IndexIntroductionMental Illness and PolicingMethod and Data from the Benton County-OSU CollaborationDiscussionMy PerspectiveConclusionReferencesIntroductionA growing concern among law enforcement, policymakers, and academic researchers is the disproportionate rate and incarceration of people with mental illnesses (PwMI). Although mental health-related police contacts have been variable, PwMI represent at least 16% of the U.S. jail and prison population. Law enforcement is the first to respond to any situation, including those related to mental illness. The police should protect the public by removing dangerous people from the community, but they should also provide protection to vulnerable citizens. When police respond to mental crisis calls, they typically have three options: They can make a formal arrest, they can detain the person and transport them to a mental health facility, or they can resolve the situation informally. This puts law enforcement officers in a situation where they are seen as “street corner psychiatrists,” which can put police officers in situations for which they are not fully trained. In Benton County, Oregon officers began making contact with more suspects who showed signs of mental illness. Law enforcement contacted researchers at Oregon State University, who in turn created the collaboration between OSU, the Corvallis Police Department and the Benton County Sheriff's Office. This research team was then tasked with generating new policy recommendations based on data shared by Benton County law enforcement. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Mental Illness and the Police The focus of the research based on the subset of justice-involved PwMI is on offenders who come into repeated and frequent contact with the police due to their mental illness. This subset of offenders is also known as “frequent flyers.” They are known as frequent flyers because they often cycle between prison, halfway houses, hospital emergency rooms and back on the streets. A study was conducted in Honolulu on police contacts with PwMI, 63.5% of police contacts with PwMI were individuals known by sight to the police, which shows how repetitive some of these contacts are. These types of contacts with police and people with mental illnesses are problematic for police officers. Officers are seen spending more time on scenes with these types of individuals and a large number of them have to be placed in custody and taken for mental health evaluations. Another example of repetitive police contact was a study conducted with the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPD identified 67 PwMIs involved in a total of 536 calls for service over an eight-month span in 2004. Although the frequent flyer population is relatively small, they generate high frequencies of contact with law enforcement. The high frequency of contacts with the police generates considerable costs in terms of officers' working hours. These numerous contacts with officials at such high costs make policy recommendations necessary for this problem. Method and Data from the Benton County-OSU Collaboration Benton County, Oregon, reached out to researchers at Oregon State University and discussed a collaborative investigation into the amount of contact between suspects exhibiting symptoms of mental illness and the police forceslocal. The partnership between the two began in September 2012. Benton County police officers can resolve issues with PwMI in three ways: resolve the matter informally, arrest the person if they have committed a crime, or place the person in Peace Officer. Custody (POC). Peace officer custody is a type of arrest that occurs because an individual is believed to pose a danger to themselves or others due to mental illness. After officers complete a POC, they are instructed to take the individual to the nearest hospital or mental health facility approved by the Oregon Health Authority. Police officers should not deal with the mentally ill, which is why promoting this collaboration would develop solutions to help manage this situation. Benton County and Corvallis have multiple traits that contribute to the projected population of people with mental illnesses. In Corvallis there is a regional medical center where patients with mental illnesses are treated. Persons detained in the custody of peace officers are brought to this location. The researchers began sourcing official police data and interviews with individuals in local law enforcement and mental health fields. After recovering all the data, the researchers were able to produce a final report that “recommends a mental health court, improved health information sharing, an explicit framework for future collaboration between health and criminal justice agencies competent and a specialized response in mental health". The data collected is based on two distinct sets: arrests and informally resolved incidents. Ranging from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2012, the arrest data covers all arrests made by the Benton County Sheriff's Office and the Corvallis Police Department. Arrest data collected shows 13,650 unique suspects with 22,875 arrests and 33,064 charges; across all these arrests, 914 POC charges were applied to 6971 individuals. Discussion This article has highlighted over a six-year period in Benton County, Oregon, the disproportionate contribution that frequent flyers have made to the overall amount of contact between law enforcement and PwMI. In this study we find that the time between police mental health contacts is very short. For example: Nearly half of all repeat POC arrests (an indicator of police contact with PwMI) occurred within 60 days of the initial POC arrest, and over a quarter of repeat POC arrests occurred within just 14 days of the initial POC arrest. 'initial arrest of the POC. The results also showed that the 93 individuals with multiple POCs in a year (365-day bandwidth) represented 285 POCs. Narrowing the bandwidth used to define frequent flyers, the 38 people with the most POC in a two-week period (14-day bandwidth) accounted for 140 POC arrests. Therefore, these alarming numbers give us insight into how this small subset of justice-involved PwMI has an inordinate impact on the justice system. My Perspective I personally think this collaboration was a great idea. It was one of the first steps in the right direction for the criminal justice system. The article did not mention costs or any financial entities necessary for the collaboration, so essentially this was free for both the University and the law enforcement agencies involved. Providing new policies for the situations mentioned in this document has revealed one of several major flaws in the current justice system. I noticed that universitiespeople all over the country do so much research and publish all these journals that aren't read, where they could change so many things in our system. Research on our criminal justice system tends to have a recurring theme of mental health-related issues with officers and offenders. If this collaboration was better known throughout our country, it could offer opportunities to PwMI. Of course, nothing in this world is free, so one concern would be how expensive it would be to provide systems like POC. But I personally believe that if we avoided keeping repeat offenders out of jails and prisons who have mental illnesses, it would offset the current cost of keeping them in those jails or prisons. It is important to understand that if this type of collaboration were realized nationwide, this could start a wave of transformation for the justice system. With change comes many questions, with these questions there will be problems and flaws within a new system. After reading and reviewing this journal I have begun to question many things that concern me about our criminal justice system. Some of my questions are about how the justice system works, and if it were to change, would it actually work more smoothly if it followed collaboration. In particular one of my questions was about people with mental illnesses and what happens to them if they are deemed “incurable”, would they be sent to prison or remain in a mental institution? The idea of ​​constantly sending mentally ill criminals to prison to constantly repeat the cycle over and over again just doesn't seem right to me. Again, there is no answer to this question, some may see this person as a lost cause and a waste of money at this point. But I personally think that leaving them in a mental prison at that point would be the best opportunity for them. In addition to this Journal article, earlier this semester I watched a video about a gentleman who suffers from two mental illnesses, one of them post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This gentleman served in the United States Army for many years, and to his friends and family, he was a great guy. During one of his many tours he experienced several situations that began to develop his PTSD. One day he called his relatives and showed them signs of paranoia and accumulating PTSD. One day, while at home, he had one of his manic episodes, grabbed all his guns and ran away. This gentleman even went into an alliance shop and asked someone if they wanted to die today. He led police on a chase and a two-hour standoff. One of the officers, a woman, was talking to him as he paced back and forth with his weapon. This officer recovered all of this gentleman's documents and saw his war history and it was clear to her that he was mentally ill. Keeping the situation calm, they eventually arrested the individual and admitted him to a psychiatric hospital. Now he is healthy, lives alone and even has a dog. This situation I just explained is a great example of how agents can connect with PwMI. One thing that struck me in the newspaper article was when Burkhardt talked about how the police were unfit to respond appropriately to people who are going through a mental crisis. I have never thought about such a situation, but if police officers are the ones who are supposed to make citizens feel safe and protected, how can they move forward without an education on how to deal with mentally ill people? In my opinion, it makes no sense that an agent of the forces.