Promising approaches to police–mental health partnerships to improve service utilization for at-risk youth.

Abstract

Youth involved in the juvenile justice system typically have a high prevalence of mental health disorders. Although police are frequently the first point of contact for these youth, they are often not trained to understand or address their mental health challenges. To combat this, interventions through community policing have increased police awareness of mental health and decreased arrests of these youth throughout the country. Yet there is scant research examining the effects these changes have had on access to mental health treatment for youth. This study aims to assess whether Cambridge's police-mental health collaboration increased utilization of youth mental health care. This study included 207 subjects who were either diverted (n ϭ 71) or summonsed/arrested (n ϭ 136). Their individual arrest and health care records were combined to retrospectively evaluate the rate of health care service utilization before and after initial police contact. Both groups showed similar rates of mental health diagnoses. Youth who were diverted had significantly increased outpatient mental health visits when comparing before with after diversion. This rate was also significantly higher than that of those with an initial arrest or summons. There was no difference between groups for acute inpatient visits or emergency department (ED) visits. These findings support translational efforts to partner police with community mental health providers to increase access to treatment, decrease stigma, and keep our neighborhoods safe. What is the significance of this article for the general public?Youth at risk for arrest or detention typically suffer from high rates of mental health difficulties and have poor access to needed services. The results of this study demonstrate that a model of ongoing collaboration between psychologists, community services, and community police can divert youth from arrest, increase at-risk youth access to outpatient mental health treatment, and decrease the likelihood of incarceration.

Diversion as a pathway to improving service utilization among at-risk youth.

“…The mission of SN is to foster positive youth development, promote mental health, support safe school and community environments, and limit youth involvement in the juvenile justice system through coordinated prevention, intervention, and diversion services. SN has demonstrated success in reducing juvenile arrests and recidivism as well as increasing access to behavioral health services (Barrett & Janopaul-Naylor, 2016; Barrett et al, 2019; Janopaul-Naylor et al, 2019).…”

A Meta-Analysis of Police Response Models for Handling People With Mental Illnesses: Cross-Country Evidence on the Effectiveness

“…The small numbers of the U.S. studies on these two models make it impossible to draw a concrete conclusion on their effectiveness. While the CIT is a most popular model among existing PRMHMI in the United States(Janopaul-Naylor et al, 2019; Peterson & Densley, 2018), a substantial number of police departments in the United States have indeed been operating PRMHMI other than the CIT model (Compton et al, 2017; Hacker & Horan, 2019; Peterson et al, 2019). It is not difficult to find media reports on these police departments.…”

Police, violence, and social justice: A call for research and introduction to the special issue.

“…Additionally, most police officers only see community members during difficult times, which may further reinforce negative stereotypes that they have about the people they are charged to serve. Partnerships with grassroots and community organizations that provide police officers with opportunities to understand the strengths and lived experiences within the communities they serve could begin to repair severed relationships between the police and community (Calvert et al, 2020; Janopaul-Naylor et al, 2019; Sani et al, 2022).…”