Ill 69address other related issues regarding the publics perception of the mentally ill and
law enforcement, how police should handle mentally ill patients, the psychological
makeup of the mentally ill lawbreaker, the cooccurring or comorbid diagnosis often
given to jailed mentally ill inmates, and public policy implications dealing with the
appropriate manner in which to effectively deal with the mentally ill.
Literature Review
Knowledge and attitudes by police officers toward the mentally ill have traditionally
been that of ignorance and misunderstanding. Further, police officers have tended
to have somewhat cynical attitudes toward this same population (Nunnally, 1961).
This is not surprising, considering the tremendous amount of stress experienced
by police officers every day. The failure of police academies and training programs
to adequately address issues related to mental health have conceivably fostered the
ignorance toward this specific population.
While many are led to believe that the mentally ill are no more dangerous, nor
cause more crime than the general population, this does not seem to be entirely
accurate. Shader, Jackson, Harmatz, and Applebaum (1977) found that 45% of
schizophrenics, in relation to only 33% of nonschizophrenics, exhibited "violent"
behaviors. These behaviors most often consisted of kicking, hitting, or shoving. The
Secret Service are forced to arrest approximately 100 people per year for causing
or attempting to cause disruptions at the White House. Gottesnian and Bertelson
(1989) found that of 328 people attempting to cause problems at the White House,
91% met the criteria for schizophrenia. It is clear from these statistics that the
mentally ill do engage in certain behaviors that are likely to bring police action.
While often officers are called upon for transportation to acute psychiatric units or
emergency rooms, other situations do arise which call for more finite and definitive
policing skills necessary to adequately handle the mentally ill.
In an article by Arcaya (1989), a psychoanalytic framework is postulated which
describes the essential psychological functioning of the mentally ill patient and
the effective means for dealing with such a person. Based on Freud's popular id,
ego, and superego models of intrapsychic functioning, the mentally ill patient is
believed by Arcaya to be suffering from a number of specific deficits. These deficits
are concerned with issues relating to confrontations and power struggles between
the id, ego, and superego and their concomitant manifested behaviors. He states
that, "in sensitizing the police officer to think of disturbed behavior in terms of
competing psychic forces rather than individual traits or characteristics (e.g., 'Crazy
people say one thing when they mean another.') psychoanalytic theory focuses the
police officer's attention on a potential root cause of the manifest disturbance"
(p. 41).
Through these means, a more effective method for dealing with the mentally ill
is describee) which consists of improving the patient's contact with reality, managing