Is Dangerousness a Myth? Injuries and Police Encounters with People with Mental Illnesses

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12127
• Published date: 01 May 2015
• Date: 01 May 2015

RESEARCH ARTICLE

POLICE ENCOUNTERS WITH PEOPLE

WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

Is Dangerousness a Myth? Injuries and Police

Encounters with People with Mental Illnesses

Melissa Schaefer Morabito

University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Kelly M. Socia

University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Research Summary

This study examined all “use-of-force” reports collected by the Portland Police Bureau

in Portland, Oregon, between 2008 and 2011, to determine whether their encounters

with people with mental illnesses are more likely to result in injury to officers or subjects

when force is used. Although several factors significantly predicted the likelihood of

injury to either subjects or officers, mental illness was not one of them.

Policy Implications

Police consider interactions with people with mental illnesses to be extremelydangerous

(Margarita, 1980). Our results question the accuracy of this belief. As such, this

“dangerousness” assertion may result in unnecessary stigmatization that may prevent

people with mental illnesses from accessing needed services (cf. Corrigan et al., 2005)

as witnesses or victims of crime. Policies that reduce stigma may help increase police

effectiveness. Furthermore, efforts should be made to increase the availability and

accuracy of data on this issue.

Keywords

mental health, police, use of force

Police interactions with people with mental illnesses have long been considered

among the most dangerous calls for service to which officers must respond

Direct correspondence to Melissa Schaefer Morabito, School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of

Massachusetts, Lowell, 113 Wilder Street, HSSB 4th Floor, Lowell, MA 01854 (e-mail: melissa_morabito@uml.

edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12127 C2015 American Society of Criminology 253

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 14 rIssue 2

Research Article Police Encounters with People with Mental Illness

(Margarita, 1980). Because the police have low-level, yet consistent, contact with people

with mental illnesses—approximately 6–7% of all public contacts (Cordner, 2006; Engel

and Silver, 2001; Teplin, 1984)—interactions with this population have been represented

as a major threat to police officer safety (see Ruiz and Miller, 2004; Watson, Corrigan, and

Ottati, 2004). The danger to police officers represented by people with mental illness has

largely been based on the perceptions of law enforcement officers themselves.

Yet, existing empirical evidence does not support this perception. Data collected as

part of the Uniform Crime Reports indicate that few, if any, injuries to police officers

result from encounters with people with mental illnesses (Federal Bureau of Investigation,

2009). Additionally, evidence suggests that the crimes committed by people with mental

illnesses tend not to be predominantly crimes of violence (Draine et al., 2002; Fisher et al.,

2006). Rather, people with mental illnesses are involved in criminal activity similar to those

perpetrated by their peers of the same socioeconomic status. For example, Peterson et al.

(2010) found no distinct difference between the offending patterns of those with serious

mental illnesses and their peers without diagnoses. Like other offenders, people with mental

illnesses engage in crimes involving property and drugs, crimes that also are unlikely to end

in instrumental violence (Draine et al., 2002; Fisher et al., 2006). More generally, recent

reports estimated that only approximately 4% of overall violence in the United States can

be attributed to those with mental illness (Friedman, 2014), suggesting that most people

with mental illnesses are not violent or dangerous, except perhaps to themselves (Swanson

et al., 2014).

The type of criminal activity, limited propensity for violence, and the relatively small

proportion of police contacts with this population casts doubt on the oft-repeated assertion

(Watson et al., 2004) that encounters with people with mental illness are particularly

dangerous for the police (Ruiz and Miller, 2004). Furthermore, a conflicting viewpoint

has emerged that when police and people with mental illness interact, people with mental

illnesses are much more likely to be the ones who are injured in the encounters (Cordner,

2006). However, given the limited use of force by the police generally (e.g., Durose and

Langton, 2013; Hickman, Piquero, and Garner, 2008) and the relatively small proportion

of encounters involving people with mental illnesses (Engel and Silver,2001; Teplin, 1984),

there is a potential third viewpoint: Resulting injury would be rare for all parties involved

and would be unrelated to mental illness. Thus far, researchers have only weighed in with

limited empirical findings largely resulting from a lack of available data about mental illness,

injury, and the use of force overall.

To address this limited knowledge and to understand more clearly the outcomes of

police interactions with people with mental illnesses, this study examines “use-of-force”

reports collected by the Portland, Oregon, Police Bureau, which had universal Crisis In-

tervention Team (CIT) training for the period under study. First, the literature detailing

encounters between the police and people with mental illnesses is explored. Next, we an-

alyze the population of all use-of-force incidents from 2008 to 2011, as documented by

254 Criminology & Public Policy