Mental illness is statistically the number one disability in America. It affects 1 out of every 4 families. Something you may not know is that 60% of most mental health consumers report having contacts with law enforcement.
The Green Bay Police Department believes that persons displaying signs and or symptoms of mental illness or severe emotional distress deserve dignified treatment, whenever possible. This is especially true for military veterans with a mental illness. Their service and sacrifice merits our assistance and dignified treatment options.
Some people might feel that this program will have a negative impact on the public's safety. Nothing could be further from the truth. This program will actually work to enhance and improve the safety and well being of the person effected, the community, and the officers responding to calls with mentally ill persons.
CIT Trained officers use the “Memphis Model” of the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) approach. The CIT approach is a community effort that joins the police and the community to meet common goals of safety, understanding and service to the mentally ill and their families. CIT is recognized by Wisconsin's DHFS as a “Best Practice” for crisis intervention.
In Green Bay, the anchor agency behind the CIT Initiative is NAMI Brown County, an affiliate of NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness ( www.nami.org ).
CIT officers are patrol officers who volunteer to receive specialized training in working with persons with mental illness. In addition to handling their regular patrol duties, these officers are called upon to respond to crisis calls that place officers face to face with complex issues relating to mental illness. CIT officers help identify persons in need of community services, assists at getting them connected to those resources, and works at helping to keep them connected for long term solutions.
CIT Initiative Benefits include:
- Reduced risk of injuries to persons with mental illness, the public and officers
- Reduced numbers of repeat contacts with mental health consumers
- Reduction of criminalization of those persons with mental illness that come in contact with the criminal justice system
- Enhanced working relationships with mental health care providers in the community
- Increased involvement of the families and friends of the mental health consumers
- Reduction in civil commitments through diversion to safe & less restrictive settings
- Reduction in the costs of overall services through better utilization of said services and diversion to less costly services
For more information about CIT contact the GBPD CIT Team at ccit@gbpolice.org
Some information for this page is provided by the Appleton Police Department website.