Examining police interactions with the mentally ill in the United States

Abstract

Mental illness has already become a complication and controversial topic within the criminal justice system in the eyes of medical and psychological professionals and the public-at-large. People with such a medical condition cannot function normally and routinely make irrational decisions in many situations. According to the American Psychiatric Association, in a single year nearly 1 in 5 (or 19%) of U.S. adults experience some form of mental illness. The Statistics Help Officer Training (SHOT) project is an ongoing officer-involved shooting database at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury in Connecticut. According to the SHOT data, it is revealed that at least 1 in every 4 (or 25%) of all police shootings in the United States involve an individual who exhibited symptoms of mental illness. As such, it should be obvious that police officers should be better trained to deal with the mentally ill in order to better identify relevant and underlying mental health conditions, direct those individuals to proper resources for treatment, and to avoid the use of force by police personnel.