Chapter II: Contact with Law Enforcement
Policy Statement 6: Police Response Evaluation
Collaborate with mental health partners to reduce the
need for subsequent contacts between people with mental illness and law
enforcement.
An important goal of any police response is to ensure that people with mental illness are well served by the services that are brought to bear and that approaches being implemented have the effect of reducing contacts with the criminal justice system. The way to assess how well services are working involves doing two things: consulting with service providers to evaluate referral mechanisms and identifying individuals who continue to come into contact with the police. It is important when conducting any kind of assessment for the participants to have clearly articulated the program goals. Chapter V: Improving Collaboration and Chapter VIII: Evaluating Outcomes also address these topics.