Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Access Criminology and Criminal Justice journals now

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Police Quarterly
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ruiz, J.
Right arrow Articles by Miller, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

An Exploratory Study of Pennsylvania Police Officers’ Perceptions of Dangerousness and Their Ability to Manage Persons with Mental Illness

Jim Ruiz

Chad Miller

The Pennsylvania State University–Harrisburg

U.S. police agencies have been given the obligation of responding to calls for service involving persons with mental illness. However, they have not been given the education and training necessary to manage this responsibility. Moreover, departments lack written policies and procedures for management of persons with mental illness. The lack of education, training, policies, and procedures has a tendency to cause line officers to respond improperly. Instead of approaching the call as a person with an illness, oftentimes police officers will approach as though the patient is a dangerous felon. Such perceptions have a tendency to lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy when injury or death may occur to the patient, police officers, or both. This article summarizes self-report surveys of a cross-section of Pennsylvania police departments regarding perceptions of dangerousness, injuries to police and patient, policies and procedures, and belief in their ability to manage persons with mental illness.

Key Words: police • law enforcement • mental illness

Police Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 3, 359-371 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1098611103258957
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Psychiatr. Serv.Home page
A. C. Watson and B. Angell
Applying Procedural Justice Theory to Law Enforcement's Response to Persons With Mental Illness
Psychiatr Serv, June 1, 2007; 58(6): 787 - 793.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]