blasio’s Health Department has commendably stepped up to invoke Kendra’s Law care more often than ever, sustaining some 2,300 individuals a year.
Most people with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia won’t hurt anyone. But assisted outpatient treatment ensures the few who do have a propensity to violence get aid even if their condition makes them too ill to recognize the danger or consistently take medication.
The result: Those under Kendra’s Law care are dramatically less likely to be hospitalized, incarcerated or homeless than before.
Yet despite all signs of success, the Legislature last June renewed the law for just five more years, then failed to make some important changes urged by state Sen. Cathy Young. Among them: systematic evaluations for those being released from prisons and hospitals, and information to help families pursue petitions.
Instead we bury more innocents, like Brooklyn’s Prince Joshua Avitto, whose killer Daniel St. Hubert — who committed his capital crime after being released from prison on a previous offense without meds — was sentenced in May to 50 years to life.
Where does the madness end?