I find myself utterly incompatible in living in such a society and I've spent much of my life seeking other people and locations that eschew such violence
Also If we're going by someone with compromised mental faculties, I would say an organization (state of New York) who physically and/or sexually abuses the disabled* is not fit to make these decisions. The New York State government has proven themselves to have compromised mental faculties and thus unable to make these decisions to violently/forcibly institutionalize the portion of 'mentally ill' adults who don't aggress upon others. In part New York paired down their institutions because they were such terrible places for these people to be, often worse than in the gutter with teeth rotting.
IMO even the disabled, especially if they are not acting in a criminal capacity, should be asked for their consent before violently being forced into institutions of physical and sexual abuse for which New York is known.
*grep for my below comment about Willowbrook State School where we discover the (mentally disabled) children you worry so much about are actually abused by New York when institutionalized.
You don't draw child's line at merely being to express their desires, why would you do so for an adult?
If I were a child of sufficient age to express desires I would rather beg in the streets in a state of psychosis than be in the institutions such as New York's Willowbrook State School.
In any case, it's shifting the goalposts. Now we are talking about particular states depriving people from agency, in the previous comment you were talking about a mentally unwell person being categorically entitled to their agency...
I personally think it's a two way street, with 2 inflection points. If someone depends on welfare state in any significant degree, it should be valid to deprive them of a little bit of agency, since it's sorta indicative of them not being capable of good decisions. Kinda like teenagers in the child analogy. If someone depends on welfare state to a large degree and also STILL cannot keep it together in terms of committing crimes / being an active menace to others, it should be valid to deprive them of a lot of agency. Kinda like 3 year olds.
At any rate in context of the article, I think agency should be proportional to responsibility. NYC should just be tough on crime in this case, and any mental health defense should be conditional on losing agency. If you are mentally healthy enough to refuse to be committed, you are mentally healthy enough to be held responsible and go to jail.