Annotated Bibliographies

Borum, R., Deane, M.W., Steadman, H.J., & Morrissey, J. (1998). Police perspectives on responding to mentally ill people in crisis: Perceptions of program effectiveness. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 16, 393-405.

In this study, police officers from three law enforcement agencies were surveyed to determine the officer’s perspectives on the effectiveness of their department’s system of response to mentally ill people in crisis. Each of the three departments had diff erent response systems in place. One department relies on field assistance from a mobile mental health crisis team, a second has a team of officers specially trained in crisis intervention and management of mentally ill people in crisis, and a third has a team of in-house social workers to assist in responding to calls. The officers with the specially trained team perceive their program as being highly effective in meeting the needs of mentally ill people, keeping them out of jail, minimizing the amount o f time officers spend on the calls, and maintaining community safety. The three programs of response were classified into three main models. The researchers also conducted a more detailed case-study evaluation to investigate the operations and function of the programs, although those results are not included in this article.