The Ghostbusters refrain "Who you gonna call?" typically connotes a lighthearted response to an unusual problem, but in the context of a human being suffering a mental health crisis, the refrain is anything but lighthearted. In an ideal world, "who you gonna call" would be a trained mental health professional. In the real world, the cry for help is usually received by the police. Police respond because there is no one else to assist. Police officers rank mental health crisis situations as far more stressful than crimes in progress. A person, suffering from mental illness is, by definition, not fully rational. Although they are likewise not fully irrational, behavior is unpredictable, and unpredictable behavior for the police is potentially dangerous behavior. As a consequence, outcomes of engagement between law enforcement and mental health consumers are too often tragic. No organization is more concerned about inadequate response than the police themselves. Improving Police Response to Mental Illness provides best practices guidance. A national pool of experts provide both insight and recommendations, ranging from the conceptual, Atypical Situations-Atypical Responses, to the pragmatic, Law Enforcement Training Models. Written specifically for the book, each chapter addresses a given critical component, including social policy, police response alternatives, training, legal constraints, and cooperative agreements with mental health service providers. This is an indispensable volume on the subject of police and mental health and is designed for police practitioners, mental health professionals, and scholars of social policy.

This book is written for law enforcement officers in the enhancement of strategies, communication techniques, and crisis intervention preparation when assessing the behavior of those persons considered mentally ill. The public and its institutions continue to demand that law enforcement intervene with persons considered mentally ill by the mental profession. However, the laws enacted are unable to address the deeper philosophic and political controversies within the mental health profession regarding the reality of mental illness, its diagnosis, or its treatment. Officers are in need of a sense of appropriateness when assessing the behavior of someone deemed to be in a mental health crisis; and the sense of appropriateness needs to be grounded in a philosophic outlook that both makes sense and fits today's pluralistic outlook on life and the Nation's premise of the preciousness of civil liberty. This book is written to address these issues. The book is divided into three parts: (1) clinical issues; (2) mental health from a nonclinical perspective; and (3) the national experience in legal terms. Part 1 presents the chapters dealing with assessment and intervention, including strategies, communication techniques, the ideas for overcoming institutional barriers to effective police intervention. Part 2 presents issues of mental health from a nonlegal perspective, and part 3 details the national experience in mental health in legal terms. Each chapter gives an introductory rationale about its usefulness to police.

Police Response to Mental Health Calls for Service: Gatekeepers and Street Corner Psychiatrists focuses on closing the gap in literature surrounding police responses to mental health calls for service, with an emphasis on the effect of training and relationships with mental health agencies, in order to better understand the interaction between police officers and individuals with mental health diagnoses. Kayla G. Jachimowski and Jonathon A. Cooper pay close attention to Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) and its impact on how police officers would respond to these calls for service, also examining how the relationships between police, the community, and mental health service providers impact police response. Jachimowski and Cooper argue for the importance of police training about mental health disorders and explore the likelihood of diverting individuals with mental illness from the criminal justice system. Scholars of criminology, sociology, and psychology will find this book particularly useful.

This brief addresses the question of the various ways in which mental health-related issues have become police responsibility. It provides a detailed understanding of the myriad of ways in which police are often called upon to be the primary responder to mental health-related issues, well beyond the standard media images of individuals in extreme crisis. Drawing upon the results of two separate ethnographies of police practices in Canada, this volume examines how public policing has become entangled in cases of persons with mental illness (PMI). It examines two aspects of the police role and mandate that brings police officers into contact with individuals dealing with mental health disorders: public safety, and crime prevention and response. It explores police perceptions towards the roles they play in the lives of PMI, and police demands in these types of calls for service that have transformed aspects of public policing. Appropriate for policing researchers, law enforcement and public policymakers, this book presents the argument that tackling this matter requires knowledge of police involvement in situations with PMI, as well as a set of evidence-based policy options that will not generate additional resource or other strains.

The Problem-Specific Guides series summarise knowledge about how police can reduce the harm caused by specific crime and disorder problems. They are guides to prevention and to improving the overall response to incidents, not to investigating offences or handling specific incidents. Problems associated with people with mental illness pose a significant challenge for modern policing. This book begins by describing the problem and reviewing factors that increase the challenges that police face in relation to the mentally ill. It then identifies a series of questions that might help one analyse local policing problems associated with people with mental illness. Finally, it reviews responses to the problems and what we know about them from evaluative research and police practice. It is important to recognise that mental illness is not, in itself, a police problem. Obviously, it is a medical and social services problem. However, a number of the problems caused by or associated with people with mental illness often do become police problems. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

In countries with democratic traditions, police interactions with the mentally ill are usually guided by legislative mandates giving police discretion and possibly resulting in referrals for assistance and treatment. But all too frequently, the outcome of these interactions is far less therapeutic and leads to a cycle of arrests and ultimately incarceration. Stemming from an initiative in Memphis, Tennessee two decades ago, police departments in many parts of the world have set up specific programs with crisis intervention teams to facilitate police contact with the mentally ill. Policing and the Mentally Ill: International Perspectives examines how these types of programs have fared in jurisdictions across the world. The book begins with developments in North America and Europe—traditionally the locus of much of the innovation and change in policing and related areas. It demonstrates how a number of jurisdictions in Europe have only recently begun to recognize therapeutic intervention with the mentally ill as a priority issue, and still frequently suffer from a lack of significant resources. The largest section of the book focuses on Australia, where local law enforcement agencies have displayed a remarkable enthusiasm for and commitment to change in their management of interactions with citizens with mental illness. Finally, the book examines the particular challenges of providing humane and effective policing for persons with mental illnesses in parts of the developing world. These challenges often involve dealing with entrenched cultural beliefs and practices based on superstition, fear, and prejudice regarding persons thought to be mentally ill. Interactions between police and persons with mental illnesses comprise an important and sensitive aspect of everyday policing. The 16 chapters in this book offer a wide range of cross-cultural perspectives on this essential aspect of policing, enabling police practitioners to develop a best practices approach to managing their interactions with this vulnerable segment of the community.