Where Police Violence Encounters Mental Illness
According to data compiled by The Washington Post, of nearly 1,000 people shot and killed by police officers in the United States in 2015, 25 percent displayed signs of mental illness. And about 14 percent of individuals in American jails and prisons have a serious mental illness, which means that, for most officers, interacting with individuals with mental illness is an almost daily occurrence.
.. There are two simultaneous national crises — one of police violence and the other of inadequate mental health treatment — and we are making a mistake if we focus blame only on the police. They have become, by default, the way in which our society chooses to deal with people with mental illness in crisis, particularly in poor and minority communities. We need also to address the declining state of mental health services across the country.