Law Enforcement Response to “Frequent Fliers”

• Author: Brett C. Burkhardt,Charles Lanfear,Scott Akins
• DOI: 10.1177/0887403414559268
• Published date: 01 February 2016
• Date: 01 February 2016
• Subject Matter: Articles

Criminal Justice Policy Review

2016, Vol. 27(1) 97 –114

© 2014 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0887403414559268

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Article

Law Enforcement Response

to “Frequent Fliers”: An

Examination of High-

Frequency Contacts Between

Police and Justice-Involved

Persons With Mental Illness

Scott Akins1, Brett C. Burkhardt1, and Charles Lanfear2

Abstract

This article examines a subset of justice-involved persons with mental illness who

have repeated contacts with law enforcement officers. Previous work has alluded

to this sub-population—often termed “frequent fliers”—but little research has

empirically examined its size and nature. This study proposes a method of identifying

frequent fliers that is based on the amount of time elapsed between multiple mental-

health-related contacts with police. Using more or less stringent thresholds, the

analysis defines several groups of frequent fliers, including rapid cyclers, those having

very frequent contacts with police. In considering policy responses to the problem

of justice-involved persons with mental illness, addressing the needs of the frequent

flier population proves to be a way of targeting limited resources for the most impact.

Keywords

criminal justice policy, habitual offenders, research and policy, treatment, police

decision making

The disproportionate rate of arrest and incarceration of people with mental illnesses

(PwMI) is an issue of growing concern of police, policymakers, and academic

researchers throughout the United States (Reuland, Schwarzefeld, & Draper, 2009;

1Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA

2University of Washington, Seattle, USA

Corresponding Author:

Scott Akins, Oregon State University, Fairbanks Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.

Email: sakins@oregonstate.edu

559268CJPXXX10.1177/0887403414559268Criminal Justice Policy ReviewAkins et al.

research-article2014

98 Criminal Justice Policy Review 27(1)

Teller, Munetz, Gil, & Ritter, 2006).1 While those with mental illnesses that severely

compromise unassisted living constitute at most 5% of the general population, they are

disproportionately represented at multiple levels of the justice system. The prevalence

of mental-health-related police contacts has been found to vary significantly by locale;

several studies have found PwMI to be involved in between 7% and 10% of all police

contacts (e.g., Borum, Swanson, Swartz, & Hiday, 1997), though others have found

the proportion of such contacts to be significantly lower (Engel & Silver, 2001) or

higher (White, Goldkamp, & Campbell, 2006). In addition, PwMI represent at least

16% of the U.S. prison and jail population (Torrey, Kennard, Eslinger, Lamb, & Pavle,

2010). The overrepresentation of this population at various levels of the justice system

has been attributed to several factors, including deinstitutionalization (Lamb, 1998;

Slovenko, 2013), cutbacks in federal mental health funding (Teplin, 2000), and

enforcement consequences of the war on drugs (Honberg & Gruttadaro, 2005; Lurigio,

2001). While there is some disagreement over the relative importance of the causes,

observers agree that the failure to coordinate the services of local mental health, sub-

stance use, and criminal justice agencies is an important factor exacerbating the ongo-

ing problem of justice-involved PwMI (Honberg & Gruttadaro, 2005; Lurigio, 2001;

Reuland et al., 2009).

Research informing contacts between law enforcement and PwMI is important for

a number of reasons. From the perspective of police, such contacts are often frustrat-

ing, time-consuming and, on occasion, may escalate into volatile and potentially vio-

lent situations, placing all parties at risk (Reuland et al., 2009). Law enforcement

officials have long been called on as first responders to situations in which people are

having crises related to mental illness (Bittner, 1967), but the prevalence of such con-

tacts appears to be increasing (Santos & Goode, 2014; Teplin & Pruett, 1992), and the

nature of these interactions is distinct from those more commonly handled by police

(Hoover, 2007). Although the police are charged with the responsibility to protect the

safety and welfare of the public by removing dangerous persons from the community,

they are also charged with providing protection for vulnerable citizens, including

those with mental illness or those in a state of mental crisis (Teplin & Pruett, 1992).

When responding to mental crisis calls, police typically have three options: they may

execute a formal arrest, they may detain the person and transport him or her to a men-

tal health facility, or they can resolve the situation informally. Determining which

response is most appropriate often places police in the role of a “street-corner psychia-

trist” (Teplin, 1984), something police often report feeling ill-prepared to do (Franz &

Borum, 2011). From the perspective of those accessing mental health services and

their loved ones, the limited options available to individuals needing help can place

PwMI at heightened risk of justice system involvement and, most tragically, situations

in which people are injured or killed when due to illness they fail to comply with

police commands and/or present a perceived threat to officer safety (Police Executive

Research Forum, 2012; Santos & Goode, 2014). Across parties, there appears to be

agreement that the “traditional police response” to persons in mental crisis neither

improves the mental state of the person being contacted nor facilitates the safe and

controlled resolution of the call for service (Reuland, Draper, & Norton, 2010).