The Psychology Of Crisis Intervention For Law Enforcement Officers

This training was intended to demonstrate innovative methods of crime prevention and preventive mental health. Processing family disturbances constitutes a major aspect of police work. Traditional police approaches to the problem do not reflect the realities of this police experience. There is evidence that a significant proportion of injuries and fatalities suffered by police occur in the highly volatile family conflict situation. The present project attempted to modify family assaults and family homicides and to reduce personal danger to police officers in such situations. The project attempted the development of a new preventive mental health strategy. Assuming that family conflict may be an early sign of emotional disorder in one or all of the participants, the project attempted to utilize policemen as front-line casefinders in keeping with theories of primary prevention. It was proposed that selected policemen could be provided with interpersonal skills necessary to effect constructive outcomes in deteriorating situations which require police intervention. Rejection of an exclusively specialized role for the police officers involved was a major emphasis. The program avoided the conversion of policemen into social workers or psychotherapists. The officers were expected to perform all generalized police patrol functions but were the individuals dispatched on all family disputes in a given geographical area. In addition to continuous group experience, each family specialist was assigned an individual consultant for at least one hour weekly consultation. The individual consultants were advanced clinical psychology students who acquired in this way an unusual community consultation experience. The reciprocal effect of these encounters on the students and upon the policemen is self-evident.

The purpose of this book is to provide theoretical, analytical, and practical knowledge for first responders. Face-to-face interaction with the client/victim is part of the comprehensive approach advocated by this book, which requires interveners to assess the nature of a crisis and the condition of the victim in order to determine the appropriate course of action. Effective communication skills, along with adequate training and preparation for intervention, are the keys to quality interaction between the intervener and the client/victim. Each chapter in this book offers a substantially updated theoretical overview of a particular facet of intervention, as well as models and methods for applying crisis theory to crisis situations faced by interveners. The comprehensive balance of theory and practice presented should enable the intervener in coupling the general knowledge of human psychology and emotional crisis with the specific and novel characteristics of various crisis situations. This new third edition retains important information in a revised format while adding important and timely cognition. Written for pre-service and in-service criminal justice and social service crisis interveners, it will also be of interest to emergency medical personnel, clergy, proba-tion/parole officers, victim advocates, psychological personnel, and professionals from other criminal justice, and social service areas.

This volume is the logical follow-up to the military treatment handbook: Living and Surviving in Harm’s Way. Sharon Freeman Clevenger, Laurence Miller, Bret Moore, and Arthur Freeman return with this dynamic handbook ideal for law enforcement agencies interested in the psychological health of their officers. Contributors include law enforcement officers with diverse experiences, making this handbook accessible to readers from law enforcement backgrounds. This authoritative, comprehensive, and critical volume on the psychological aspects of police work is a must for anyone affiliated with law enforcement.

This book is written for law enforcement officers in the enhancement of strategies, communication techniques, and crisis intervention preparation when assessing the behavior of those persons considered mentally ill. The public and its institutions continue to demand that law enforcement intervene with persons considered mentally ill by the mental profession. However, the laws enacted are unable to address the deeper philosophic and political controversies within the mental health profession regarding the reality of mental illness, its diagnosis, or its treatment. Officers are in need of a sense of appropriateness when assessing the behavior of someone deemed to be in a mental health crisis; and the sense of appropriateness needs to be grounded in a philosophic outlook that both makes sense and fits today's pluralistic outlook on life and the Nation's premise of the preciousness of civil liberty. This book is written to address these issues. The book is divided into three parts: (1) clinical issues; (2) mental health from a nonclinical perspective; and (3) the national experience in legal terms. Part 1 presents the chapters dealing with assessment and intervention, including strategies, communication techniques, the ideas for overcoming institutional barriers to effective police intervention. Part 2 presents issues of mental health from a nonlegal perspective, and part 3 details the national experience in mental health in legal terms. Each chapter gives an introductory rationale about its usefulness to police.

The Ghostbusters refrain "Who you gonna call?" typically connotes a lighthearted response to an unusual problem, but in the context of a human being suffering a mental health crisis, the refrain is anything but lighthearted. In an ideal world, "who you gonna call" would be a trained mental health professional. In the real world, the cry for help is usually received by the police. Police respond because there is no one else to assist. Police officers rank mental health crisis situations as far more stressful than crimes in progress. A person, suffering from mental illness is, by definition, not fully rational. Although they are likewise not fully irrational, behavior is unpredictable, and unpredictable behavior for the police is potentially dangerous behavior. As a consequence, outcomes of engagement between law enforcement and mental health consumers are too often tragic. No organization is more concerned about inadequate response than the police themselves. Improving Police Response to Mental Illness provides best practices guidance. A national pool of experts provide both insight and recommendations, ranging from the conceptual, Atypical Situations-Atypical Responses, to the pragmatic, Law Enforcement Training Models. Written specifically for the book, each chapter addresses a given critical component, including social policy, police response alternatives, training, legal constraints, and cooperative agreements with mental health service providers. This is an indispensable volume on the subject of police and mental health and is designed for police practitioners, mental health professionals, and scholars of social policy.

Collaborations between the law enforcement and mental health communities have become vital as law enforcement officers are often first-line responders in crisis situations involving individuals with mental illnesses. A nationally recognised example of a pre-booking jail diversion program, the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model, was developed in 1988 following a fatal police shooting of a person with a history of a mental illness. The model is a close collaboration among law enforcement, the mental health system, and advocates. CIT programs provide specialised training for police officers to assist them in safely and effectively responding to individuals with mental illnesses and obtaining appropriate services that will adequately address these individuals' needs in lieu of incarceration when appropriate. This book examines the CIT model and the reasons why it is a unique and important collaboration between law enforcement and mental health.