Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

some receive information at roll call, and others get it

during formal annual blocks of instruction. Training

time varies from a recommended 16-hour block

devoted to mental illness.

The content of police training varies at both the

recruit and the in-service training levels. Sources of

training curricula are the agency itself, the state com-

mission on peace officers’ standards and training,

profit and nonprofit organizations, and local mental

health professionals. Police officers or mental health

professionals, or both, usually deliver the training.

One formal and well-recognized training curriculum

developed by the Police Executive Research Forum

includes seven learning modules that address police

responses to people with mental illness. Generally,

police officers learn to recognize their attitudes toward,

perceptions of, and assumptions about the mentally ill

and to dispel their misconceptions about them. Mental

illness is not a crime, and people having mental illness

live in their communities, have professional voca-

tions, and call for police services.

The police learn to recognize specific symptoms

and forms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia and

mood, anxiety, and dissociative and personality disor-

ders. They learn to employ techniques to handle them

effectively. For example, an officer encounters a men-

tally ill person whose speech is high-speed and non-

stop and uncontrollable and meaningless. This

behavior signals to the officer that the person is in a

state of high arousal and has an anxiety disorder. The

officer interrupts the person’s speech by asking a

series of questions—for example, What is your name?

How old are you? Where do you live? Where do you

work? What the officer expects is to break the per-

son’s pattern of compulsive behavior and control it to

some extent.

Not all police interactions with the mentally ill

require arrests. The police learn both custodial and

noncustodial alternatives to respond to people with

mental illness whose behaviors amount to some

infraction of the law. They learn community, problem-

oriented strategies to resolve problems related to the

mentally ill. Handling such problems, however, some-

times involves using specialized mental health

crisis teams.

Some police agencies report having specially

trained teams that respond to calls for service involv-

ing mentally ill persons in crisis. Police agencies that

employ a team approach generally adopt one of three

models: police-based response (only specially trained

police officers), police/mental health–based response

(both police officers and mental health professionals),

or mental-health-based response (only mental health

professionals). Current research suggests that most

police agencies deploy a team composed of only spe-

cially trained police. Despite variations in using par-

ticular response teams, team members are receiving

the specially needed training to respond to people

with mental illness.

Police department policies on contacts with people

with mental illness have helped departments standard-

ize the nature of their officers’ responses while giving

officers flexibility to meet the needs of people with

mental illness. Although people who have mental ill-

ness may commit a crime, be a victim of crime, or

report a crime, police responses to encounters with

them have improved with training.

Frank J. Gallo

See alsoPolice Psychologists; Police Psychology; Police

Training and Evaluation

Further Readings

Finn, M. A., & Stalans, L. J. (2002). Police handling of the

mentally ill in domestic violence situations. Criminal

Justice and Behavior, 29(3), 278–307.

Hails, J., & Borum, R. (2003). Police training and specialized

approaches to respond to people with mental illness.

Crime and Delinquency, 49(1), 52–61.

Jennings, W. G., & Hudak, E. J. (2005). Police responses to

persons with mental illness. In R. G. Dunham & G. P.

Alpert (Eds.),Critical issues in policing: Contemporary

readings (5th ed., pp. 115–128). Long Grove, IL: Waveland.

Patch, P. C., & Arrigo, B. A. (1999). Police officer attitudes

and use of discretion in situations involving the mentally

ill. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry,

22 (1), 23–35.

Police Executive Research Forum. (1997). The police

response to people with mental illness.Washington,

DC: Police Executive Research Forum.

POLICEOCCUPATIONAL

SOCIALIZATION

Police occupational socialization is the process

whereby individuals learn to be fit for performing

police work by becoming aware of organizational and

occupational practices, internalizing them, and carrying

them out as participating members of their work

572 ———Police Occupational Socialization

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