While
race is a frequent factor in cases of police misconduct, mental illness comes
up often as well. This has been especially true in Portland.
I
have written about the Aaron Campbell shooting before, and how the procedures
local police use are not recommended for dealing with suicidal or mentally ill
people. Police training is important, but there are good reasons to question
whether mental illness should be a police matter at all.
A
few weeks ago Parade had several articles related to Alzheimer's. One of
them focused on Knoxville, Tennessee becoming an Alzheimer's
friendly town, inspired by several town in Europe that have done so. Much
of the certification simply relates to people being trained on how to best deal
with people who may be disoriented.
I
care a great deal about dementia, and I do want everyone to be able to be good
with dementia patients, but I think the mentally ill need this more.
I
would like to see a push for cities to become friendly to the mentally ill
friendly. I am not aware of a program for this yet. There seems to be a
church-focused program in California, but I could not find
anything else. That's okay, their program and the dementia-friendly programs
can provide some patterns.
This
will again be an area where guilt has to be faced. We have made some horrible
policy decisions regarding the mentally ill and their care. Focusing on seeing
them can only help. Maybe then we will find better solutions for health and
treatment and homelessness. The first thing we can learn to do is to understand
what their distress might look like and how to best help.
One
of my greatest disappointments ever was reading Fixing Broken Windows. I
had read an article on it, and the basic tenet that if a place looked like no
one cared about it, no one would care, made sense. My mistake was thinking that
meant something along the lines of helping businesses owners get their windows
fixed, instead of perhaps fining them for leaving the windows broken when they
could not afford the repairs. "Community policing" I thought meant
strengthening communities by caring about the people in them, but that was
never how it was implemented.
There
is still room for us to care about each other and help each other. That's the
direction I'd like to see.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment