On any given day, the L.A. County Jail, Cook County Jail in Chicago, and Riker's Island in N.Y. hold more people with mental illness than any actual mental health institution in the U.S. The Minnesota Sheriff's Association reports that as high as 50% of prisoners in Minnesota jails are mentally ill. The truth is: our criminal justice system is overrun with mentally ill people whose "offenses" could be more appropriately dealt with as symptoms of brain disorders.
It's also true, unfortunately, that law enforcement officers have become the front line in our mental health system - often with great stress and potential danger to themselves, or to the person in mental health crisis.
Our mission is to help alleviate the problem by providing law enforcement personnel with information and training in how to safely and compassionately handle a person in a mental health crisis.
Our training is based on the nationally recognized Memphis Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model, which promotes the use of verbal de-escalation skills before using force when confronting a mental health crisis. CIT training has been proven to dramatically decrease the risk of injuries or death to both officers and consumers of mental health services, while also reducing the number of repeat calls.