The first chapter provides an overview of the varieties of governmental response to public deviance. The analysis of legal decisions and legislation focuses on how the government has sought to use the law of civil commitment of the mentally ill to deal with the homeless who frequent public property. A criminal justice approach to the homeless and the mentally ill who live on the streets is also reviewed under laws that address loitering, disorderly conduct, harassment, criminal nuisance, and lewdness and exposure. Police discretion in such matters is also considered. The second chapter examines issues in the use of the law to achieve social control. In this inquiry, law provides the standards by which deviance or conformity may be judged, the process by which deviance is judged, and the sanctioning devices that may achieve anything from punishment to treatment. Among the topics discussed are punishment and treatment, the commitment of narcotic addicts, the legislation of morals, the measurement of law and social control, and the limits of rehabilitation. The third chapter identifies and analyzes issues pertinent to the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment as this prohibition restricts the state in its response to persons having the diseases of drug and alcohol addictions. A chapter on the mentally disabled discusses the nature of mental illness, procedures for civilly committing mentally ill persons, the rights of institutionalized persons, competency to be tried, the insanity defense, decisions on transfers between institutions, and the right to have and to refuse treatment. The concluding chapter focuses on legal rights and restrictions that bear upon the institutionalization of juveniles. Subject index, table of cases, and appended selected provisions of the U.S. Constitution