Role of Law Enforcement in Crisis Intervention - Essay Example

Role of Law Enforcement in Crisis Intervention (Add (Add (Add Role of Law Enforcement in Crisis Intervention The recent government initiatives to provide crisis intervention training to law enforcement officers prove that law enforcement has an active role to play in the situation. To illustrate, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department and the Chattanooga Police Department provided training for crisis intervention to their personnel. According to the officials, if police departments have a special team for crisis intervention, it is possible to save a lot of time, money and effort. The most important crisis intervention among them is dealing with people who are mentally ill. As Rick Mathis, Director of the OCHS center observes, it was common in the past for law enforcement officials to arrest people who seemed erratic and problematic. The fact put forward by Regini (2004) in this connection is that crisis intervention training is very vital for law enforcement officials as it ensures safety of both the handling official and the general public. This is so because most of the time, law enforcement officers are the first ones responding to crises these days. As people who are emotionally disturbed are a major chunk of offenders, it becomes necessary to address them separately. Three Sheriffs in California reported that nearly 9% of the total emergency calls were related to mental illness. So, the New York City Police Department has trained enough numbers of its personnel to handle disturbed people. Another surprising fact is that there are many cases in which police end up shooting the individuals with mental illness. So, the first step of training for law enforcement people should be to handle mentally ill people before things turn out of control. Secondly, there should be appropriate laws regarding the ay seemingly mentally disturbed people should be handled (Memphisis Police Department, 2011). The fact is that the present mental health laws do not allow providing treatment to people who are not dangerous. This law should be changed to include the provision to provide mental health treatment to people who are mentally ill though they are not dangerous. Thirdly the patrol officers and other frontline staff will be trained to identify and keep a record of mentally ill people in every locality who can turn violent or who have the history of violence. According to records (The City of Houston, 2012), nearly 35% of the people killed in police shootings in New York City were mentally ill. Based on such repeated incidents, there is even a term ‘suicide by cops’. There are many mentally disturbed people who want to be shot by the police. It is found in a study that nearly 11% of all police shootings by the Los Angels County deputies can be termed ‘suicide by police’. Also, a study in British Columbia found that in 10 to 15% cases, it was possible for law enforcement officers to negotiate before using deadly force (The City of Houston, 2012). The problem with the existing law is that in order to arrest or treat a person over objection, the person should be dangerous. Admittedly, the woman in this case is not dangerous by only a public nuisance. It is this situation that prompted many police departments to have separate Crisis Intervention Teams which contained trained people to deal with crisis situations. Also, many states have introduced mental health courts and have such mental health laws which allow Crisis Intervention Teams to decide whether to arrest a person or to send the person to mental health treatment facility. The action plan The action plan I propose will include all the recent changes as identified in various state laws and police departments. First of all, there will be the Mental Health Act which allows police officers to decide whether a person should be given mental health treatment. Secondly, there will be the inclusion of Crisis Intervention Teams in every police department. Thirdly, there will be mental health courts which possess the power to decide whether a person should be arrested or provided treatment (“Crisis intervention”). In the provided case, the woman is mentally disturbed. She is tearing at her clothing and yelling at the passerby. It is possible that she can turn violent and attack commuters at any time. Traffic has stopped and even pedestrians on sidewalks have stopped. I am a patrol officer in the area and I am the first one to attend the call. On attending the call, I reach the spot and observe the situation. As it seems that the woman is a mentally disturbed person, I am supposed to conduct the assessment of the person as I already have got training in assessing a mentally disturbed person. On verifying the fact that the person is mentally disturbed and not a criminal, my second step involves contacting the Crisis Intervention Team of the city police department. The Crisis Intervention Team contains mental health officers who are trained in negotiating and dealing with mentally disturbed people. As already seen, the presence of such officers will help control a situation as they can de-escalate the problem without the use of force. The mental health officers, with the help of other officers, will take the woman to a mental health facility for further verification of the situation. There, the degree of mental illness and the patient’s history of treatment will be assessed. If it is found that the person requires mental health treatment, an application will be filed in the mental health court for permission to send the person to a mental health facility. After alerting the Crisis Intervention Team, the next step is to deploy law enforcement personnel to smoothen traffic and to disperse the gathered onlookers. The fact is that I will not be able to deal with the mentally ill woman because I have not gained training in dealing with them. However, with the training I have got, I can identify people with mental disturbance. As the woman is evidently mentally disturbed, proper negotiation and handling may help avoid a situation of violence. If I try to handle the woman without knowledge, the woman may turn more violent. Thus, this action plan requires the coordination of various people. First of all, there will be patrol officers who are trained to assess a person to decide whether he is a criminal or a mentally disturbed person. In the latter case, the patrol officer will be alerting the Crisis Intervention team which contains trained mental health officers. The said mental health officers will handle the person and take the person to a mental health facility which is linked to the Crisis Intervention Team. On reaching the facility, the facility will conduct an immediate outpatient assessment and verification of the situation. The person’s treatment history and mental condition will be assessed and based on the assessment; a suitable decision will be taken. The person will be arrested if there is no mental illness and he will be kept in custody for court permission if treatment is required. In the latter case, the person’s relatives, if any, will be informed. Either the Crisis Intervention Team or the person’s relatives file a petition in the mental health court for orders to admit the person in a mental health facility. Taking the factors into consideration, the court decides whether the person should be given treatment. If the court decides to give treatment, the person will be sent to the mental health facility which is connected to the Crisis Intervention Team as a part of the plan. It is estimated that a considerable amount of time, money, and effort will be saved if these steps are taken. Also, the lives of many people can be saved through proper intervention in such cases of mental disturbance. References Regini, C. (2004). Crisis intervention for law enforcement negotiators. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 1-5. Retrieved from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/fbi/crisis_interven3.pdf Memphisis Police Department. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.memphispolice.org/crisis%20intervention.htm The City of Houston. (2012). Houston police crisis intervention team. The City of Houston. Retrieved from http://www.houstontx.gov/police/cit.htm “Crisis intervention for police officers”. (2010). Cops Alive.com. Retrieved from http://www.copsalive.com/crisis-intervention-for-police-officers/ Read More