NCJ Number
97430
Date Published
Unknown
Length
67 pages
Annotation
This study examines some of the peacekeeping aspects of policing, with special attention to the exercise of police discretion in handling mentally ill persons.
Abstract
Police officers in a large northern city were observed in their interactions with citizens for approximately 2,200 hours over a 14-month period during 1980-1981; 283 randomly selected officers were observed, and quantitative and qualitative data were recorded. Attention focuses on the basic decision rules central to three major alternatives available to police in managing mentally ill persons: hospitalization, arrest, and informal disposition. Factors influencing the choice of each of the three dispositions are discussed, and the dispositional decision is portrayed as a complex construction of reality, related only peripherally to the degree of psychiatric symptomatology manifested in the citizen. Further, based on quantified data from an observational study of 1,382 police-citizen encounters, the arrest rate of persons exhibiting signs of severe mental disorder is compared to that of apparently nonmentally ill persons. The data are found to provide some confirmation that the mentally ill are being criminalized, in that mentally disordered persons had a significantly higher arrest rate than those not mentally disordered. Recommendations for changes in police policy are provided. Finally, results of an observational study of 1,072 police-citizen encounters are presented, and the relative frequency and types of crimes committed by persons exhibiting signs of serious mental disorder are tabulated and compared with crime rates of nonmentally disordered persons. The stereotype of the mentally ill as dangerous is found to be unsubstantiated. Included are 89 references and 5 tables.