There has also been increased awareness in law
enforcement communities of the need for more in-depth officer training in
de-escalation. The New York Times reported
on a recent survey conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) that
highlighted the tradition of a disproportionate focus on training in use of
force rather than de-escalation techniques and estimated the following median
number of hours spent in various training areas: firearms = 58 hours, defensive
tactics = 49 hours, de-escalation = 8 hours, and crisis intervention = 8 hours (Apuzzo,
2015). PERF asserted that some large police departments support the
idea of a new approach to training that focuses more heavily on teaching
officers the necessary skills to defuse tense situations and avoid violent
confrontations; but other departments are resistant. Persons with mental
illnesses would undoubtedly benefit during their encounters with police who had
more comprehensive training in de-escalation and potentially reduce their
chances not only of injury during those encounters but also of being subject to
police use of force at all.
Certain jurisdictions have had strong success in
implementing prevention-oriented models that include specialized officer
response to persons with mental illnesses like CIT. Other successful additions
to the community infrastructure provide officers with an alternative to taking
a person in crisis to the emergency department or jail. San Antonio, Texas,
paired CIT training with a newly constructed Restoration Center, a facility
with a 16-bed psychiatric unit, a medical clinic, and a “sobering room” where
police can drop off people who are intoxicated rather than taking them to jail.
The city reports related savings for the police department of $600,000 a year
in overtime pay alone; undoubtedly, many encounters that would have involved
use offorce and possible injury were averted.
Morabito
and Socia (2015) also call for policy improvements in
consistency, quality, and availability of data on encounters during which
police use force and the surrounding circumstances, including measures that
thoroughly describe the circumstances of a person’s mental-health crisis. While
a range of community and government stakeholders are engaged, now is an
especially important time to develop and institute progressive policies in an
effort to increase accountability for what takes place during police
encounters. New policies that require detailed reporting of police use-of-force
incidents would also facilitate further rigorous research on the effectiveness
of CIT, preemptive gun seizure laws, and other approaches to mitigating
dangerousness in encounters with persons in mental-health crisis. To ensure
that new reporting policies are sustainable, however, jurisdictions would need
to give careful consideration to issues around their implementation. Challenges
to be addressed include the acceptability of such policies among police
department leadership and their officers, as well as the feasibility of
additional reporting and paperwork for officers and data management for
administration.
Morabito
and Socia (2015) offer salient new evidence about risk
for injury during police encounters involving persons with mental illnesses in
which force is used. Their study lays a foundation for further research that
should extend to include non-CIT police officers to learn more about both
CIT-specific outcomes and any unobserved elevated risk for injury during police
encounters with persons with mental illnesses. Policy response to these
concerns can begin now, starting with improved reporting on police encounters
with persons with mental illnesses and a rigorous focus on building officers’
skills in de-escalation...
Full article at: http://goo.gl/DaHZ0u
By: Allison G. Robertson,
Direct correspondence to Allison G. Robertson, Department of
Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine,
Brightleaf Square, Ste 23B, Durham, NC 27701 (Email: allison.gilbert@duke.edu).
Allison G. Robertson is
an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
at Duke University School of Medicine. She received a Ph.D. in health policy
and management from the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill and an MPH in
health management and policy from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Professor Robertson conducts mental health law, policy, and services research,
with a particular focus on the problem of criminal justice involvement among
adults with serious mental illnesses. She is currently the principal
investigator on a study of gender differences in a statewide jail-diversion
program, principal investigator on a study of medication-assisted treatment for
justice-involved adults with co-occurring mental health and substance use
disorders, and an investigator on two multisite studies on gun control laws,
mental illness, and prevention of violence.
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