Challenges in Mental Health and Policing: Key Themes and Perspectives

Description

Of interest to police researchers and students of criminology and the social sciences, the book examines police officers' views on mental health work and includes a chapter by a service user. Police officers deal with mental illness-related incidents on an almost daily basis. Ian Cummins explores how factors such as deinstitutionalisation, community care failings and, more recently, welfare retrenchment policies have led to this situation. He then considers how police officers should be supported by community mental health agencies to make confident and correct decisions, and to ensure that the individuals they encounter receive support from the most appropriate services.

Ian Cummins is Senior Lecturer in the School of Health and Society at the University of Salford.

"This very useful book offers a thorough overview of the challenges presented to the police and CJS by mental health, together with a strategic and political perspective of the background to the changes arising in this field." Emma Williams, The Open University