By Jacqueline Koch
Chattanooga Times Free Press
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — This area’s new crisis intervention team marks a significant change in perception among law enforcement personnel and community members about mentally ill people, Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond said.
Now such people are called mental health consumers -- not patients, not clients, not mentally ill people. They’re treated differently than people encountered during normal calls for service, and they’re offered assistance instead of just being thrown in jail during a crisis, he said.
“In the past, we had to deal with the mental health consumer the way we’d deal with any call-out on the street,” Sheriff Hammond said. “This program is all about training a set of officers to respond in a different way to these calls to try to de-escalate what’s going on out there.”
The joint effort between the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office and Chattanooga Police Department will put on the street officers specially trained to calm situations with mentally ill people. The first set of officers -- 12 from the city and six from the county -- will graduate Friday after a week of classes and be able to respond to any crisis situation when asked by a patrol officer, the sheriff said.
Police Chief Freeman Cooper said officers respond daily to calls dealing with mental health issues, facing people who may not be criminals but who have outbursts or crises. The training will allow officers to use their time better to assess a situation, deal with families and get help for a person, he said.
“It’s just a way of us promoting good relationships with our communities here and trying to deal more appropriately with some of the mentally ill and not just criminals out there,” Chief Cooper said.
The program also is expected to reduce the Hamilton County Jail population by decreasing the number of inmates with mental health problems, and lower officer and inmate injuries, officials said.
The first crisis intervention team originated in Memphis in 1988. Law enforcement officials said they since have seen the power of unity that it created among law enforcement personnel, community leaders, mental health advocates and mental health facilities.
In Memphis, law officers, advocates and facilities banded together to protest the closing of the Memphis Mental Health Institute, said retired Maj. Sam Cochran, one of the founders of the Memphis crisis intervention team and a former police officer there. Legislators at the time never had seen that type of unity before, and the hospital now is open, he said.
To keep the crisis intervention team working at its optimum, the collaboration among law enforcement, mental health advocates, community leaders and mental health facilities “needs to be ongoing,” Maj. Cochran said.
The crisis team “also becomes a community voice,” he said. “It becomes a platform on which the community can ensure the people of the community: ‘We are looking out for the people here in Hamilton County and Chattanooga.’”
Both Chattanooga and Hamilton County plan to train more officers for the crisis intervention team. Maj. Cochran said it took Memphis about three years to reach satisfactory staffing levels for the team.
G.A. Bennett, director of support services for the sheriff’s office here, said police agencies aim for 20 percent to 25 percent of the force to receive the training.
Copyright 2009 Chattanooga Times Free Press