Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Publication Title

Police Journal: Theory, Practice, and Principles

Volume

87

Issue

2

Abstract

This article describes one of the newest, most specialised law enforcement programmes in the United States: Crisis Intervention Teams (CITs) for youth with mental illness. In response to the fragmentation of behavioural healthcare services in the educational, juvenile justice and mental health systems, JuvenileCITs (J-CITs) have been implemented in a handful of jurisdictions to serve as an intervention for troubled and troublesome adolescents in need of mental health care. Information about J-CITs is limited; little has been written about such programmes, and no published studies have examined their effectiveness. Hence the present study was undertaken to identify all of the currently operational J-CITs in the United States. We conducted structured telephone interviews in order to gather qualitative data regarding the philosophy, origins, operations and components of each J-CIT. We afford an early look at several J-CIT programmes in diverse geographic areas. We conclude with observations concerning the role of such programmes in a law enforcement as well as the challenges that police departments are likely to face in the implementation and maintenance of such initiatives.

Comments

Author Posting. © Sage Publications, 2014. This article isposted here by permission of Sage Publications for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Police Journal: Theory, Practice, and Principles, Volume 87, Issue 2, 2014, http://dx.doi.org/10.1350/pojo.2014.87.2.534

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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