Running Head: POLICE ENCOUNTERS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS 1

Police Encounters with Mental Illness

Sari Kripke

University of Michigan School of Social Work

POLICE ENCOUNTERS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS 2

Despite efforts to decriminalize mental illness, individuals who are mentally ill are still
overrepresented in the criminal justice system and account for one out of every four fatal police
shootings. The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model was created in 1987 in response to a police
officer fatally shooting a man who was actively experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia. With
the implementation of CIT, police officers can voluntarily partake in forty hours of training on
mental illness, in order to improve safety and to keep those who are mentally ill away from
incarceration and, instead, point them in the direction of mental health services. Over the course
of five years, researchers recorded data from the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) responses
to calls involving mental illness; although the CPD implemented the CIT model, only 27% of
officers enrolled in training, yet all officers handled calls involving mental illness. Out of the 428
calls involving mental illness, two thirds of the subjects were black males and one out of every
four subjects stopped taking their medications. Nearly half of the subjects were taken to the ER
while only five percent were arrested. All of the police officers who were interviewed mentioned
the importance of using informal techniques such as persuasion and de-escalation. Although
officers have made progress in dealing with the mentally ill, there still is work to be done to
minimize ER visits, incarceration, police brutality, and repeated arrests (Watson & Wood, 2017).
One policy implication that has already taken place is the implementation of crisis
intervention training for around 2,000 of the 18,00 police departments in the United States. For
the majority of departments that use the CIT model, all that is offered is forty hours of training.
This training, however, is voluntary rather than mandatory. Some departments have also added
licensed social workers into the police force to provide more comprehensive care (Watson &
Wood, 2017).

Another implication is increasing regulation of the police data system so that interactions
between police and subjects are fully documented. In the article, the Chicago police department
did not have clear guidelines on how to document their interactions, and many stories they
shared were not on file. Implementing national documentation standards could hold police more
accountable for their actions and serve as a manual for how to handle (or not handle) situations
(Watson & Wood, 2017). Similar to regulating police data systems is linking interagency data
systems. In New Jersey, the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers integrates police data
with data from healthcare systems to ensure knowledge is accessible to all systems of care.
POLICE ENCOUNTERS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS 3

Although there are HIPPA concerns, New Jersey has proven it possible to implement cross-
system data sharing (Wood & Watson, 2016).

The final social welfare policy implication is reconceptualizing diversion to not only keep
subjects who are mentally ill out of prison, but also out of the ER. To do so, police departments
must establish relationships with community mental health agencies and substance use treatment
programs to link subjects to effective help. Also, conducting follow-up visits with high risk
subjects may be useful to check if subjects linked to higher levels of care and to document what
interventions help and which ones do not (Watson & Wood, 2017).

With police officers at the front line for mental health crises in the United States, it is
important for social workers to communicate with police departments on a regular basis to
provide them with contacts, resources, information, and training. Very few police departments
have adopted crisis intervention teams in which social workers ride alongside police officers to
manage mental health crises, but the departments that have find it beneficial for all involved.
That being said, implementing more crisis intervention teams across the United States may be
one method in decreasing the amount of re-arrests and ER visits (Watson & Wood, 2017).

Out of the 18,000 police departments in the United States, only 2,000 offer crisis
intervention training and even fewer have implemented crisis intervention teams (Wood &
Watson, 2016). An important implication for social workers, therefore, is working with their
National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) to implement the CIT model into their local police
departments. At the same time, social workers must push for mandated crisis intervention
training in all departments. It is also important for social workers to educate citizens on the
impact they could have on police practices simply by calling NAMI or their local police
department to request crisis intervention training.

A final imperative role for social workers is to advocate for increased accessibility to
both inpatient and outpatient mental health services. Due to budget cuts, mental health agencies
are lacking and the ones that exist are often at capacity. This leaves police officers responding to
more and more individuals who are mentally ill, without the training to do so.
POLICE ENCOUNTERS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS 4

References

Watson, A.C., & Wood, J.D. (2017). Everyday police work during mental health encounters: A

study of call resolutions in Chicago and their implications for diversion. Behav Sci Law,

35, 422-455.

Wood, J. D., & Watson, A. C. (2016). Improving police interventions during mental

health-related encounters: Past, present and future. Policing & society, 27, 289-299.