When you say prescription drugs, you have to draw some distinctions in what you're talking about and what you mean by the word "situations".Do you guys feel the number of calls dealing with the mentally ill has increased or decreased over the last ten to twenty years? Also do you feel the amount of prescription drugs available these days has helped or hindered the situations?
+1When you say prescription drugs, you have to draw some distinctions in what you're talking about and what you mean by the word "situations".
Oxys and other pain meds don't cause crime. Criminals cause crime. Some criminals commit crimes to get prescription drugs, but that's not the prescription drugs fault.
As for psych meds, no, they don't make problems worse, at all. They make things better, a lot better for the people taking them. None of the prescription psychiatric medications on the market cause criminal behavior, quite the opposite actually, and if they did cause criminal behavior they wouldn't be on the market. Trust me when I tell you that antipsychotics are responsible for saving countless lives, both police and patients, every day. It's when people that need them stop taking them that problems arise. Police don't deal with the adverse effects of people taking antipsychotics, hospitals do.
And no, no matter what Joe Rogan says, psych meds don't cause mass shooters to be mass shooters. Mass shooters are mass shooters because they're often mentally ill and potentially violent, so they're put on psych meds to try and keep their behaviors under control. They don't go on psych meds because they're fine and then become mass shooters.
Same.+1
Every violent mentally ill person I ever dealt with had stopped taking their meds before they became violent and had to be dealt with.
I can’t recall a single one that was taking their meds faithfully before they went off the rails and became a danger to themselves and others.
FULLY SEMI AUTOMATIC REVOLVER !Or elected officials who do not even know difference between revolver, and semi auto handgun.
I was thinking admin was included in the group of "people you have to deal with on the job suffering from mental issues" by default...Need a class with dealing with admins, who by and large tend to be out of touch with the reality of working the street.
This. They cause more stress and health problems for the troops than any of the customers on the streetNeed a class with dealing with admins, who by and large tend to be out of touch with the reality of working the street.
And what is particularly infuriating for cops is that these suddenly concerned family members did nothing whatsoever to get their mentally ill family member any professional help and simply waited until they became unmanageable and then call the cops to come deal with it.Not an officer. However, I want to speak to the police training. Having had one of my step mothers being bipolar and a female bipolar in my late wife's family, the best that training can do is help the officer detect the symptoms. The officer has to evaluate a situation very quickly and he doesn't either medications with him or time for a 45 minute psychological therapy session on the street. My hat is off to those who take the training seriously.
Frankly, I am tired of "family members" who incessantly complain when a policeman encounters and engages a mentally ill person with a knife threatening people and the person ends up dead. Unless it is three officers on one mentally ill person and they have a butterfly net with them, they are doing the best that they can.
There’s quite a bit of mental health first aid or crisis intervention training going on across the county. It was mandatory in my department before I retired. There are a ton of challenges with mental crisis and cops, if for no other reason than cops are not able to diagnose, and even if they were it wouldn’t matter much. Police on scene are dealing with symptoms at best. In other words, the behavior manifesting at the time they arrive. Whether he’s drunk, high, bi-polar, paranoid schizo, TBI, PTSDing, or just having a bad day is if far less importance that what he’s actually DOING, that’s causing the immediate problem.Not an officer. However, I want to speak to the police training. Having had one of my step mothers being bipolar and a female bipolar in my late wife's family, the best that training can do is help the officer detect the symptoms. The officer has to evaluate a situation very quickly and he doesn't either medications with him or time for a 45 minute psychological therapy session on the street. My hat is off to those who take the training seriously.
Frankly, I am tired of "family members" who incessantly complain when a policeman encounters and engages a mentally ill person with a knife threatening people and the person ends up dead. Unless it is three officers on one mentally ill person and they have a butterfly net with them, they are doing the best that they can.
I have posted the following a number of times over the years.What was needed is mandatory mental health care in a controlled facility
.... and from my limited experience, either initiated or exacerbated by illicit drug use.FWIW, PTSD is a very small sliver of what I see daily. Vast majority are bi-polar or paranoid schizophrenics.
I agree. The de-institutionalization of mental health was a significant error which has been compounding like interest ever since. It may have had good intentions, but it was poorly conceived and never really had a chance. Far better would have been to improve care standards and oversight of existing facilities, while reinforcing capacity.I have posted the following a number of times over the years.
California decided it had a problem with mentally ill people.
1. The Democrats were concerned that people were locked up without having committed a crime.
2. The Republicans were concerned with costs of the mental health care system in California.
3. The best intellectual minds of both parties sat down and talked (Me- I call them educated derelicts who are without real life experience).
4. A compromise was reached, the legislation passed, and Governor Ronald Reagan signed.
5. Most of the mentally ill would be released into the community. Counseling centers would be established where the mentally ill would go for counseling and their medications.
6. As you expect, it did not work out. The death rate among the released was 4 times the death rate of people the same age in the general community. However, the politicians reduced the number of problem people
7. I remember one such releasee. She lived on the street. Frightening. If she took her meds, she was ok. However, she didn't take them. Tragically, she had been married to a prominent local lawyer. After putting up with the situation for years, he had had her institutionalized and divorced her. But, the State let her out so she could participate in the new State program.
Good luck getting better treatment facilities. The mentally ill do not vote. The people who want free pre-school, free telephones, free after school care, amnesty, free college, forgiveness of student loans- they do vote and they feed at the trough before the mentally ill.
this sums it up for me times 1000. And at least in my case from what I’ve seen meds help. When folks who need them don’t take them it goes poorly.+1
Every violent mentally ill person I ever dealt with had stopped taking their meds before they became violent and had to be dealt with.
I can’t recall a single one that was taking their meds faithfully before they went off the rails and became a danger to themselves and others.
So they are still working as police admins and politicians?Significant amount of group home residents who wound up their due to "chemical lobotomy" (their rampant drug use has resulted in permanent changes to the brain). Keep working and paying taxes to support the system.
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