title: Understanding how police officers think about mental/emotional disturbance calls.
abstract: Police officers frequently respond to calls involving persons with mental illnesses and in doing so, they are key gatekeepers of access to mental health treatment as well as entry into the criminal justice system. Programs such as Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) are being implemented across the United States and elsewhere to train officers to respond more effectively and facilitate access to mental health services when appropriate. These programs would benefit from a thorough understanding of these encounters from the perspective of police officers. We take as a premise that officers develop frames of reference or "schema" for understanding and responding to these encounters that are shaped by socialization, training, and their experience as police officers. In this study, we examine police officer schema of mental/emotional disturbance (M/EDP) calls. Qualitative interviews provided the foundation to develop the Needs on the Street Interview (NOSI) to tap officer schema of four types of M/EDP scenarios. The NOSI was administered to 147 officers in Chicago and Philadelphia. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was conducted separately for each scenario to examine groups of officers with different schema as well as predictors of schema group. For three of the four scenarios, officers were classified into a two category or schema model, for the fourth (crime reported) a three category model was supported. Schema groups tended to be differentiated by ratings of level of resistance/threat and substance use. Contrary to our expectations, CIT and law enforcement experience did not predict officer schema group. While the CIT model emphasizes de-escalation skills to reduce resistance and the need for officers to use force, CIT and other training programs may want to consider increasing content related to factors such as co-occurring substance use and managing resistance.
authors.affiliation: Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1040 W. Harrison, Chicago, IL 60607, USA. Electronic address: acwatson@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Amy C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Watson
authors.affiliation: Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1040 W. Harrison, Chicago, IL 60607, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Swartz
authors.affiliation: School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania, 3701 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. Electronic address: caseybohrman@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Casey
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bohrman
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Montgomery Ross Fisher Building, 669 West 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. Electronic address: liat.kriegel@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Liat S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Kriegel
authors.affiliation: Temple University School of Social Work, Ritter Hall Annex, 5th Floor, 1301 Cecil B. Moore Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. Electronic address: jeffdraine@temple.edu.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Draine
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D003419:Crisis Intervention; D003617:Dangerous Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D035846:Law Enforcement; D008297:Male; D028642:Persons with Psychiatric Disorders; D008875:Middle Aged; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration; D016495:Police
keywords: Crisis Intervention Teams; Mental illness; Police; Schema