Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Barbara P. DeVelasco

Abstract

AbstractThe decline in mental health services has led to an increased role of law enforcement officers (LEOs), who are often the first to respond to mental health crisis incidents. Despite the specialized training that officers receive, there continues to be a public consensus that LEOs lack proficiency when handling a mental ill individual and have a deficiency in communication skills. The purpose of the research was to explore the experience of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training for LEOs and then describe how their experience ensued once deployed to the field to handle mental health encounters. Evaluations of CIT training have produced conflicting results, pointing to the need to understand the CIT experience better and how it translates into LEOs’ work in the field. This study employed a basic qualitative design to describe how LEOs experienced CIT training and explored how officers responded to mental health calls given what they learned. Thorne’s interpretive description and the framework of procedural justice were used to guide data collection and analysis. Six LEOs were interviewed via Zoom. The resulting nine themes summarized important distinctions about mental illness, strategies for dealing with a mental health crisis, and the limitations of what could be applied in the field. Recommendations for future research include repeating the study in different geographic regions, recruiting a more diverse sample, and conducting longitudinal studies to examine how well skills and knowledge were retained. The results of this study may encourage positive social change with further CIT training so that LEOs can feel competent and that their community members can feel reassured of a fair and compassionate police presence.

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