- NSW Police Force Mental Health Intervention Team: Forging a New Path Forward in Mental Health and Policing in the Community

Los Angeles Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team (SMART) 79 SMART Model Application to the NSW Police Force 81Chicago CIT 81 Chicago CIT Application to NSW Police Force 83New York Police Department (NYPD) 83 Honolulu 84 Trial of the MHIT, 2007-2009 84CSU Independent Evaluation of the MHIT Trial 86 CSU’s Evaluation Findings 86 CSU Seven Recommendations 92The NSWPF aims to ensure that we are not unnecessarily interacting with mental health consumers, or having consumers in our custody without cause. All NSWPF interactions with mentally ill and disordered persons need to be justifiable via legislative provisions. We do not want mentally ill persons becoming unduly “criminalised” because they have needlessly come under police notice and management. Research of the wider criminal justice system in NSW finds that over 40% of the persons in the criminal justice system have mental illness or mental disorder or cognitive disability (Baldry, 2012). From a NSWPF perspective this rate is too high. We need additional and better criminal justice diversion mechanisms for mentally ill and disordered persons. Such diversion mechanisms would see suitable consumers diverted by the police and courts into appropriate and integrated community-based clinical (such as adequate community mental health), forensic, and human service care that is tailored to manage consumers with serious mental illness to live supported and full lives in the community.