‘The government is the cause of the disease and we are stuck with the symptoms’: deinstitutionalisation, mental health advocacy and police shootings in 1990s Victoria

Operational response: Policing persons with mental illness in Australia

“…It was one of the largest retraining programmes in the history of Australian policing, and although it was only offered for a short period, it addressed the combative police training culture identified within policing (Saligari & Evans, 2016). The programme was underpinned by notions of force reduction and de-escalation of citizens (including PWMI) using communication tactics rather than proportionate force (Gooding, 2017; Kesic et al, 2010). In the short term, Operation Beacon proved hugely successful in enhancing community-oriented policing and reducing police fatal shootings of PWMI and other citizens (Saligari & Evans, 2016).…”

“…It has also increased the need for police response (Kruger, 2020). Yet research suggests that police operational practices used to address the complex needs of PWMI during police–citizen engagement are incompatible and unsuitable (Gooding, 2017). Whilst Australian police officers are legally obliged to respond to mental health-related calls, they often respond to these calls unassisted by appropriate service providers, such as paramedics, social workers and other health care providers (Senate Select Committee on Mental Health, 2006).…”

“…Yet there is a lack of consensus amongst police organisations and mental health clinicians regarding appropriate communication tactics for interacting with PWMI whose behaviour and language are often erratic and who may be intoxicated or experiencing psychosis (Bradbury et al, 2017). It is also argued that across Australia, a third of fatal police shootings may involve PWMI in crisis (Gooding, 2017), and whilst police shootings in Australia are rare, they indicate that responding to people in crisis is challenging for police.…”

Police Responses to Persons with Mental Illness: The Policy and Procedures Manual of One Australian Police Agency and ‘Procedural Justice Policy’

“…The shortcomings in community mental health services can be explained by the introduction of neoliberal forms of governance in Australia and in most wealthy Anglophone democracies during the 1980s and 1990s which were followed by welfare retrenchments and austerity (Gooding 2016;Morgan and Paterson 2017;Paterson and Pollock 2016). The process of deinstitutionalisation is, therefore, argued to have over-burdened the police acting as first-responders to PWMI suffering crises in the community as mental health legislation across Australia granted new powers for police to fill the vacuum of services left in the wake of deinstitutionalisation (Carroll 2005;Gooding 2017;Herrington and Clifford 2012;Kruger 2020). As a result, PWMI in Australia have experienced a paradox of the intended purposes of deinstitutionalisation, through being transinstitutionalised into a variety of custodial environments such as police custody, prisons, and psychiatric hospitals via police acting as gatekeepers to these institutions (Drake 2014;Hudson 1991;Morgan and Paterson 2017;Ogloff et al 2007;Wiesel and Bigby 2015).…”

“…In Australia, limited police mental health response training and resources continue to hinder police judgements when police manage PWMI (Brennan et al 2016;Clifford 2010;Fry et al 2002;Gooding 2017). The lack of mental health response training is particularly problematic when police respond to the idiosyncrasies of a mental health crisis.…”