Crises never end for law enforcement officers.
They're called to handle an emergency but never know quite what they will encounter. And then, if a person is unruly or agitated, the police officer may have no recourse other than taking that person to jail.
Many of these arrested people would be better served by receiving mental health treatment, not jail time.
Numbers vary but up to 15 percent of men and 30 percent of women in jails have a mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Studies have also shown that:
• Police frequently encounter people with mental illness — approximately 5 percent of U.S. residents have a serious mental illness.
• 92 percent of all patrol officers had an encounter with a person with a mentally ill person facing a crisis.
• Officers average six such encounters a month.
Many large cities have crisis intervention teams in place to handle mental illness where police and mental health officials work in tandem.
The numbers also point to failures in the mental health system. Police officers often become the first to respond to people experiencing a mental health crisis.
Everyone in the law enforcement and justice system is aware of the dilemma.
In December, Gov. Mike Pence announced plans to build a 159-bed state hospital to treat patients with psychiatric illnesses and addictions.
About half of the 30,000 people in Indiana’s prisons have either substance abuse or mental health issues, Pence said. The Indiana Neuro-Diagnostic Institute will treat about 1,500 Hoosiers annually and is to be headed by Madison County native Dr. Jerry Sheward.
The creation of the center should help fill in a treatment gap left by the shuttering — and rightfully so — of the former, deteriorating Central State Hospital in Indianapolis, and other state facilities where patients were being warehoused.
Locally, Sheriff Scott Mellinger works closer to the law officers who have to be first at a mental health crisis. But Mellinger does not believe that mentally ill need to be housed in jail with violent offenders.
On any given day, he has said, the jail may house up to 15 inmates who are on suicide watch, meaning their condition must be documented every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day.
With the prospect of a new jail under consideration, the sheriff has asked for larger accommodations to address those brought in with mental health issues. And that request should be granted.
In addition, a local group is meeting at the Madison County Community Health Center to coordinate services for the mentally ill. This coalition includes hospitals and other organizations.
The group, however, is still at the point of interpreting each organization's role in serving mental health issues ranging from Alzheimer's disease to addictions.
There is no formulaic answer.
But it's clear that law enforcement and mental health providers need to communicate and cooperate.
Their actions not only can help those with mental health problems but can help protect the officers who willingly run from one crisis to another.