Utilizing Crisis Intervention Teams in Prison to Improve Officer Knowledge, Stigmatizing Attitudes, and Perception of Response Options

Abstract

People with mental illness (MI) are overrepresented in prisons, in part, because people with MI stay in prison longer. Correctional officers (COs) use discretion in force, violations, and segregation. Crisis intervention teams (CITs) are being used in corrections to reduce disparities in sanctioning and improve safety. This quasi-experimental, mixed-methods study includes 235 CIT COs who were surveyed before and after training on knowledge of MI, stigmatizing attitudes, and perception of response options. Non-CIT ( n = 599) officers completed the same survey. Randomly selected CIT COs completed interviews 6 to 9 months following training ( n = 17). CIT COs had significantly lower stigmatizing attitudes, more mental health knowledge, and better perceptions of options following CIT training compared with non-CIT COs. This preliminary work on CIT use in prison is promising; additional work is needed to determine whether these changes result in behavior change among COs and improvements in outcomes for people with MI.

The Use of the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Model for Corrections Officers: Reducing Incidents within a County Jail

“…To date, this is the first study to assess the use and impacts of CIT in a jail setting. And similar to the recent evaluation study of CIT training in prison (Canada et al, 2020), there were similar positive outcomes. Additionally, prior research on use and impact of CIT with law enforcement officers showed consistent improvements in officers’ knowledge and attitudes about mental health (Bonfine et al, 2014; Compton et al, 2008; Kubiak et al, 2017; Watson et al, 2017).…”

“…However, there is evidence suggesting that CIT-trained officers are more likely to transport individuals with SMI to crisis drop-off centers and community mental health services than their non-CIT trained counterparts (Kubiak et al, 2017;Taheri, 2016). Despite advocates for CIT expressing the need for specialized CIT trainings for correctional settings (Kerle, 2016), no studies were found that investigated the efficacy of training COs in jails (For a recent student on CIT training for COs in prisons: Canada et al, 2020). Therefore, this study asked: Does the CIT model have an impact in a county jail setting?…”

Mental illness‐related stigma among probation officers

“…First, this sample is from officers who self‐selected into taking the training and participating in research, and may not be representative of all officers across the state, or other states. Moreover, though previous research in the state has found that stigma was not associated with any socio‐demographic factors (Canada et al., 2020), since we did not collect these data, we cannot say with certainty that our findings were not influenced by these factors or that the sample is a representative sample. Second, though our model accounted for 79% of the variance in post‐test stigma, it is possible the regression models are missing key predictors of stigmatising attitudes that we did not collect in our data.…”

“…Further, these factors were not significantly associated with stigma in previous research with correctional officers (Canada et al, 2020). As a guide, most officers across the state are women (65%) and White (79%), with more than half of officers over the age of 50 (28%) or between 40 and 49 (32%).…”

“…When looking to related criminal‐legal professionals, extensive research documents stigma reduction among police officers following crisis intervention team (CIT) training, a 40‐h dynamic training involving education, skills training and exposure to people with mental illnesses who are not in crisis (see Compton et al., 2006; Strassle, 2019), and emergent evidence that CIT can also reduce stigmatising among corrections officers working in prisons (Canada et al, 2020). Probation work is different because it is generally less crisis oriented and there is some evidence that stigma levels vary among criminal–legal professions by organisational factors like working in a participatory workplace (Dir et al., 2019) and individual‐level characteristics like proximity to people with mental illnesses and prior training (Watson et al., 2008).…”