Stephen Eide joins City Journal associate editor Seth Barron to discuss the New York Police Department's "crisis intervention team" (CIT), which trains police officers to respond to situations involving people with serious mental illnesses.
In 2016, NYPD officers responded to more than 400 calls a day concerning "emotionally disturbed persons," some of whom are suffering major psychiatric episodes. Officers receiving CIT training are better prepared to de-escalate these encounters.
CIT training has become a priority for big-city police departments, but as Eide notes, even the best-trained force can't compensate for declining mental health services.
Stephen Eide is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an expert on public administration and urban policy. His story "CIT and Its Limits" (coauthored with Carolyn Gorman) appears in the Summer 2017 issue of City Journal.