scholarly journals The “Gray Zone” of Police Work During Mental Health Encounters

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer D. Wood ◽  
Amy C. Watson ◽  
Anjali J. Fulambarker
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Work ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Gray Zone ◽  
Police Responses ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Core Features

Although improving police responses to mental health crises has received significant policy attention, most encounters between police and persons with mental illnesses do not involve major crimes or violence nor do they rise to the level of emergency apprehension. Here, we report on field observations of police officers handling mental health-related encounters in Chicago. Findings confirm these encounters often occur in the “gray zone,” where the problems at hand do not call for formal or legalistic interventions. In examining how police resolved such situations, we observed three core features of police work: (a) accepting temporary solutions to chronic vulnerability, (b) using local knowledge to guide decision making, and (c) negotiating peace with complainants and call subjects. Findings imply the need to advance field-based studies using systematic social observations of gray zone decision making within and across distinct geographic and place-based contexts. Policy implications for supporting police interventions are also discussed.

scholarly journals Crisis Intervention Team Training and the Protection Motivation Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Monique Allen ◽  
Greg Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Crisis Intervention ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Protection Motivation Theory ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Protection Motivation ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
Crisis Intervention Team ◽  
Intervention Team

The problem addressed in this phenomenological study was the lack of documentation that supported the lived experiences of crisis intervention team (CIT)-trained police officers related to their field encounters with persons with mental illnesses. The purpose of the study was to explore the lived experiences of officers among CIT-trained police officers to address the problem. The protection motivation theory was aligned closest with the teachings of CIT training as described by the study participants’ lived experiences. Participants provided the study’s collected data, which was composed of completed questionnaires and transcribed interviews. The empirical theoretical framework method of analysis used was a combination of inductive coding and theme analysis that established the results of this study. Key findings of the study identified a significant amount of frustration expressed in the lived experiences of the CIT-trained police officers. Frustration was experienced by officers who applied the protection motivation theory to ensure the well-being of persons experiencing a mental crisis. There was considerable pushback from the public mental health facilities, which added to the frustration experienced by CIT-trained police officers who attempted to navigate treatment with the limited resources available to help persons in mental crisis. The positive social change produced from this study included recommendations to police leadership and mental health advocates to encourage certain CIT-training-related practices that directly impact CIT field encounters with persons in mental crises. Specialized training may promote improved departmental outcomes such as sustainability of gains for those in crises and enable police officer accountability and reliability.

Social determinants of mental health and policy implications

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 574-574
Author(s):  
I. Rocha
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Childhood Development ◽  
Public Health Perspective ◽  
The Social

IntroductionWHO has defined the social determinants of mental health (2008) as “social justice is a matter of life or death. Affects how people live, their propensity for disease and risk of premature death”. Underlies that health is not only determined by biological, but by social factors that can be divided into: Economic, Gender and Cultural.ObjectivesThe author proposes to do a literature review focusing on a consensus on the social determinants of mental health, and the implications on the policies of various countries.Aims and methodsWe performed a literature review using textbooks and research papers (Medline, Pubmed, 1997–2010).ResultsTopics about Social Determinants of Mental Health often establish, the social gradient, situations of stress, childhood development, poverty, drug dependence, conditions at work, unemployment, social support, food, transportation policies, gender and cultural determinants.The Global Movement for Mental Health should play an important role in public health activities, focusing on global mental illness. To do this effectively, the mental health professionals need to confront global poverty, its relationship with the political and economic developments as well as the consequences for common mental illnesses.ConclusionsIn a public health perspective, evidence of the mechanisms of this relationship can be used to consider a variety of primary and secondary preventive strategies with regard to mental health.

scholarly journals Suspicious minds: Police Attitudes to Mental Ill Health

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Bell ◽  
Sue Palmer-Conn
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Mental Health Issue ◽  
Bench Mark ◽  
Community Based Interventions ◽  
Police Attitudes ◽  
Police Data ◽  
Related Stigma ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Seeking Help

Policing and mental ill health are inextricably entwined. The police have a role to respond to distressed persons and depending on the circumstances act as mental health practitioners or law enforcement officers.  Policing can have an impact on the mental health of those delivering the service. Those working within policing will either experience, work alongside and/or manage colleagues with mental ill health. Therefore it is important that the attitudes of police officers and police staff to mental ill health are established. The research employs the Time to Change Survey to bench mark police attitudes against the general public. Results indicate that police officers/staff hold similar attitudes to the public. However police officers are less supportive of community based interventions. Police data portrays an organisation where mental health related stigma persists, where discussing or seeking help is avoided and having a mental health issue seen as career destroying.

POLICE OFFICERS' KNOWLEDGE OF, AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS, MENTAL ILLNESS AND THE MENTALLY ILL INDIVIDUALS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nahal Salimi ◽  
◽  
Bryan Gere ◽  
Sharo Shafaie ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Direct Interaction ◽  
Law Enforcement Officers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Community Attitudes ◽  
Mental Health Awareness

"Police officers are some of the first professionals that might have direct interaction with individuals with mental illnesses. Statistics show that from 2017 to 2020 about 3986 individuals in the United States were fatally shot by police officers (Statista, 2021). These reports indicate that at least 25% and as many as 50% of all fatal shootings involved individuals with untreated severe mental illness. The purpose of this pilot study was to test the effectiveness of a five-day psycho-educational mental health awareness training in enhancing law enforcement officers’ knowledge about mental illness, and their perceptions towards mentally ill individuals using a pretest-posttest design. The Community Attitudes Towards the Mentally Ill (CAMI) scale was used to measure participants’four mental health attitudinal domains - authoritarianism, benevolence, social restrictiveness, and community mental health ideology. The results indicate that at the completion of the training there was an increase in participants’ confidence about their knowledge of the mentally ill individuals and mental illness conditions. However, the results also indicate a slight decrease in participants' mental illness social restrictiveness sentiment after the completion of the training. Additionally, the results also show a correlation between demographic variables and some of the domains. Implications for practice are discussed."

Police Officers’ Attitudes Toward the Implementation of Community-Oriented Policing in Turkey

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (14) ◽  
pp. 1946-1967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bulent Uluturk ◽  
Ahmet Guler ◽  
Musa Karakaya
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Police Culture ◽  
Work Orientation ◽  
Community Oriented Policing ◽  
Participation In Decision Making ◽  
Orientation Training ◽  
Turkish Police

The current study aims to analyze the historical development of community-oriented policing (COP) in Turkey as well as exploring officers’ attitudes toward COP and examining factors related to their attitudes. The current research is based on a survey of 405 Turkish police officers. We focused on officers’ demographic characteristics, work orientation, training, the level of participation in decision-making, and perception toward public as a way of understanding officers’ attitudes toward community policing. Our research suggests that majority of organization members have favorable attitudes toward community policing and support it in general and in their own department. The results indicate a positive relationship between participation in decision-making, service work orientation, officers’ relationships with citizens, and police officers’ attitudes toward community policing. Furthermore, the study assesses the effects of police culture on officers’ attitudes in a highly centralized police agency and discusses the policy implications of our findings.

scholarly journals Increasing Mental Health Literacy in Law Enforcement to Improve Best Practices in Policing—Introduction of an Empirically Derived, Modular, Differentiated, and End-User Driven Training Design

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Lorey ◽  
Jörg M. Fegert
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Law Enforcement Officers ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Training Curriculum ◽  
End User

Objective: Law enforcement officers often have contact to persons who show symptoms of mental disorders. Adequately designed training is necessary for developing the best possible practices in policing when coming into contact with mentally ill people, and may help to expand their general knowledge on mental disorders. To achieve a sustainable implementation of training content in daily policing work, the acceptance and proactive integration of methods by the training participants is essential.Method: This study investigates an exemplary modular training curriculum based on a survey with 2,228 German police officers (28.2% female, 71.8% male) concerning their needs and challenges when coming into contact with persons with mental disorders. This empirical end-user driven approach was used to adapt existing training concepts to the current needs and interests of law enforcement personnel in order to maximize compliance.Results: The training program draft includes basic modules which are intended to be of direct interest to all police officers, such as mental disorders with high policing relevance, encountering suicidal patients, (non-directive) communication and de-escalation skills, and mental hygiene in policing. They are arranged in more specialized modules that address specific target group audiences within police forces and the training curriculum provides information about genuine risks and self-protection, trauma sensitivity, and interaction with children and victims among other contents. The self-selectable, modular, and empirically-based continued training program also includes an introduction to local mental health service professionals and networks, trialogue sequences, and situational role play scenarios.Conclusion: Due to frequent contact law enforcement officers have to mentally ill people, improved training designed to maximize knowledge and the integration of trained methods is necessary. Gaining acceptance and proactive support by trainees is ensured through end-user driven implementation of specialized and differentiated up-to-date training programs. Our results showcase how police officers' perspectives on persons with mental illnesses is a main aspect that can and should be used to encourage training course designs.

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