On the surface, local law enforcement and mental health services might seem an odd couple, two pieces of public policy that appear not to have a lot to do with each other. And the broader picture of Idaho politics might seem some distance from either of them.
But they absolutely intertwine, as key officials in both law enforcement and mental health services would be quick to tell you, and that interconnection - not least on the political side - is growing rapidly.
The overall picture has been clear for a long time. This, for example, in a report a year ago from the American Police Beat website: “Some research studies have estimated that at least 20% of police service calls involve a mental health or substance use crisis, and this demand has been increasing for many departments. In a nationwide survey of over 2,400 senior law enforcement officials, approximately 84% reported an increase in mental-health-related calls during their careers, and 63% noted that their department now spends more time on mental illness calls than in the past.”
The mindset of a mental health organization and that of a police force - and their modes of operating and approaching a situation - are ordinarily highly different. But some meeting of those minds is necessary, because of the large numbers of cases and incidents where neither approach - the purely medical on one side, the sheer enforcement on the other - by itself is likely to lead to a happy result. And on the evidence, and on the whole, both sets of professionals understand that.
Around the country, many communities have been trying out “models” - structures involving both law enforcement and mental health professionals, to de-escalate situations and avert problems in the future. So far no one seems to have come up with a perfect silver bullet, and maybe each community will have to work it out for themselves.
The need to do that seems well understood, and it is poking into political issues, such as the state budget.
In November, Magellan of Idaho, which operates the state Medicaid mental health payment system, said it planned program cuts which would (as a news article said) “affect peer support specialists who help people navigate mental health treatment, and specialized mobile teams that treat patients with severe mental illness who have struggled in routine treatment settings. The cuts, which call to end the services on Dec. 1, stem from the state’s attempts to avoid a projected budget shortfall.”
That drew quick and loud statements of concern and criticism from mental health professionals. Mental health clinics and patients have sued the state Department of Health and Welfare.
But on December 1, the Idaho Sheriff’s Association weighed in too, in a letter from its President Samuel Hulse of Bonneville County. It warned that the reductions to mental health services represent a significant public-safety concern. “As sheriffs, our foremost duty is to protect the people of Idaho. We urge State leadership to recognize the real-world public-safety consequences of these decisions and to work with counties to ensure Idahoans in crisis — and the agencies who respond to them — are not left without support.”
The state’s revenue shortfall, he added, was “self-inflicted” by the legislature, and the governor who signed the bills.
On December 19, Hulse hosted a Behavioral Health Open House at the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office location in Ammon, and area law officials as well as mental health professionals appeared to discuss the problem. It drew a crowd.
Hulse is on to something here. The next step would be to round up coalition-level support, including law enforcement and the mental health community but reaching beyond that, to anyone concerned about issues ranging from education to homelessness and business security.
Broaden that base wide enough, and keep it in front of public view steadily (maybe with the use of case studies and specific examples) and maybe even the Idaho Legislature will find itself compelled to listen.
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