Assessing the Impact of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training and Local Mental Health Resource Availability on Officer Perceptions of Efficacy in Responding to the Mentally Ill
Abstract
Police officers are often the first responders to emergency mental health and crisis
situations, with almost one-third of all mental health referrals stemming from law
enforcement interaction. As a result of deinstitutionalization, a large number of mentally
ill individuals have become involved in the criminal justice system and brought to police
attention, resulting in unnecessary arrests and an overrepresentation of individuals with
mental illness in jail populations. Recent decarceration trends have now placed the focus
on diverting individuals with mental illness into treatment. However, officers often lack
the proper skills, training, and knowledge of how to interact with individuals with mental
illness.
Due to this discrepancy in training and roles, the Memphis Police Department
developed Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training. This current study comprised of law
enforcement officers from six law enforcement agencies in central and northern Florida
(N=64) examined the impact CIT training and availability of local mental health
resources have on law enforcement officer perceptions of effectiveness in responding to
the mentally ill. The study’s goals included (a) examining group differences between CIT
and non-CIT trained officers with respect to level of comfort in responding to mental
health calls, level of preparedness, and attitudes toward treatment of mental illness; (b) exploring the impact of perceived agency importance of CIT and mental health training
on officer perceptions of the benefits of mental health training; and (c) exploring the role
of a local emergency evaluation facility and local community resource availability on
officer perceptions regarding the benefits of mental health treatment. Descriptive
statistics, preliminary analyses between covariates and primary outcomes, group
differences between CIT trained officers and non-CIT trained officers on primary study
outcomes using Mann-Whitney analyses, and multiple linear regressions examining
potential predictor variables for officer comfort and officer preparedness were utilized.
Overall, this study found officers who were CIT trained were better prepared to respond
to the mentally ill. However, no significant differences were found between CIT trained
officers and non-CIT trained offiers on level of comfort or attitudes toward mental health
treatment. In addition, officers with positive perceptions of community resources had
significantly more positive perceptions regarding the benefits of mental health treatment
than those with negative perceptions of community resources. Exploratory analyses
utilizing linear multiple regression also found that officer preparedness significantly
predicted officer comfort in responding to mental health calls for service. Contributions
and limitations of these findings, as well as future research directions, are discussed.