Albuquerque Crisis Intervention Team

Overview

Jurisdiction Level

Municipal

Description

After a consortium of mental health providers communicated the need for the Police Department to improve its response to people with mental illness, the Department established a CIT team. To participate in the program, all CIT officers are required to complete a 40-hour certification course, which is similar to the course that the Memphis Police Department developed. The training includes courses on officer safety, legal issues, psychopharmacology, and also includes role-play activities. The training discusses alternatives to the use of force and minimizing injuries to officers and citizens.


Officers are carefully selected through a screening process and are given incentive pay for their CIT participation. When calls involving people with mental illness come into dispatch, they are directed to CIT officers for response. As of 2001, of 425 patrol officers, 250 have been trained and 108 were active team members.


Albuquerque has expanded upon the basic Memphis CIT model by adding a detectives’ bureau housed within the Special Investigations division. This bureau is assigned to follow up with CIT cases with a focus on prevention. There are four full-time detectives supervised by a sergeant to review CIT reports and identify people at high risk for contact with law enforcement and conduct follow-up. An example of a high-risk case would be a person who has repeated contacts with the police and has not received additional services. These detectives interact regularly with the mental health community to keep high-risk individuals from falling through the cracks. The goal is to reduce their contacts with police by connecting them with the appropriate services.


The mental health providers continue to interact with the assigned detectives to conduct follow-up with people determined to be at-risk. Outreach and education has also been conducted with mental health groups such as NAMI. Education has been provided so that family members are aware of the program and can ask for a CIT officer as needed.