the main focus of this legislation was to regulate the development of asylums to which admission was for the most part involuntary since the mental health act which switched the decision to compulsorily detain a patient from a judicial one to an administrative one legislation has focused on balancing the tension between protecting the rights and promoting the safety of patients with mental health problems and protecting the safety of the communities in which they live rather than expressly facilitating involuntary incarceration on mental health grounds mental health legislation today allows an individual to be detained against their will on the condition that they present a danger to themselves or others including within the wider community