By Leslie Allen, JD
On November 20, 2014, the Public Health Law Research program released a new 50-state dataset analyzing state law governing the short-term emergency commitment process. These laws give law enforcement officers and others the right to involuntarily admit someone into a mental health care facility if they are in danger of harming themselves or others because of a mental illness.
In 47 states, police may take a person into custody without a warrant, and may initiate an emergency psychiatric hold – essentially committing them to a mental health institution without their consent. Recently, the media has increasingly examined how the police interact with the mentally ill (for example, “Police Taught to Spot Signs of Psychiatric Crisis” from FoxNews, republishing from the Associated Press, “Police Confront Rising Number of Mentally Ill Suspects” from The New YorkTimes, and see “Where the Police are Part of Mental-Health Care” from The Atlantic). Much of the police forces’ relationship with the mentally ill is established by the laws governing civil commitment.
Police officers serve as first responders for mental health crisis treatment by legislation in nearly every state. In most jurisdictions, a police officer has the authority to take a person to a hospital or facility for mental healthcare treatment when that person presents a danger to themselves or others, and 38 of the 47 states explicitly assign police officers the role of initiating the short-term emergency commitment process.
Comparatively, only seven state laws explicitly state that only relatives or guardians may initiate this process. Twenty-seven states allow physicians alone to initiate this process. And in Illinois, Michigan and Kansas, emergency short-term commitment can only be initiated by police officers.
America is not alone in its reliance on law enforcement in this capacity. Police are front-line responders to mental health crises in the U.K., Australia, and many other countries. Research suggests, however that this trend should not be accepted uncritically. According to a 2011 review by PHLR researchers Wood, Swanson, Burris and Gilbert, police officers can be very effective in this role when they are given the proper training, but without it, police officers can feel like this added role places them in an uncomfortably personal position. This research notes that people suffering from a severe mental illness and people with an intellectual disability can be subject to force from the police because they are unable to understand and appropriately respond to police commands.
The law has cemented the role of police as primary players in emergency mental health care. Right now, many people remain unaware of the integral role police force plays in delivering mental health services. The relationship between people impacted by a mental illness and the police force is more visible and ingrained in our legal system than ever before. For effective policy to emerge from this focus, accurate knowledge of the legal relationship between the two groups needs to enter the national conversation and be the subject of continued research.
Check out our map at LawAtlas.org for more details on the current state of the law.
