The police and mental health
Posted on 16/07/2010 | 6 Comments
Just was reading an interesting article on police and mental health. Not the mental health of police, although that would be a very important issue to know more about. Can you imagine the stresses of that occupation? But about how police respond to individuals who are exhibiting mental health problems, or individuals with mental disorders who are in distress or acting in such as way as to be causing distress to others. So here is the piece: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jul/14/police-mental-health-training. As you can see the title is: US Police need proper training in mental health. And the sub-title is: “People suffering mental health crises are too often subjected to brutality by poorly trained and frightened police officers” According to the writer (in a UK paper by the way): “Every day in various American communities, people enter mental health crises and their friends and family members pick up the phone to call for help. Often, the first responders on the scene are police officers, and the resulting interaction does not go well. Poorly trained and frightened police officers may resort to excessive force, and sometimes this ends in death for a person who is guilty only of being in urgent need of psychiatric care.”
Although the piece is long on hyperbole and heart wrenching descriptions of police attacking individuals suffering from mental disorders, and short on any substantive data and overall balanced reporting regarding what police forces are actually doing, the writer does bring attention to an important issue. Certainly police officers should have more training in dealing with the unique needs of people who have mental illnesses and who are behaving in a way that may put them or others at risk of harm. Certainly we need more and better community based mental health care services. These needs are real and we have to get working on doing more.
But it is also important to recognize that much has been done in the last decade or so. Here in Halifax, there is a mobile crisis service that I am proud to have been part of its launch. It pairs police officers with mental health professionals. It goes to where people need them and it works – not perfectly mind you, but it works. One of my colleagues, Dr. Bianca Horner and members of the Department of Psychiatry and the Mental Health Program have developed a national training program for the RCMP, called “Recognition of Emotionally Disturbed Persons” regarding this matter. Other police forces in Canada are now beginning to address this issue. I have had the opportunity to be part of the Minister’s task force on TASER in Nova Scotia and the privilege to chair the sub-task force on excited delirium. As a result of these reports there have been substantive movements towards improving all aspects of first responder approaches to individuals with mental disorders.
While these are a good beginning we certainly have to do more. It is not appropriate nor is it fair nor is it right that our prisons have become holding bins for people who require mental health care. The federal government has decided to build more prisons. I for one would like to see them invest more in mental health care instead. Don’t you think it’s preferable to treat someone who has a mental disorder in such as way as to assist and support their recovery instead of throwing them in jail? I do.
--Stan
Blog Tag Cloud
adhd anxiety disorders attention award awards behaviour bipolar blog brain & neurology bullying canada care carter center conference confidentiality control coping criminal justice system cruelty cutting depression discrimination doctor driving eating disordersRecent Comment
This is a great set of comments and rings very true.
I totally agree that scientists (just like everyone else) have their biases and foibles. After all, scientists are human beings too! But science is different than scientists.
The scientific method is the most objective frame that we have by which to evaluate and predict. Science is not about finding truth. It is only about being less wrong most of the time. The scientific method (experimental design and mathematics) gives us the ability to test what we believe. The scientific method is not used to prove something is correct, on the contrary, the scientific method is designed to prove that something is not correct! It is designed to test what is called the “null hypothesis”. It takes ideas that come out of left field (or wherever else they come from) and puts those ideas to an independent test.
t does not drive our beliefs. It does however challenge our beliefs. In that way it is self-correcting. Of course scientific inquiry and understanding lives within a wider social context. That is one of the great features of science.
But gravity is gravity, social context notwithstanding. And thus it is nasty, brutish and long. As Brecht said, (something like this) - the purpose of science is to save us from everlasting error.
By Christina Carew on May 11th
You can find us here too!
We would like to say thanks...
Without their help this initiative would not be possible. Thanks for you help.
What people are saying?
Hilary Smith said...
Here in Washington, NAMI has a program called “In Our Own Voices” that sends community members living with mental illnesses to speak to schools, hospitals, and police forces about what it’s like to live with (and in recovery from) a mental illness.
Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) where police officers are trained on how to interact with people having a mental health crisis is also becoming mandatory in some areas.
You’re right: more mental health care, fewer prisons!
Comment made on August 05th, 2010
Kyle Racki said...
This is a very informative article, thanks for posting!
Comment made on August 26th, 2010
Healthy Mind said...
There are some occupations where the stress on mental well being is just immense… I think being a police office is definately one of those.
Comment made on September 11th, 2010
Private Krankenversicherung Vergleich said...
You made some good points there. I did a search on the subject and almost not found any specific details on other sites, but then great to be here, seriously, appreciate that.
- Lucas
Comment made on October 02nd, 2010
SweetDaisy said...
Thank you for the posting!
Comment made on May 09th, 2011
FlorineGuzman34 said...
Every body acknowledges that men’s life seems to be expensive, however different people require money for various things and not every one gets big sums money. So to receive some business loans or just sba loan would be a proper solution.
Comment made on May 09th, 2011
What do you think?