Police Response to Mental Health Situations

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Introduction

Police officers engage with persons from all walks of life, including those from areas of society that a majority may prefer not to engage. As a result, police personnel routinely meet with individuals who are struggling from untreated mental illness. Individuals who struggle from serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI) endure several obstacles during their lifetimes, and societies are sometimes unprepared to help them (Morris, 2017). Their average lifespan is 8 to 32 years lower than the normal populace in general. These individuals are more likely to be victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, and they regularly face barriers to effective care owing to stigmatization and discrimination. They are commonly homeless or living in temporary housing, and they regularly land in jail. Whenever patients with SPMI are having a mental health crisis, law enforcement officers are frequently the initial point of contact. In several cases, the policeman dealing with an individual with SPMI lacks the necessary mental health training and expertise to manage the issue effectively and safely; in fact, they may well not realize they are coping with SPMI. To resolve this concern, the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program was created in 1988 and has been used by police at varying rates every day since.

Literature Review

Following the positive association between violence and mental illness, it is indeed vital to look into the strategies that cops employ when dealing with patients with SPMI. Chappell and O’Brian (2014) looked at how enforcement reaction methods have changed over a period of time in a manner that has just lately been studied more thoroughly via study. Around the 1960s, studies showed that if law enforcement encounters with mentally ill individuals were not handled properly, there were high likelihoods to progress issues to aggressive states leading to lethal use of force (Martínez, 2010). Ever since, numerous enforcement methods have arisen as officers have realized that in these sorts of situations, they must work with mental health specialists as well as the court system. The Memphis Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) program (Morris, 2017), which coupled qualified cops with mental health specialists to enhance contacts with mentally ill people, was among the enforcement strategies that evolved.

Volunteer patrol officers receive special training and education in mental health as well as legal problems as part of the CIT strategy, which allows them to accurately evaluate instances concerning mental illness (Steadman & Morrissette, 2016). As a result, before reacting to situations such as a dispatch call, officers have practiced their skills. De-escalation training is also included in the study as an illustration of a skill trained in the CIT approach, as well as the fact that the programme mandates every individual brought in by law enforcement officers to be evaluated at a designated mental health drop-off site (Bor et al., 2018). Ensuring public security, diverting people from jail, enhancing the person’s identification with mental illness, and other beneficial impacts are among the advantages of this paradigm. According to research by Chappell and O’Brien (2014), the CIT ought to have the capacity of reducing the need for authorities to use extreme force, enhance police expertise in confrontations with mentally ill people, reduce the number of detentions, boost accessibility to treatment of mental health, and reduce the possibilities of harm to both the authorities and the mentally ill individual in the scene. Watson et al. (2008) found that police-training tactics can keep improving and come up with creative approaches with this CIT conceptualization model and further study on enforcement engagement with mentally ill persons.

Watson et al. (2010) also intended to examine one of the key goals of this paradigm, which would be diverting patients with SPMI away from the jaws of law, in their research on CIT efficacy. After analyzing call outcomes data from various Chicago police districts, researchers discovered that CIT trained police referred a higher number of patients with SPMI to treatment than non-CIT trained police. The CIT trained law enforcement officers had higher chances of advocating the direction of mental health services if they had good opinions on mental health resources, particularly if they had previous history or acquaintance with mental illness, according to the results. Nevertheless, after implementing CIT, the number of arrests did not drop (Watson et al, 2010; DeVylder et al., 2018). The research acknowledges one possible explanation for this could be that numerous law enforcement officers stated in interview process that they really do not apprehend patients with SPMI. The concern is if these participants felt compelled into becoming CIT trained police officers because of their individual perspective with or awareness of mental illness. The authors acknowledged that there is potential for development by using an illustration such as improving mental health system accessible in order to improve police training strategies.

Martinez (2010) outlines two additional primary approaches that authorities utilize to intervene cases that involve mentally unstable people, as well as instances of various United States police agencies that have incorporated some of these approaches, in addition to the renowned CIT model. The Mobile Crisis Team (MCT) model, in which a behavioural health professional helps authorities on the scene, differs from the CIT method in that the police make decisions about the mentally unstable individual in cooperation with a healthcare professional who works in professional manner with the law enforcement agency, rather than by themselves (Wood, Watson, & Fulambarker, 2017). The Community Service Officer (CSO) model is the other response plan, that entails a police training course for individuals with prior expertise in social work, after which they assist officers in confrontation with mental ill persons (Watson et al., 2008). The distinction between this model and the MCT is that rather than being a mental health expert, a CSO is a police officer. Generally, the writer questions if these techniques are adequate in equipping police personnel with the abilities, they require to properly assist people with mental illnesses.

Taking into account what many of the cops had to say regarding the actual program, scholars think that more study about how to enhance police response methods is needed. Steadman and Morrissette (2016) concentrated on this topic by posing the question of how to go further than CIT training to see what else remains to be done to improve the model’s effectiveness. Despite the fact that Watson et al. (2008) claimed that the CIT approach would reduce charges, the findings of Watson et al. (2010)’s Chicago study confirms opposite. Rather than focusing solely on what tactics authorities ought to take to diffuse a scenario that involves a mentally unstable person so that proper decisions can be made, Steadman and Morrissette (2016) claimed that the interaction between authorities and behavioural health specialists must be improved. These professionals create and implement crisis care services for the treatment of psychological problems. If police forces and mental health professionals work collaboratively more successfully (Tint et al., 2017), it is indeed possible that the society as a whole will benefit. In his study on predictive policing, Newcombe (2014) offers a further illustration of how to improve police-response techniques. Enhanced profile matching precision, improved forecasts of times as well as places wherein crimes may occur, and also victims, and other relevant data are some of the benefits stated around this approach using technology.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is clear that police officers encounter various situations relating to mental health paradigms. The responses available to them emanate from personal intuition as well as psychological and basic police training provided for every officer. From the analysis of extant literature above, it is clear that various psychological models are applicable in helping to deescalate issues that may emerge from the interactions of police officers with people suffering struggle from serious and persistent mental illnesses. The use of the aforementioned approaches is a highly valuable strategy for dealing with such situations. For example, obtaining crime analysis of data can be useful in predictive policing. If good technology could offer information on whether crime perpetrators have a mental condition before they commit a crime, it can help police foresee what to anticipate and so react appropriately.

References

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