[sershe]

Children can express desires at 3, maybe earlier. At least single-noun desires, such as wanting all the candy, followed by a tantrum. Should there be some intervention, or should a 2-3 year old be allowed to have all the candy?

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.