It is important to recognize at the outset that mental illness is not, in and of itself, a police problem. Obviously, it is a medical and social services problem.The traditional police response to people with mental illness has often been ineffective, and sometimes tragic.
► Police officers frequently encounter people with mental illness—approximately 5 percent of U.S. residents have a serious mental illness,§ and 10 to 15 percent of jailed people have severe mental illness. An estimated 7 percent of police contacts in jurisdictions with 100,000 or more people involve the mentally ill
►The picture above: (A framegrab from video that shows in-car Toronto Police Service video of the February 3, 2010 fatal shooting of Michael Eligon by Toronto Police Service. Eligon allegedly had scissors in his hands and was apparently suffering from mental illness.)
Read more about the story pictured above
Sources:
http://www.popcenter.org/problems/mental_illness/
http://www.popcenter.org/problems/pdfs/MentalIllness.pdf
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