Police improve mental health interactions
Daily Hampshire GazetteMar 03, 2018
For the Gazette
Mental health issues have become a common focus in the law enforcement community in recent years, Police Chief
“Recognizing mental health components early on, and recognizing different options in approaching any given situation, is really important,” Kasper said.
In order to join the One Mind Campaign, the department had to establish a partnership with a local mental health organization and implement a model policy for officers’ interactions with people with mental illness. The department also had to ensure that each of its 65 full-time officers received a basic level of training in mental health first aid and that at least 20 percent of its officers received extensive training in crisis intervention.
The department works most closely with
Spear began working with
“I help educate our program participants about why police need to do what they need to do … and I help educate police officers about how to approach individuals with mental health challenges,” Spear said.
“We really have been on the front lines of this issue for years,” Kasper said, adding that over half of the department’s officers have undergone a 40-hour crisis intervention training program.
According to Spear, the biggest misconception about people affected by mental illness is that they’re dangerous. He said that people with a history of mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it, and that people going through mental health crises are often driven more by fear than aggression.
Spear organizes listening sessions where he invites local police officers to sit down with
In the time since Kasper joined the
“Historically, if we got a call about somebody laying in the road blocking a bus, we’d probably just arrest them,” Kasper said. “Now, we’d take a step back and say ‘wait a minute, what’s going on here?’ We look at these situations through a different lens and consider different policy alternatives.”
She said that de-escalation is key and that criminal justice intervention is not always the best way to bring about long-term positive outcomes to situations involving mentally ill people.
Another important element of Northampton’s approach is partnering with local mental health professionals. Officer
In an email sent to the Gazette Wednesday,
“The more we communicate and the more we understand each other’s challenge, the better,” Bishop said.
While Spear said building relationships between police and the mental health community is an ongoing process, he feels “fortunate to have such a responsive police force here in