Section 55.001. Declaration of policy.

  The legislature recognizes that many citizens of the state, because of serious and persistent mental illness, degenerative brain disorder, developmental disabilities, or other like incapacities, are in need of protective services or protective placement. Except as provided in s. 49.45 (30m) (a) , the protective services or protective placement should, to the maximum degree of feasibility under programs, services and resources that the county board of supervisors or the Milwaukee County mental health board, as applicable, is reasonably able to provide within the limits of available state and federal funds and of county funds required to be appropriated to match state funds, allow the individual the same rights as other citizens, and at the same time protect the individual from financial exploitation, abuse, neglect, and self-neglect. This chapter is designed to establish those protective services and protective placements, to assure their availability to all individuals when in need of them, and to place the least possible restriction on personal liberty and exercise of constitutional rights consistent with due process and protection from abuse, financial exploitation, neglect, and self-neglect.

Neither a district attorney nor a corporation counsel has a duty to petition for protective placement, determination of incompetency, or otherwise intervene when an apparently competent elderly person with a life threatening illness chooses to remain at home under a doctor's and family care rather than seeking a higher level of care that might extend her life. 74 Atty. Gen. 188 .

Landmark Reforms Signed Into Law: Guardianship and Adult Protective Services. Abramson & Raymond. Wis. Law. Aug. 2006.