Changing Times

Officers are often the first people on scene when someone is in the middle of a mental health emergency, including people living with serious mental illness. The authors acknowledge real progress, but they note that criminal justice responses within behavioral health care still fall short in access, availability of services, continuity of care, coordination among agencies, and responsiveness.

Training initiatives such as Crisis Intervention Specialist Training, CIT, and Mental Health First Aid have been favorably received and have shifted officers' attitudes and conduct. The book argues for redirecting people in a behavioral health crisis out of jails and toward treatment, and for moving police involvement in these cases away from the criminal justice process and into care.

Drawing on both research and firsthand field experience, the authors examine law enforcement's traditions and the other pressures that shape officers' beliefs, group culture, and actions, and they describe how change can be brought about. They stress that the harder work is systemic: transforming institutional culture while attitudes and behaviors change alongside it. The book is intended as a practical reference for people committed to expanding diversion efforts.