A naked man, a book, and a morning stroll across Florida Atlantic University’s Boca Raton campus.
This FAU Police Department case sounds like the beginning of a joke, but for students last April, it was a surreal reality that posed a critical question: How should communities respond when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis in public?
The answer becomes even more urgent considering that at least one in four fatal law enforcement encounters involve an individual with serious mental illness, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center.
The University Press requested a copy of the police report pertaining to the naked man incident, but FAU PD remained tight-lipped.
A representative from the public records department said the report was exempt from disclosure in accordance with Section 394.4615 of the Florida Statutes, which states that “a clinical record shall be maintained for each patient in a mental health facility.”
The UP interviewed criminal justice scholars, former police officers and policy experts, and a clear picture emerges: the current system of using law enforcement as primary responders to mental health crises is failing both the people in crisis and the officers themselves.
The scope of the problem
According to Alex Vitale, who has spent 25 years at Brooklyn College studying policing and social issues, the statistics are stark: “Between a quarter and half of all people killed by police in the United States are having mental health crises beyond fatal encounters.” He said that “between a quarter and a third of everyone in our local jails is having a mental health crisis.”
Recent data from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reinforces these concerns, as nearly two in five people who are incarcerated have a history of mental illness — 37% in state and federal prisons and 44% in local jails.
A 2023 Pew study also revealed that one in nine of all arrests between 2017 and 2019 involved a person struggling with both mental health and substance use disorders.
While these individuals may have technically broken laws, with Vitale citing minor offenses like shoplifting and disorderly conduct, “the reason they broke the law is because their underlying mental health condition is not being treated,” he said.
NAMI notes that many of these arrests are for non-violent offenses related to untreated illness symptoms, such as disorderly conduct, loitering or trespassing.
Inside the system: A corrections officer’s perspective
Michael Mitchell, a former corrections officer and police officer who now serves as an assistant professor at the College of New Jersey, witnessed these issues firsthand during his time working in Dallas County Jail’s mental health facility. He describes disturbing scenes of inadequate care and sometimes abuse from officers.
“I saw people with mental illness in the jail setting who used to eat their own feces, who cut themselves… oftentimes just to get our assistance because they needed medical treatment,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell described a particularly troubling incident during his training period that he said exemplifies this issue.
“I remember walking the floor with one senior officer… There was one prisoner who didn’t react. He didn’t move, [and] he didn’t answer to our verbal command. The senior officer simply kicked the individual very hard as if he was kicking a football or soccer ball and said, ‘Wake up, bitch.’”
The training gap: Officers ill-equipped for crisis response
The biggest issue, per Vitale and Mitchell, is the minimal training officers receive in handling mental health crises, such as how one should approach an individual acting in a disorderly manner. Mitchell explained that in his experience, “there was very little academy training on dealing with people with mental health concerns. And so going out into the streets, you’re kind of learning as you go.”
Melba Peterson is a former prosecutor and former deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida who now serves as director of prosecution projects at Florida International University.
“Police officers aren’t medical professionals… They did not get a master’s [degree] in social work. They are not nurses. They basically have a limited toolbox in how to deal with these issues,” Peterson said. “Many officers will say openly, ‘Listen, I don’t want any part of a mental health call… I don’t feel that I have the training required to be able to help effectively.”
The UP requested access to all materials and documents provided to FAUPD officers for mental health-related education or training, but public records officials denied access, stating the materials are exempt from public disclosure in accordance with Florida Statutes that protect the confidentiality of sensitive law enforcement information.
Current practices and alternative approaches
Mitchell described how current practices often criminalize mental health issues even when no arrest is made. He gave the example of law enforcement using handcuffs to restrain someone when taking them to a mental health facility, which limits their freedom like an arrest.
“Even though it’s not an arrest, you’ve still placed the person in handcuffs… you’re still restricting their mobility, even though you’re just transporting the individual to a mental health facility,” he said. “So I found that to be problematic because you’re essentially treating the individual as a criminal even though you’re not arresting them for a criminal offense.”
Peterson pointed out that responses vary significantly by jurisdiction.
“Miami Dade Police Department has a crisis intervention team that will respond to calls where someone is dealing with a mental health crisis. Other departments don’t have that… It’s a matter of trying to train officers, have those discussions in roll call and different trainings,” she said.
She said that in times of police interactions relating to mental health, armed officers are present in case of an emergency, but the mental health personnel intervene first.
Some cities are implementing alternative response models that remove or minimize police involvement in mental health calls. The most prominent example is the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) program in Eugene, Ore.
The program, which has operated for over 30 years, takes a holistic approach where 911 dispatchers filter calls to determine appropriate responses. The model pairs one medic (a nurse, paramedic or EMT) with a crisis responder trained in behavioral health.
“It’s a mobile crisis intervention program… Staffed with non-law enforcement personnel,” Mitchell said. “They instantly respond to social service type calls involving intoxicated persons, individuals with mental illness, individuals who have made suicide threats.”
CAHOOTS was created in response to troubling statistics: a journal review of The Washington Post’s officer-involved shootings database found that 25% of people killed by police showed signs of mental illness.
The experts say the results of such programs have been promising. In 2019, CAHOOTS handled 20% of all calls (24,000), with only 150 requiring police backup.
Vitale also points to Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program as another example, which was modeled after CAHOOTS.
“They have had tremendous success. They’re saving Denver millions of dollars. They’ve had fewer arrests, less violence, and some researchers came in and found that the neighborhoods that they were operating in, crime was going down… because people’s needs are being met instead of being left in a state of crisis and cycled in and out of jails and emergency rooms,” Vitale said.
The role of community
Vitale and Mitchell both mentioned that successful crisis response requires deep community involvement. Vitale described a successful model he observed in Newark, NJ.
“They have a very strong community-centered violence reduction program… They’re hiring people in the community who are well known and respected, so when confrontations occur, when people are angry at each other, they’re in a position to mediate because they’re respected and known by the people involved,” said Vitale.
He advocates for a “clubhouse model” of community mental health centers, explaining “it’s not a medical facility. It’s a safe place where someone can come and say, ‘Hey, I’m in distress.’”
The economic argument
Beyond the human cost, there are also economic arguments for reform.
“Jails are the most expensive social policy we have… We spend hundreds of dollars a night per bed to run these local jails when we could be using that money to put someone in supportive housing for much less,” he said.
A 2022 study in Science Advances, a scientific journal, found that this community response approach led to a 34% decline in low-level crime while costing significantly less than traditional police response — $151 per call compared to $646 for processing someone through the criminal justice system.
Peterson highlighted that progress is being made, but slowly.
“We have made some progress, and we have quite a long way to go to make sure that people that are struggling with mental illness are treated with equity and with empathy in this country,” she said.
The experts agree that the solution involves removing law enforcement as the primary responders to mental health crises.
“When you send someone with a gun, then the person having a crisis feels threatened… ‘this person is going to arrest me, he’s going to brutalize me, he’s going to force me to a hospital against my will,’ and that’s when they get agitated and violent,” Vitale said.
Laurie Mermet is the News Editor for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or DM laurie.mmt on Instagram.
