Procedural Justice: Mental Illness August 2013 Voiceover: Beat Intro 00:00 This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing topics facing our nation. TeNeane Bradford 00:08 Hello and welcome. My name is TeNeane Bradford and on behalf of the COPS Office I’d like to introduce you to Associate Professor Dr. Amy Watson at the University of Illinois—Chicago. She’s here to talk with us today about procedural justice. Dr. Watson, from your research, how are the majority of police encounters experienced by persons who have mental illness and can you tell us why this is significant? Dr. Amy Watson 00:33 Sure. In the work that we’ve done, when we’ve talked to people with serious mental illness about their police encounters, the thing that really comes through is that they feel extremely vulnerable when they have these encounters. People talked about being really afraid that they could be arrested when they didn’t think that they did anything wrong, or that they could be beaten up, or that they could be killed. They feel very, very vulnerable in those situations and very scared. I think it is really important for police officers to be aware of, because if they’re intervening with someone who’s very, very scared, if they can calm down the situation and make the person feel a little bit more secure, these situations will go much more smoothly. If you think about someone who’s really agitated and really frightened and a bunch of people close in on them, they may be scared for their life and they may fight back. If they feel more comfortable and things are slowed down a little bit and they feel safe, then they’re better able to follow instructions, they’re better able to cooperate with what the police need them to do. I think it’s really important that police officers understand just how vulnerable people feel in those situations. TeNeane 01:46 From your findings on how persons with serious mental illness perceive their encounters with law enforcement, can you describe why it is important to apply procedural justice to those encounters? Amy 01:56 Yeah, I think—what people have told us is: 1) They really do attend to how they’re treated. If they feel like they’re treated well and respectfully and like human beings, and they’re given a chance to tell their side of the story, they report that they cooperate more in those situations and they’re more willing to do what the police need them to do. They just feel much more comfortable. They feel less vulnerable if they feel that they’re being treated with respect by someone who has some concern for their well-being. The police officers that we’ve talked to in our studies talk about…when they walk into a situation that they know is a mental-health related call, that they’re ready for anything. Anything could happen. Sometimes things tend to blow up really quickly. They’re on guard and maybe a little bit fearful as well. If they could take a different approach, they’re much more likely to gain cooperation and be working with someone who’s calmed down and better able to do what they need to do, which improves the safety for everybody in that situation. The situation may be resolved more effectively. That person walks away feeling better about the police in general, which could impact cooperation in future encounters as well. Using procedural justice approaches with anybody is really important, but I think it’s particularly important with the population that may feel especially vulnerable and in these calls that police officers find to be particularly problematic and difficult as well. TeNeane 03:29 What does law enforcement gain by practicing procedural justice? Amy 03:34 I think they gain many things. One is that they gain better cooperation in that immediate encounter. They may be able to de-escalate a situation and solve it much more easily. It may take a little bit longer, but they gain that cooperation immediately. There’s some thinking—we weren’t able to test this with the data that we had but we’re hoping to in an upcoming study—but there’s some thinking that, if someone feels they’re treated with procedural justice in an initial police encounter that they may be more likely to cooperate in any subsequent encounters, with the law and law enforcement. They may gain a longer-term effect as well. The other thing is that the more people feel that police officers treat them with procedural justice, the more legitimately they view police officers. That’s really important to police departments, to be viewed as legitimate. They get better public cooperation that way too. The police gain quite a bit by practicing procedural justice. TeNeane 04:36 With understanding that, what are five procedural justice tools law enforcement can use when responding to persons with mental illness? Amy 04:45 When you think about procedural justice, it often gets broken down into a couple of components. One is voice—giving people an opportunity to tell their side of the story and actually listening to them. Allowing someone to be heard goes a long way into gaining their cooperation. That’s one piece. Another piece is just treating someone with dignity and respect. Not superficial politeness but really showing the person that you’re viewing them as a human being, treating them with respect and concern. That’s extremely important. A lot of people are used to being treated disrespectfully or like they’re less than human. If a police officer comes in and really shows respect and concern, the person will experience that encounter much more positively and be more likely to cooperate. Again, trust is very important. If the person trusts that the officer is genuinely concerned about that person’s well- being, that’s very important as well. Those are three components. It gets broken down into different components depending on what literature you look at. Another thing that’s come up that’s related to procedural justice is it’s very helpful for people if the officer tells them what’s going to happen. Instead of pouncing on someone and handcuffing them, explaining that “I need to put you in my car and I need to cuff you before I put you in my car.” Just giving people information so that they understand what’s happening to them. Particularly if someone is really experiencing a crisis and is really agitated, it’s really helpful to slow things down, give people information, and allow them to ask questions or tell their side of the story. That way these situations go much more smoothly. There’s less likelihood that an officer may be injured, that the subject may be injured. It’s more likely that the person will be able to cooperate and do what the police officer needs them to do. This is true even with someone who’s experiencing pretty severe psychotic symptoms. There’s research that has looked at that that even people who are in the midst of a psychotic episode do recognize how they’re being treated and it does matter to them. If the officer does allow the person to have a voice, treats them with dignity and respect, slows things down and takes the time, and then also expresses genuine concern for that person’s well-being and then guides them by telling them what’s going to happen, what needs to happen, that type of thing. It’s very useful. TeNeane 07:18 Very important information. What advice would you give to law enforcement executives on implementing procedural justice in their departments? Amy 07:27 I think it’s important to train officers in procedural justice techniques. Some of it’s training, we can teach officers that these are things that seem to help in terms of engaging with different populations, particularly vulnerable populations. It provides them with some explanations on why this will make their jobs easier. Officers get a lot of training, but they need to know why they’re getting it and what the benefit is for them. I think if they use it or they’ve been using it all along, they’ll understand that this really helps them deal with different types of people. They can’t just do the training. I think police departments need to—within their organizational structure—provide support to officers taking this approach. That could include making sure that, if they’re responding to a mental health crisis call, that they have the time to listen to the person, to slow things down, to de-escalate stuff, and they have the time to do these interactions in a different way. One of the things officers have told us is that sometimes they’ll go to a call, and they’ll have a stack of calls that they need to respond to and the supervisor tries to hurry them along so it’s difficult to take the time to take a more procedural justice approach. I think departments need to recognize the importance of it and then make sure that, structurally, they allow for officers to use these tools. There needs to be recognition for when officers do use these tools and things go well. They don’t get a lot of reward for handling calls that go smoothly. They might get in trouble if things don’t go well, but it’s hard to reward somebody for something that doesn’t happen, like having to use force or that type of thing. I think there needs to build in some incentives and recognition when officers do do this well. The other thing is that departments need to treat officers with procedural justice as well. I know Tom Tyler has done some writing and some work with police departments in particular and procedural justice within the organization, so that officers feel like their department is treating them in a procedurally just manner as well. That things are fair, things are transparent, that they have a voice, that type of thing. Then they’re in a better place to take these tools out into the community when responding to calls. TeNeane 09:48 Are there any other last-minute thoughts around procedural justice that you’d like to share and offer to the field? Amy 09:56 Just thinking about the interviews that we did with people and the things that they told about their interactions with police officers—They told us about interactions that they experienced really negatively. Sometimes these were just interactions where they were just stopped on the street and they felt they weren’t treated well, versus interactions where they were treated very positively, even if they resulted in an arrest or an involuntary transport to the hospital. I think it’s important that people with serious mental illness, even if they’re quite symptomatic, they recognize how they’re treated. Some of those things they really mentioned as related to positive interactions were, “the officer really listened to me and let me express my side of the story.” Some people talked about the officer that may have been transporting them to the hospital having a conversation with them, maybe offering the person a cigarette, just treating the person like a human being and reducing a little bit of the difference so the person felt more comfortable. We had one person tell us that the officer said he had an Italian name but he was Irish—low level personal disclosure where it was more of an interaction between human beings. It was really useful to them in terms of how they experienced those interactions. The other thing is time. If officers are allowed to slow things down, then they can use these tools. Sometimes if they walk into a situation and they’re on guard, they’re worried about what’s going to happen, there may be a rush to get it over with. What we’re really seeing in some of the procedural justice literature, but then also some of the other literature on crisis intervention teams, is that if things can be slowed down and officers can use these skills, they can be much more successful in effectively and safely responding to some of these crisis calls. TeNeane 11:44 Dr. Watson, on behalf of the COPS Office, thanks so much for providing us with your expertise and your time. Amy 11:50 You’re welcome, and thank you. Voiceover: Beat Exit 11:52 The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems. Voiceover: Disclaimer 12:09 The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.