More Oregonians with mental illness were committed to state custody in May than in any month since at least 2022.

Those 51 civil commitments could be a brief spike, an official with the state courts system told lawmakers Tuesday. Or they could signal a more meaningful shift tied to a brand-new law.

In January, Oregon’s standards for forcing people with severe mental illness into treatment changed. Under a bill passed last year, judges hearing petitions for civil commitment now have more leeway to consider a person’s past behavior, and to opine on the likelihood that, if left untreated, they could pose a threat to themselves or others.

That change came after years of debate in Salem about whether Oregon’s civil commitment had become too restrictive, creating an unreasonable hurdle before the state would assume custody of an ill person.

But with five months of data, the impact of those changes has been hard to parse so far. Channa Newell, a lawyer for the Oregon Judicial Department, cautioned Tuesday that the state wants more time before drawing conclusions.

“We’re presenting this with a little bit of trepidation, a little bit of hesitation,” she said. “We hope to have a much more robust collaborative data report this fall.”

Numbers Newell presented to lawmakers show that, while the number of mentally ill people who are considered for potential commitments hasn’t changed, the proportion of them who are ultimately placed into state custody has ticked up recently.

“We’re not seeing more people coming in the door,” Newell said. “But when you get to the commitment hearing, you’re having more people being committed, and we don’t have an explanation for this.”

For much of this year, commitments statewide haven’t been out of step with recent history, according to an OPB analysis of data supplied by the Oregon Judicial Department.

That changed in May.

The 51 civil commitments throughout Oregon are the highest number since at least January 2022. And while most people who are considered for commitment are not ultimately placed in state custody, Oregon committed a higher proportion of those people in May – 7.5% – than in any other month in more than three years.

Leading the upward surge was Multnomah County, where judges committed 22 people in May. That total amounted to 13.4% of all cases initiated in the county, according to OJD data, a monthly record dating back to 2022. So far this year, more than 8% of cases in Multnomah County have resulted in commitments, well above the annual percentages from 2022-2025.

Newell told lawmakers that the cause of the upswing is still unclear. One possibility: Judges, attorneys and mental health providers who participate in the commitment system may be growing more accustomed to the new law.

“What I’ve heard from practitioners is that there is comfort developing among the providers, among the attorneys, in looking at these new considerations that are before the court,” Newell said. “They’re feeling more comfortable applying them to the folks that are appearing in that court proceeding.”

Changes to the civil commitment law were just one facet of HB 2005, the 2025 bill that sought to address problems in the state’s system for treating people with mental illness.

The law also created new rules for people who are forced to receive mental health treatment as part of criminal proceedings against them.

The Oregon Judicial Department and Oregon Health Authority say they will prepare a comprehensive report in November about the impact of all those changes.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/06/16/months-after-new-law-civil-commitments-are-up-in-oregon/