A group of local mental-health experts met recently to take a look at Utah's civil commitment statute and make sure it was up to date and appropriately met the community's needs, said Ron Stromberg, deputy director of the state's Division for Substance Abuse and Mental Health. The law is slightly different than other state statutes, he said, because of its dual purpose to serve as both a protection and treatment system.

"You're not just trying to lock somebody up; you're trying to get them into a system so they can get better," Stromberg said.

In Ericksen's opinion, Utah's statute puts the state "about in the middle of the road" when compared with laws in other states. There are certainly stricter laws elsewhere, such as in California, which allows up to a 72-hour initial hold on an individual, but many states are more lax than Utah.

Ericksen estimates that Salt Lake County mental-health officials oversee 800 to 900 initial civil commitment hearings each year, with roughly the same amount happening annually throughout the state. Of those, only about half end up with recommendations for inpatient treatment (usually at a local mental health facility) while the rest follow a treatment plan of medication and counseling, he said.

Which isn't to say that mentally ill Utahns are not getting the help they need, Ericksen said.

"In Utah, there are large numbers of very ill people who do get adequate treatment and lots of tragedy is averted, there's no question about it," he said. That said, he added, "as good as we are, as much as we know ... we can't be sure. It's not an absolute guarantee."

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E-mail: awelling@desnews.com