The potential for violence in arrests of persons with mental illness

Abstract

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to determine whether police use of force and suspect resistance are more likely to occur in arrest encounters involving suspects with mental health problems. Design/methodology/approach-The study uses data from interviews with 942 individuals recently arrested by officers in more than a dozen different police departments in Maricopa County, Arizona in 2010. Both logistic and ordinal regression analyses are used to predict two models of suspect resistance (resistance in the current arrest, resistance in a previous police contact) and three models of police use of force (any force in the current arrest, ordinal measure of force in the current arrest, and any force in a previous contact). Findings-The results provide empirical support for a link between mental illness and increased resistance against the police. With regard to arrestee mental illness and use of force, the results are mostly consistent with prior research suggesting a null relationship, with an important caveat involving greater use of higher level, weapon force. Research limitations/implications-The study suffers from the traditional limitations associated with self-report data, and the generalizability of the findings beyond arrest encounters in Maricopa County is not known. The explanatory power of the multivariate models was relatively weak, suggesting a good degree of unexplained variance. Practical implications-The non-significant relationship between arrestee mental illness and use of force is consistent with efforts by police to improve their response in these complex encounters. The significant weapon-force finding may suggest that police respond to the affronts of mentally ill suspects differently than affronts from other suspects. The non-significance of key extra-legal factors suggests that police decisions to use force were not influenced by arrestee race/ethnicity, age, or social standing. Originality/value-Unlike previous studies, the current research uses self-reported measures of mental health problems. The current study also examines arrests from more than a dozen different police departments.

After the Stop: Exploring the Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Police Use of Force During Terry Stops

“…Situational characteristics. In line with previous research (Hickman et al, 2008;Mulvey & White, 2014;Paoline & Terrill, 2004, 2007, the most robust predictors of police use of force were at the situational level. The analyses found significant positive relationships between non-weapon force and numerous features of the encounter, including suspect proximity to an offense (EXP ( Precinct-level controls.…”

Mental Illness, Police Use of Force, and Citizen Injury

“…Moreover, policing scholars have expressed particular interest in research that can adequately control for potential contributing factors (e.g., citizen resistance and drug-alcohol influence), beyond mental illness, when assessing citizen injuries (Kerr et al, 2010). Further, the limited research thus far has been unable to consistently demonstrate whether officers are more punitive and aggressive, or more empathetic, toward PMI (Mulvey & White, 2014;Novak & Engel, 2005).…”

Examining the Responses of Police when Interacting with the Mentally Ill: A study of Portland Police Bureau?s Behavioral Health Unit

“…There is also a greater risk for use of force when policing the deinstitutionalized mentally ill (Mulvey and White, 2014). Someone with an illness could see an officer as a threat in himself and react negatively, or the police might not understand that there is an illness present and react negatively themselves.…”

“…Gur (2010) stated that the first few seconds of interaction between an officer and an individual with mental illness can determine how that interaction will end, either with de-escalation, exacerbation, or violence. Additionally, Mulvey and White (2014) found that "…individuals with a current mental health problem were nearly three times more likely to resist during the current arrest" (pg. 410-411) and while they also found that officers may be more likely to be understanding of certain aggressive or disruptive behaviors, there is a limit, and if that limit is reached, the officer might exacerbate their own response to become more forceful or coercive (2014).…”