Police Guide for Responding to People with Mental Illness

Problems associated with people with mental illness pose a challenge for modern policing. This book describes the problem and reviews factors that increase the challenges that police face in relation to the mentally ill. It identifies a series of questions that might help one analyse local policing problems associated with these people.

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The Problem-Specific Guides series summarise knowledge about how police can reduce the harm caused by specific crime and disorder problems. They are guides to prevention and to improving the overall response to incidents, not to investigating offences or handling specific incidents. Problems associated with people with mental illness pose a significant challenge for modern policing. This book begins by describing the problem and reviewing factors that increase the challenges that police face in relation to the mentally ill. It then identifies a series of questions that might help one analyse local policing problems associated with people with mental illness. Finally, it reviews responses to the problems and what we know about them from evaluative research and police practice. It is important to recognise that mental illness is not, in itself, a police problem. Obviously, it is a medical and social services problem. However, a number of the problems caused by or associated with people with mental illness often do become police problems. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.