Home > JOURNALS > IJLSE > Vol. 13 (2025) > Iss. 2
Abstract
This Article argues that the abysmal state of children’s mental health in America is in part due to an overreliance on and over prescription of psychotropic drugs inside psychiatric residential institutions in lieu of community based mental health services. This overreliance on residential institutions and psychotropic drugs has allowed a new form of chemical restraint to flourish—the chemical straitjacket. This Article uses the medication lists of twelve children in seven different North Carolina psychiatric residential treatment facilities to demonstrate how the chemical straitjacket operates: the prescription of drugs not approved for pediatric populations, counter to evidence-based practices for particular diagnoses, and in combination with a multitude of other drugs for non-therapeutic purposes. This Article then discusses how these chemical straitjackets are caused by state oversight failures and continued state commitments to institutionalization. Ultimately, this Article argues that the chemical straitjacket and its cause, institutionalization, are a breach of children’s rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act and proposes policy and legal solutions to help control these concerning practices.
Recommended Citation
13 Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality 244
Included in
Chemicals and Drugs Commons, Community Health Commons, Disability Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons, Juvenile Law Commons, Law and Society Commons, Medical Jurisprudence Commons, Pharmacy Administration, Policy and Regulation Commons, Psychiatric and Mental Health Commons, Psychiatry Commons