Mental health and routine police work: a systematic scoping review

Background
There is increasing attention to the amount of contact between police and those experiencing mental health problems. This includes the amount of time and resource spent by police in attending to calls related to mental health, as well as what the role of the police should be in relation to other agencies, including mental health and social care services. The aim of the scoping review was to identify what research has been conducted about police response to mental health in terms of decision making, responses, as well as skills and interventions.

Methods
A scoping review using the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews was conducted. Papers were included if they reported research on routine police work when responding to people with mental health problems or experiencing mental distress. Seven databases were searched and a two-stage searching procedure was followed. Screening and data extraction was completed by two researchers working independently.

Results
A total of 14,608 texts were found; 7,164 were removed as duplicates and 7,281 were removed after screening titles and abstracts. After full text screening a further 100 were excluded, leaving 63 papers for data extraction. About half of the papers included police only as participants (n = 31) and only 10 papers were from the perspective of people with lived experience. Three themes emerged from the thematic analysis: “policing decisions and actions”; “coordinating with other providers” and “lived experience”.

Conclusions
Police have skills that have been developed experientially rather than through formal training. There is often a lack of shared understanding between police and other agencies leading to uncertainty about how to best help the person with mental health concerns. Police can and do make a positive contribution to the multi-agency response to people with mental health problems, though should not necessarily be the first (or only) response to mental health calls. Most of the research to date has focused on the police role in mental health crisis. Further research is needed on understanding the police role in encountering mental health problems in routine work (as victims, witnesses or perpetrators).