NCJ Number
119205
Date Published
1989
Length
92 pages
Annotation
The purpose of this curriculum guide is to prepare police officers to handle the mentally disabled persons they encounter in their daily duties by enhancing personal understanding of mental disabilities and treatment practices.
Abstract
Effective and safe police practices to handle mentally disabled persons are needed in light of the continued deinstitutionalization of mental patients, increased homelessness, and drug abuse. A lack of appropriate community mental health resources and supporting resources, such as housing, force other segments of society, including the police, to bear responsibility for the care of mentally disabled individuals. For police officers, this responsibility entails referring mentally disabled persons or their families to mental health and other community resources, initiating civil commitment proceedings, or arresting mentally disabled persons when they commit a serious crime. Each section of the curriculum guide is designed to meet specific training objectives and to contribute to the course's overall goal of improved police handling of mentally disabled individuals. The guide has five instructional units totaling 16 hours that focus on the nature of the problem, understanding mental disabilities, statutory requirements and implications, on-scene management in responding to calls, and dispositions after responding to calls. The guide may be used to train both recruit and veteran police officers. Appendixes contain a mental disability attitude test, a list of differences between mental retardation and mental illness, guidelines for handling frequently encountered situations, a questionnaire for assessing mental health problems, and information about schizophrenia.