Police respond to mental health crises on a regular basis even though they are not properly trained to effectively resolve these issues. Along with this, police do not have the man power and/or resources to appropriately provide services to individuals over a long period of time, which most mental health issues require. A joint collaboration between police and mental health workers would ease the burden on police, more effectively handle the interactions with individuals experiencing these mental health crises, and would ultimately be safer and more beneficial for both police and these individuals in the long-run. Ultimately, professionals with mental health training will be more successful in working with persons with a mental health diagnosis, making not only the quality of service better but also the allotment of man-power and resources more appropriate.
Police officers interact with individuals that are involved in a mental health crisis every day. The outcomes of those interactions can vary depending on the officer’s personality and training as well as the actions and perceived threat from the person experiencing the crisis. The result of these interactions could lead to an officer injuring the individual in question or the officer receiving an injury. This could also lead to an individual being charged for a crime
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Most police officers are not trained to deal with these issues and the ones that are do not have the time nor resources to help connect the individual with the appropriate long-term care. The joining of police officers and mental health workers would provide a partnership that would allow these professionals to provide mental health care at both the onset of a problem as well as throughout a person’s life. This joint collaboration also has the potential to reduce injuries to both police officers as well as the individuals having a mental
Gilmartin, K. M. Emotional survival for law enforcement, a guide for officers and their families. 1st ed. Arizona: E-S Press, 2002.
Constantine, R., Andel, R., Petrila, J., Becker, M., Robst, J., Teague, G., Boaz, T. and Howe, A., 2010, ‘Characteristics and experiences of adults with a serious mental Illness who were involved in the criminal justice system’, Psychiatric Services, vol. 61, no. 5, pp. 451-457.
It's up to the police to make a decision right on the street to act.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in 17 Americans suffer from a serious mental illness. That is roughly one person in an average high school classroom. These mentally ill people live a different life, and in some situations, they cannot fully comprehend what is happening around them. These people need a little more time and patience than the average person would need in any given situation. Because of this, they need to be handled differently by police officers when they come into contract. This is not happening and it is causing chaos. In “Police Confront Rising Number of Mentally Ill Suspects,” an article featured in The New York Times on April 1, 2014, writers Fernanda Santos and Erica Goode bring attention to the treatment of mentally ill suspects when being confronted by police officers. The article starts with the emotional story of James Boyd to capture the audience’s attention and to create distaste for the police, which is reinforced throughout the article. The authors then go on to have various professionals testify that in recent years the number of incidents between mentally ill people and police officers has risen dramatically. Santos and Goode describe the process of many police departments and compare them with Albuquerque’s, showing that their procedures when handling mentally ill suspects either is not used or there are no guidelines to follow. This article portrays the ignorance some people have when handling situations with mentally ill people and how that affects the lives of the mentally ill and could potentially affect the reader’s own life. Structural, material, and characterological coherence are evident in the article to effectively shed light on how police officers need to revise...
“See these fists? They’re getting ready to fuck you up,” said Officer Ramos, before he and two other officers began to mercilessly beat a mentally-ill man at a transit station (“Full Un-edited”). Kelly Thomas was a schizophrenic homeless-man who was beaten by 3 police officers in Fullerton, Calif. He died in the hospital 5 days later due to the inflicted injuries (Salazar). None of the officers involved were found guilty of any wrong doing. In America today, use of force, police brutality, and night-time home raids are on the rise. Many of these incidents involve people who have committed no crime, who are violently beaten by law enforcement officers. These officers often suffer no consequences for their actions. It is time
Mental Illness has been prevalent all throughout our history from Isaac Newton to Abraham Lincoln to Sylvia Plath and so on. These illnesses can be as minor as a slight bipolar disorder or as severe as schizophrenia. In recent years, mental illnesses are becoming more prevalent in our criminal justice systems than anywhere else. Mental illness is becoming an association with crime and based on the information that has been found, this paper will attempt to further define the problem of mental illness within our criminal justice system and offer alternatives or insights as to how to possibly help with this problem.
Police departments would have to hire certain outside professionals such as psychiatrists to train the police officers on how to handle mental health situations or how to recognize the time. Some police departments only train a few specialized members to go on calls with mental health situations to help, but they cannot go on all of the calls. The funds for mental health are not being used correctly. Most funds are going towards mental health institutes or therapies and treatments. Little is going to the police departments.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Women police officers face many stressors. Female officers are more likely to encounter disapproval from fellow officers, and also from friends and family for entering police work. On the other hand, the peers, supervisors, and the public questions female officers’ capability to tackle the emotional and physical rigors of the police work, and this is even when research shows women can do so. As such, the need for female officers to prove themselves to the public and the male officers constitutes some major stressor for women officers. In essence, female police officers do suffer quite more from the stress of their jobs than their male colleagues.
Everyday law enforcement personal have the possibility to face dangerous events in their daily duties. In performing such duties a police officer could come by a seemingly ordinary task, and in a blink of an eye the event can turn threatening and possible deadly. When or if this happens to an officer they won’t have
Lamb, H. Richard., Weinberger, Linda E., & Gross, Bruce H. (2004). Mentally ill persons in the criminal justice system: Some Perspectives. Psychiatric Quarterly 75(2): 107-126.
Additionally, correctional psychologists are on-call to handle emergency situations involving mentally ill inmates, such as hostage negotiations and crisis intervention. The treatment of mentally ill individuals in jails and prisons is a prominent concern that is becoming more so as more ill individuals are sentenced to jail and prison stays. Currently, the United States correctional facilities are the largest provider of mental health services. (Reingle Gonzalez, et al.
Corrections work is made for special people. “Corrections officers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder at more than double the rate of military veterans in the US” (Lisitsina, 2015). This is an astonishing thought knowing what war is like across the world and the impact it has on our soldiers. This knowledge makes it difficult on new corrections officers heading into their new positions in jails and prisons. PTSD is a major health problem that can lead to suicide. A study, “found that corrections officers have a suicide rate that is twice as high as the rate of police officers and the general population” (Pitarro, 2017). When officers are put in high stress positions they also become, “less effective at their jobs and they are more likely to display withdrawal symptoms of increased absenteeism, tardiness, and an anticipation of turnover” (Tewksbury and Higgins, 2006). Needless to say, the job can lead to a series of mental health issues and consequences for the officers, which puts them at
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was first founded in American soldiers who had been traumatized during wars since it can develop when someone has been in or has seen a traumatic event and has felt, according to Nancy Davis, “intense fear, helplessness, or horror”. Many officers can get PTSD from life threatening situations such as, shootings, fires and car accidents. These incidents can cause the development of a more severe PTSD which is more difficult to treat than less severe cases. Police officers have high stress levels during the course of their work day. This stress can affect their families and also their work ethic. High stress levels can be another factor for PTSD because when officers have seen disturbing events it can cause them to stress out because of that event. Many officers can suffer from diffe...
Since the inception of this niche in psychology, there has been a greater appreciation for the use of police psychological services. Now almost every police department has a separate psychology department with a number of psychologists working with its other employees. This specialized subset of psychology delivers a number of services to its employees, from assessing qualified applicants, counseling, to suspect profiling and providing expertise during hostage situations. The field has grown tremendously, especially over the last 40 years and has developed into its own sub-specialty with its own dedicated research, journals and professional organizations. During that time, there have been great strides made in developing this relationship betwe...