5.7 Chapter Summary
- Policing people with mental disorders who are in crisis comes with numerous risks. There are countless examples of police encounters with people in crisis that have gone terribly wrong, ending in serious harm or death to the person in need of help.
- Reducing police-involved harm to people with mental disorders can include both measures to avoid these encounters by providing proper alternatives and efforts to improve police encounters when they are required.
- Robust community behavioral health crisis response systems can serve to reduce the number of encounters between police and people with mental disorders by avoiding the need for law enforcement response to crises and replacing law enforcement with crisis services.
- Core elements of a robust community crisis response system include crisis lines (someone to call), mobile crisis teams (someone to respond), and crisis stabilization units (somewhere to go). Intensive community-based treatment can help prevent crisis situations for people who are most at risk of police encounters.
- Some police engagement with people who experience mental disorders is inevitable. Police must have knowledge of risks, training in crisis response, and awareness of and access to appropriate resources to best serve their communities and avoid tragic outcomes. Police focus should be on de-escalation of encounters and avoiding use of force where safe and feasible. Specialty police units with additional training and personnel can be an effective policing approach to people in crisis and people with mental disorders generally.
Key Term Definitions
- Assertive community treatment (ACT): A community-based model of care where mental health services are provided by a team in a person’s home or in a community location. ACT has the goal of keeping people with serious mental disorders in the community and decreasing hospital admittance.
- Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training: A program aimed at training criminal justice professionals to safely and effectively respond to individuals experiencing mental health crises. CIT training emphasizes de-escalation techniques and referrals to mental health and social services.
- Crisis line: A telephone line or hotline, other than 911, that provides a connection between a person in need and services. The federal Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (988) is an example.
- Crisis response system: A network of community supports (including someone to call, people to respond, and a place to go) for people experiencing behavioral health crises. A functioning crisis response system avoids criminal justice involvement in response to crises.
- Crisis stabilization center: The element in a crisis response system that provides a person in crisis with a place to go for help, if needed, other than jail or a hospital. Crisis stabilization centers can take different forms, but 23-hour respite centers are an example.
- De-escalation: Use of skills to slow events, decrease risk of physical confrontation, and increase opportunity for improvement of outcomes.
- Forensic: Relating to investigatory or court proceedings.
- Forensic Assertive Community Treatment (FACT): An extension of ACT, which provides community-based, continuous services via a multidisciplinary team, that is directed specifically toward people who have been involved in the criminal justice system.
- Mobile crisis team: A team, often consisting of a mental health worker and a peer support provider, that responds to mental health crises in the community. Team members vary, and some operating under this name may include different types of professionals including law enforcement professionals.
- Multidisciplinary team: A team of providers with members from different professions or specialities. ACT and mobile crisis teams, for example, are multidisciplinary.
- No-wrong-door approach: The idea that anyone can receive services at a provider, whether they walk in or are brought by a crisis team or law enforcement, and once there, they will be assessed for whatever care they need at whatever level, large or small.
Discussion Questions
- Best practice guidelines dictate that mobile crisis teams should operate without law enforcement. Do you agree with that approach, and why?
- What are the benefits of crisis stabilization centers? Are there negatives to using these facilities as a “place to go” in a crisis? What is the importance of the “no wrong door” approach?
- Mental health advocates urge police to avoid the use of force to the maximum extent possible when working with people who experience mental disorders. Why? How can police accomplish this goal?
- If you or a family member were experiencing a mental health crisis, what type of community response would you want to receive?
Knowledge Check
Use these optional questions to check your knowledge after reading this chapter.
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Summary
“Chapter Summary” by Anne Nichol is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
