“The Response Hasn’t Been a Human-to-Human Response, but a System-to-Human Response”: Health Care Perspectives of Police Responses to Persons with Mental Illness in Crisis

Abstract

Persons with mental illness (PWMI) and other marginalised groups in society are especially receptive to procedurally fair treatment by police, especially given its potential to therapeutically de-escalate a mental health crisis. Yet PWMI often report feeling criminalised and dehumanised during police encounters whilst suffering mental health crises. Since health care workers are often present when police respond to PWMI in crisis, their perceptions regarding how police should (and do) respond to PWMI provides important knowledge for procedural justice scholarship. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews with health care workers, this research applies a procedural justice lens to explore the ways in which police interact with PWMI in crisis. The findings from the study argue that whilst police often interact with PWMI using procedurally just techniques, several challenges and limitations often hinder the procedurally just treatment of PWMI by police. This paper argues that the police need to further solidify formal and informal collaborative working relationships with health care workers to harness just and appropriate responses to PWMI in crisis.