What Allegheny County’s new court-ordered mental health treatment program can and can’t do

More than 5,000 Allegheny County residents are evaluated for involuntary psychiatric hospitalization each year. adamkaz/iStock collection via Getty Images Plus Pittsburgh-area courts have a new tool for people in mental health crisis: the power to order treatment instead of incarceration or hospitalization. Between 2015 and 2022, more than 5,000 people a year were evaluated for involuntary hospitalization in Allegheny County, and roughly 3,700 were committed. Fewer than half got follow-up…