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The purpose of this paper is to examine the predictors of officer attitudes toward Crisis Intervention Teams, a new innovation designed to improve police response to people with mental illnesses.

The current study uses data from a larger study of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program. CIT and Non‐CIT officers were surveyed in four districts. To examine the predictors of officer perceptions of crisis intervention teams, OLS regression is used.

Neither CIT nor non‐CIT officers seem to show the kinds of negative views of CIT that have undercut other social welfare based police innovations. Among CIT trained officers, those who had the opportunity to practice their new skills by responding to mental health related calls for service had more positive attitudes toward the program than those who did not.

This paper adds to both the Crisis Intervention Team and innovation literatures by examining an important aspect of the CIT implementation process. A model is developed that explores the correlates of officer support for the innovation and the conditions necessary for its successful implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a focus for mental health training efforts to better equip officers to provide interventions and supports to help facilitate improved outcomes for people experiencing mental health crises.

A reflection on key evidence relating to mental health training programmes delivered to police, focussing on Australia, the USA and Canada.

While there are a number of similarities in the core content of mental health training programmes offered internationally, the availability and uptake of training across jurisdictions remains piecemeal and idiosyncratic. Police officers report a strong preference for hands-on experiential learning; this has immediate and direct relevance to their operational duties, and is consistent with core principles of andragogy. While all police employees require mental health training, specialised mental health training programmes should clearly be reserved for a select group of officers who volunteer after acquiring sufficient operational experience.

Priorities should centre on measuring the effectiveness of mental health training packages and discerning the active elements associated with changes in police skills and confidence, as well as identifying elements that support improved outcomes for people who experience mental illness and who have contact with the police.

Police need to continue to need to seek legitimacy with respect to their guardianship role as mental health interventionists. Training should tap into practice-based wisdom. Training should be practical, applied and reinforced through wider knowledge-based learning and workplace reinforcement. Training is needed for everyone, but specialised training is not for all. Police need to focus on the partnerships and expend time, energy and resources to maintain and grow them. Specialist (and other forms of) training needs to be evaluated so we understand what works?

There may be opportunities to streamline the delivery of knowledge-based aspects of mental health training and focus much more on experiential learning, both in specialised training courses as well as shorter mental health awareness sessions.

Disruptive and potentially unsafe classroom behaviours such as threatening, bullying, verbal and/or physical assaulting present challenges not only for teachers, aides and other students in the classroom, but potentially for all others in the building as well as the families of those students/pupils involved. These behaviours can greatly influence a student's ability to achieve academic success as well as place undue stress and risk on others in the milieu.

Discovering the cause for the behaviours and then developing a plan to help these young people succeed emotionally will greatly increase the probability for improved academic achievement. This chapter will examine the core principles of the Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Schools (TCIS) programme and present a range of evidence-based responses designed to help build upon and further develop staff skills in preventing disruptive behaviours, de-escalating potential disruptive behaviours, and teach students how to develop less disruptive and more appropriate responses to their lack of or inability to self-regulate.

This chapter will contend that the foundation for all interventions and responses presupposes an accurate assessment of risk for the youth(s), the adults, and the environment. That any risk assessment must consider the internal (effects of trauma, ability to self-regulate, cultural issues) and external (organizational culture/climate, level of restrictiveness, caring community, quality of instruction) setting conditions for the youth.

The TCIS programme is embedded in the five domains for effective crisis management; leadership and building support, social work and clinical services participation (social workers, psychologists, therapists, nurses), building administration and post crisis response, training and competency standards, and data-driven incident monitoring and feedback.

Telephone crisis services are increasingly subject to a requirement to “prove their worth” as a suicide prevention strategy. The purpose of this paper is to: first, provide a detailed overview of the evidence on the impact of telephone crisis services on suicidal users; second, determine the limitations of the outcome measures used in this evidence; and third, suggest directions for future research.

MEDLINE via Pubmed (from 1966), PsycINFO APA (from 1967) and ProQuest Dissertation and Theses (all to 4 June 2015) were searched. Papers were systematically extracted by title then abstract according to predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria.

In total, 18 articles met inclusion criteria representing a range of outcome measures: changes during calls, reutilization of service, compliance with advice, caller satisfaction and counsellor satisfaction. The majority of studies showed beneficial impact on an immediate and intermediate degree of suicidal urgency, depressive mental states as well as positive feedback from users and counsellors.

A major limitation pertains to differences in the use of the term “suicidal”. Other limitations include the lack of long-term follow-up and of controlled research designs. Future research should include a focus on long-term follow-up designs, involving strict data protection. Furthermore, more qualitative research is needed in order to capture the essential nature of the intervention.

This paper attempts to broaden the study and the concept of “effectiveness” as hitherto used in the literature about telephone crisis services and offers suggestions for future research.

The current paper seeks to outline the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) and review extant research regarding its efficacy in reducing criminalization of people with mental illness, as well as improving interactions between this population and law enforcement officers.

The CIT model and theoretical underpinnings are discussed and an evaluative review of the current literature is presented.

Research on the CIT model has generally shown improved officer and community safety; better mental healthcare for those in need; and decreased criminalization of those with mental illness. Methodologies have included the use of records reviews and officer surveys, primarily.

Implications in the practice of law enforcement and psychology include decreasing criminalization of those with mental illness; reducing the frequency of police use of force; minimizing injury to consumers and law enforcement officers; and connecting people with mental illness to needed psychological/psychiatric resources.

Success of CIT has wider social implications, such as decreasing stigma regarding mental illness and fear of involving police in mental health related crises.

The authors provide a summary of the CIT model in the context of law enforcement's response to people with mental illness; highlight important research to date; discuss implications of the programme; and suggest directions for future research in the area of CIT.

The paper examines the historical shifts in policing strategies towards individuals with SMI and vulnerable populations, highlighting the development of co-response models, introducing the concept of “untethered” co-response.

This paper conducts a review of literature to trace the evolution of police responses to individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) and vulnerable populations. It categorizes four generations of police approaches—zero-policing, over-policing, crisis intervention and co-response—and introduces a fifth generation, the “untethered” co-response model exemplified by Project SCOPE in Philadelphia.

The review identifies historical patterns of police response to SMI individuals, emphasizing the challenges and consequences associated with over-policing. It outlines the evolution from crisis intervention teams to co-response models and introduces Project SCOPE as an innovative “untethered” co-response approach.

The research acknowledges the challenges in evaluating the effectiveness of crisis intervention teams and co-response models due to variations in implementation and limited standardized models. It emphasizes the need for more rigorous research, including randomized controlled trials, to substantiate claims about the effectiveness of these models.

The paper suggests that the “untethered” co-response model, exemplified by Project SCOPE, has the potential to positively impact criminal justice and social service outcomes for vulnerable populations. It encourages ongoing policy and evaluative research to inform evidence-based practice and mitigate collateral harms associated with policing responses.

Given the rising interactions between police and individuals with mental health issues, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the paper highlights the urgency for innovative, non-policing-driven responses to vulnerable persons.

The paper contributes to the literature by proposing a fifth generation of police response to vulnerable persons, the “untethered” co-response model and presenting Project SCOPE as a practical example.

Focuses on contemporary law enforcement institutions, in Canadian and US cities, to illustrate the service limitations and public conflicts that are increasingly being generated into violent encounters by the failure to move beyond the authoritarian organizational operational model. The capacity of public policing institutions to provide effective, non‐violent police services to meet the needs of the communities is determined by the nature of the police institutional and/or organizational model employed. This analysis assesses the appropriateness of current police training models, race relations training, non‐violent conflict resolution training and all other police training that may be grounded and generated from a paramilitary authoritarian hierarchical composition. This applied approach discloses much needed systemic and policy reformation by considering a more expanded understanding of this prominent social agency, the actors and the interconnectedness with other institutions.

The major purpose of this paper is the review of the administration and operation of four on‐scene victim assistance units within law enforcement agencies in one Canadian and three US cities. The primary purpose is to learn how these units operate and the extent to which there are accepted by the officers involved. An additional purpose is learn how many departments nationally had such units.

The basic methodology includes telephone interviews with key personnel in each unit, an on‐site examination of the Denver, Colorado unit, and a brief survey of large city police departments to learn the extent of on‐scene units in major US cities.

A review of the administration and operation of each unit reveals that each unit is well managed, integrated into the department's structure, and staffed with paid staff who are members of the department and volunteers. Key to the success of each unit is extensive training of victim specialists and a clear understanding between specialists and police that the officers at the scene are in charge. The findings clearly confirm that such units are well received by officers at all levels. The survey findings indicate that relatively few departments have on‐scene victim assistance units, although most do have some program to address victims' issues.

While there is an extensive literature on victim assistance generally, little has been written about the need for, and operation of, on‐scene victim assistance units that are part of police departments. This article contributes to knowledge in this area and suggests that such units can be a valuable asset to departments.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of differential police training on hostage rescue effectiveness. More specifically, this study looks at the types of police trainings that are the most effective in preparing Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officers in dealing with hostage rescue situations.

This study employs a cross-sectional design. The analyses are based on a national sample of 341 law enforcement agencies, which employed at least 50 sworn officers.

To improve the SWAT response effectiveness in hostage rescue situations, this study shows that two factors play a significant role, namely, the training for hostage rescue situations and an increase in the average training hours per month. Among the types of trainings that were thought to be effective but did not show a significant effect in this present study were training for crowd control/civil unrest, having military training, and training for building searches.

Increased training hours specifically designed to address hostage situations increases the likelihood of successful hostage extractions. Thus, police departments should have specific training hours set aside for hostage situations.

This study attempts to identify specific types of police trainings that have a positive effect on improving SWAT effectiveness in dealing with hostage situations. There is a very limited number of research works on SWAT operations. This study, therefore, adds to this very limited research area of policing.

Given that formal training on autism is still a relatively infrequent occurrence for police officers, the objective of this study is to expose and describe the formal and informal, nonorganizationally based means police officers receive on-the-job training regarding interactions with autistic individuals.

Using personal networks and snowball sampling, the authors interviewed 19 police officers from multiple US police departments who reported having known contact with an autistic individual while on duty. Interviews were transcribed and coded to identify themes describing formal training and informal means to learn about autistic persons during interactions.

The authors find that many officers received formal training on mental health, though few received specific training about autism. Most commonly, officers with a personal connection to autism (e.g. a child or loved one), passed down information and techniques to other officers on how to have positive encounters with autistic individuals. Officers also passed along field knowledge of known autistic individuals in patrol areas/beats to help others have positive interactions. Lastly, community members often assisted officers by sharing information about find where an individual may be located, may live or known personal characteristics/preferences.

Scholars examining police contact with autistic individuals infrequently detail the point of view and needs of officers in successfully interacting with this population. This work adds to this growing discussion by exposing how officers use personal experience, informal training and community members’ assistance as a stopgap for their general lack of training on how to interact with autistic individuals successfully and positively.