As a white mental health professional, I wanted to reiterate something: The police have no role in providing crisis mental health care.

An estimated 10 percent of 911 calls are for mental health crises. Police are called on those in mental health crisis every day, not only by strangers, but also, more commonly, by their family members and loved ones, who simply need help. Around 25 percent to half of fatal police shootings involve people with mental illness, according to the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center; if you have untreated mental illness, you are 16 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement.

We must reduce encounters between those who experience mental illness and the police. I’ve been a vocal supporter of this in my role as a nurse in an inpatient psychiatric hospital and use my white and professional privilege to be loud about this. Involving the police in times of crisis is the quickest way to involve patients in a system that is more likely to kill them.

It is imperative that we support and fund non-police emergency response measures like crisis support services. Having a social worker tag along on police calls is a Band-Aid. The police should not be involved in the first place. We must decriminalize mental illness and stop police from killing the mentally ill. We need a 24/7 harm reduction-based model that responds to the unmet needs of those in crisis – needs that do not involve the police.

Don’t call the police on your loved ones. Don’t call the police on your patients.

Laura Sawyer
Portland

Copy the Story Link