Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration

CMHS Consumer Affairs E-News
February 9, 2004, Vol. 04-13

Criminal Justice and Stigma/Discrimination Teleconference

You are invited to participate in a free "virtual" training session, via the Internet and the telephone, on methods to examine the impact of stigma/discrimination on criminal justice systems to improve the handling and outcomes of crisis situations. This teleconference consists of an audio presentation (followed by an interactive question-and-answer session) accessible by a toll-free number, and a slide presentation in PowerPoint that you can access prior to the call.

Date: Thursday, February 26, 2004
Time: 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)

To register for this teleconference, please reply via e-mail to info@adscenter.org, stating that you want to participate; and please feel free to pass this invitation on to others who might be interested. For more information, please call Jennifer Melinn at 800-688-4226, ext. 289.

The training will be provided by Sgt. Karl McDade and Dr. Risdon Slate:

• Sgt. McDade was the original coordinator of the Portland, Ore., Police Department Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), which was modeled on the CIT developed by the Memphis, Tenn., Police Department. He has trained officers around the West Coast in how to avoid injuries to themselves and civilians during crises involving people who have mental illnesses. Sgt. McDade has 33 years of law enforcement experience in all phases of police work, from undercover narcotics to managing a ,000,000+ police charity. He is currently a patrol sergeant and routinely utilizes the techniques he will discuss.
  
  
• Dr. Slate is Professor of Criminology and Chair of the Department of Sociology & Criminology at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Fla. He has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, regarding the impact of persons with mental illnesses on the criminal justice system. He has served as a consultant and published extensively on matters concerning the mental health and criminal justice systems; and he continues to train law enforcement and detention officers on how to deal with persons with mental illnesses in crisis.

It is estimated that one of every 10 police calls involves a person with a mental disorder http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/shot252.shtml. Unfortunately, when police encounter people who have mental disorders:

Police may misunderstand an individual's inability to follow police orders because he or she is distracted by his/her symptoms (such as auditory hallucinations); and the police may believe that, instead, the individual poses an imminent threat. Such incidents may result in preventable tragedy.

Such tragedies include a percentage that result from a suicidal person's intentionally provoking an officer to shoot him. According to a study published in Annals of Emergency Medicine (December 1998), "suicide by cop accounted for 11 percent of all officer-involved shootings and 13 percent of all officer-involved justifiable homicides."

When police receive education in mental health issues, often in conjunction with adopting a different way to handle calls involving people with mental illnesses, tragedies may be avoided.

Participants in the call will learn:

• How the discrimination and stigma associated with mental illnesses are based on stereotypes (such as the stereotype that people with psychiatric disabilities are violent);
• How the stereotypes differ from the realities;
• The four most common behaviors exhibited by persons in a mental health crisis, and how to respond to them;
• The four most common behaviors exhibited by persons in a mental health crisis, and how to respond to them;
• Concrete ways to de-escalate encounters with people who have mental illnesses.

The presentations will take place during the first hour, to be followed by a 30-minute period of discussion between the participants and the presenters.

This session is sponsored by the Resource Center to Address Discrimination and Stigma (ADS Center), a project of the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The session is free to participants.

All participants will receive confirmation by e-mail after responding to this invitation. Before the call, participants will receive an online link to presentation materials and log-in instructions for the call.

Please let the ADS Center know if you will be calling from outside the Continental United States, as we will need to make special arrangements for your participation.

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The Center for Mental Health Services is a component of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, United States Department of Health and Human Services.