Legislatively speaking

By Senator Lena C. Taylor

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Denzel Washington’s film “Training Day”. Just let marinate for a minute. The film followed Washington’s character, a highly decorated narcotics detective, as he spent a day assessing and training an officer who was running for promotion. In those 24 hours, every irrational, dangerous, and illegal thing you can imagine has been done by the Washington character. The film was a huge box office hit, but the lineup left a lot to be desired.

In the real world, police officers face a number of issues that they are often not equipped to handle. Politicians, police, community leaders and members can debate the factors that have changed the nature of policing. However, local governments, police departments and residents have found something they can agree on: officers come into contact with crisis situations on a daily basis.

While there is adequate training to prepare them for some of these circumstances, when it comes to mental health issues, substance abuse, depression, suicide, and other questionable situations, their training in law enforcement may not have been sufficient.

When all goes well, these situations can be disseminated quickly and safely to the concerned citizen and law enforcement officer. When the going gets tough, Dontre Hamilton, a Milwaukee resident with mental health issues, is shot 14 times and killed by a Milwaukee cop, after being found sleeping in a public park.

As part of the recently introduced police reform bills, SB 332 is a bill that seeks to address these concerns. The bill requires officers to complete four hours of crisis training every two years. We need to do more, but it’s a start to reducing risk for everyone involved.

In the United States, around 1,000 people were shot dead by police officers in 2018, and people with mental illness were involved in about 25% of those deaths, according to an article in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

Police and sheriff departments across the country have recognized that their officers need to be better equipped and have sought specialized training to deal with a range of crisis issues. Whether it’s de-escalation training, active listening skills, the ability to recognize a mental health crisis and work with community partners to defuse situations, etc., there are many Law enforcement agencies require up to 40 hours of crisis training. Better training will hopefully translate into better results.

There are also many benefits beyond security, including cost savings by comparing incarceration to referral to appropriate alternative services. A typical annual year in a correctional facility can average $ 30,000, while community mental health treatment costs about $ 10,000 per year. For years we have heard phrases like “we are getting smarter about crime”, it is time we did the same for the police. We have to because unlike a movie, we can’t change the endings with a stroke of a pen. A bad fit can have fatal consequences.