Road Runners: The Role and Impact of Law Enforcement in Transporting Individuals with Severe Mental Illness, A National Survey

By The Treatment Advocacy Center

Approximately 8.3 million Americans have a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, severe bipolar disorder or major depression with psychotic features.1 Almost half of these people are untreated on any given day.2 Without proper treatment, people with severe mental illness are at risk of experiencing negative outcomes that seriously impact them and the people around them. Faced with limited community treatment options and a dire shortage of psychiatric inpatient beds, those in need of mental health treatment may not receive it until a crisis occurs and law enforcement intervenes. Approximately one-third of individuals with severe mental illness have their first contact with mental health treatment through a law enforcement encounter.3 Law enforcement officers are thus often on the front lines of psychiatric care, charged with responding to, handling and even preventing mental illness crisis situations. The predictable results have been criminalization of severe mental illness and extreme overrepresentation of people with mental illness in jails and prisons.4 Research indicates that persons with serious mental illness are most often arrested for misdemeanor crimes.5 They are also four times more likely to be incarcerated for low-level charges than individuals without psychiatric disease.6 People with mental illness are more likely to be arrested if they live in communities with limited treatment options.7 Officers sometimes even resort to “mercy bookings” (using low-level misdemeanor charges) to get individuals in psychiatric crisis off the street and into treatment.8 Studies have found that in some parts of the country psychiatric treatment is more accessible in jail than in the community.9 Police officers and sheriffs’ deputies with little or no medical or mental health training are now regularly required to recognize conduct as symptomatic of psychiatric illness while in the midst of a chaotic encounter and to strike a balance between upholding public safety and serving the needs of the person in crisis.,,,  

Arlington, VA: Treatment Advocacy Center, 2019. 41p.