A Better Way To Police Mental Illness

Friday, May 12, 2006

We are pleased to hear of the success of the Jail Diversion pilot program whereby clinical social workers accompany Framingham police officers on calls involving people with mental illnesses (Editorial: "Help police deal with the mentally ill," May 4).

We hope other communities embrace this initiative and recognize the value of training law enforcement personnel in techniques that allow for successful interventions with people who have both mental illness and other intellectual disabilities, including mental retardation and autism.

Currently, a bill filed by Senator Cynthia Creem (Newton) would begin the process of ensuring that all law enforcement personnel throughout the state receive appropriate training.

The fact that limited training has been occurring in various jurisdictions, lends support to the idea that the state needs to do more to provide law enforcement officers with the tools to appropriately respond to incidences involving individuals with mental illness and intellectual disabilities.

In addition to the enhanced protection of the officer, such training would necessarily result in increased safety for troubled individuals who, finding themselves confronted by a police officer, may react to the situation far differently than a person without a disability.

In studies of police departments in U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000, approximately seven percent of all police contacts -- both investigations and complaints, involve a person believed to have a mental disability.

In light of these telling statistics, and in light of recent tragic cases in Massachusetts involving serious injury and death, we believe it is time to pass this legislation. It is unfair to ask our police officers to accomplish their mission of protecting the people if we do not properly train them, and it is often terrifying for individuals with a mental illness or intellectual disability when confronted by police who are forced by circumstance to intervene in their lives.

Training programs have been adopted in many other states, and we believe it is time for Massachusetts to join the cities and towns that have already adopted this progressive approach to law enforcement. Cities or counties in at least 16 other states have instituted some type of Crisis Intervention Training program. Georgia recently graduated a class of 3,000 crisis intervention officers, many of which are trained to train additional officers.