EDITORIAL: Aid training, regionalize
Times-TribuneFeb 02, 2017
It often enters the public consciousness when violence is involved -- when a mentally ill person commits violence or when police shoot someone incapable of complying with their directions.
That's what happened in 2009 when
Mental health advocates and the Doherty administration responded with the Scranton Area Crisis Intervention Team, an effort to train police officers to deal safely in the field with people exhibiting symptoms of mental illness.
Since then, the group has trained 139 people in law enforcement, education and other fields. But now, armed with an
Local governments should leap at the opportunity. Such training can help to protect not only people suffering from mental illness, but the broader public and responding police officers.
But, as in so many matters involving effective local policing in
Many local governments likely will not participate in the free but highly valuable training because their departments consist of one or two part-time officers who work for multiple governments and can't be released for training.
The answer for more effective policing, not just for the mental health training, is regional departments. They would have full-time officers and offer far more consistent coverage and opportunities for training and increased professionalism.
Inability to make officers available for valuable training itself is a mark of institutional dysfunction that local governments and the Legislature should address through the development of more regional police departments.
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