Mental Health is the hot topic now

According to the Bazelon Center, the rate of arrest for individuals with mental illness is roughly 4.5 times higher than the arrest rate for those in the general population. Many are not for violent crimes but minor offenses such as loitering, sleeping in abandoned buildings or using drugs.

“The sad reality is that the police are the first-line responders to people in crisis,” says Ronald S. Honberg, director of policy and legal affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“The police are trained to be aggressive, to surround a person and to speak loudly.” That’s like putting gasoline on a fire when you are dealing with someone with a paranoid or delusional illness, he says.

Article