Tag Archives: mental health law

Calling for the Police Crisis Intervention Officers

Call 911 to report a mental health-related emergency. Then as long as your local police department has CIT officers and you use a well-known mental health label (such as, mentally ill, manic, schizophrenic, or suicidal), the dispatcher should notify the police to send one of those specially trained crisis intervention officers to the scene. Here are some tips to best assure that the dispatcher does send the CIT:

You can specifically ask for crisis intervention officers with mental health training. Tell the dispatcher that the person you are calling about has a diagnosed mental illness, explain what that illness is, and help prepare the officer for the scene by giving the 911 operator all of the details about the current behavior:
• Does this person have a weapon?
• Is the person athletic or trained in martial arts?
• Give facts about their size.
To help make the police encounter as safe as possible for everyone present, you or someone else should go outside to flag down the police and tell them where the building entrances are and where the event is happening inside the building. Even though you told everything to the dispatcher, give a quick descriptive update to the on-scene police as soon as you can. For example,




Once the officer begins to work the scene, stay out of the way! Do not talk unless the officer asks you a question or calls on you to say something. The CIT officers know how to interact with people suffering from specific mental disturbances; they do not need you to translate for them. All police officers are trained to stabilize situations, so even if there is not a CIT officer present you should not interfere.

If the incident is not at your house or you are not even present, you can still get some mental health background information to the 911 dispatcher who will pass it along to police and will know to get a CIT officer on the scene. How will you know about the incident if you are not there? Maybe someone called you from the scene and said “Your relative is here and he’s out of control; someone just called 911.” Maybe you just got a worrisome text message or email from your relative.


States Using Prisons to Replace Mental Hospitals

In a January 2019 article titled Prisons are Housing Mental Health Patients Who’ve Committed No Crimes the American Bar Association’s ABA Journal describes legal cases in which people who are involuntarily committed for mental health treatment are taken to psychiatric facilities in prisons, rather than hospitals in the community, even though they have not been convicted of crimes. The article details the legal arguments that lawyers are using to fight against this practice and explains the economic and political circumstances that have led to this practice.

Although some people think that involuntary commitment is simply a medical determination, it is not. It is a legal order in which a medical assessment is primary evidence. But this legal order comes from civil court, not criminal court and it is not meant to subject patients to prison rules, prison clothing, or the other aspects of criminal punishment.

Chapter 5 of Family Guide to Mental Illness and the Law: A Practical Handbook is about involuntary commitment. Chapter 12 is about the rights of people with mental illness in jails and prisons.

Treatment Standards

Every state has a “mental health code” containing laws about mental health treatment. These laws identify the various forms of voluntary and involuntary commitment available in the state, establish standards for evaluating and serving mental health patients, and explain how the state will enforce proper mental health treatment practices. Simply enter your state name and the phrase “mental health code” in a search engine to find your state’s laws on these topics.

When you get turned down for disability

After being denied SSI or SSDI disability benefits on the initial application and then again on the Request for Reconsideration, people with psychiatric conditions have a lot riding on their OHA hearings. The OHA hearing is the first real opportunity to show how mental health symptoms affect functioning.

If the hearing doesn’t result in benefits, do not despair! The disappointing letter from the Administrative Law Judge is really an instruction manual telling you how to prove the claim the next time.

Does it say that there are certain kinds of jobs that you should be able to do? Try those jobs– exactly those jobs or as close as you can get in your community. See what happens. If one works out, good! You’ll have an income. If none of them work out, you have proof for your next hearing that you aren’t able to do those jobs.

Does it say that you didn’t demonstrate certain symptoms? If you really do have those symptoms, think about who has seen them: friends, relatives, police, business owners… and get those people to write descriptive letters for your next hearing.

Chapter 2 of Family Guide to Mental Illness and the Law has much more information about proving disability. Look for the book at your public library.

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