Our healthcare reporter Samantha Wildow investigated what happens when police come in contact with someone in mental health crisis. Read her full story here.
Below are some key takeaways from her investigation
1. Pink slips rarely lead to commitment: Her main finding is police routinely pink-slip people they believe to be a danger to themselves or others — under the impression those people will be committed and force into treatment — but 96% of the time those people are released without mandated treatment.
2. Police say: “They oftentimes are back in our communities before the paperwork is done. Within two hours, three hours. We ask these questions. How can this happen?” said Doug Jerome, president of the Montgomery County Association of Police Chiefs. “We don’t get a lot of answers.”
3. The impact: Many of these people end up in county jail — nearly half the inmates of the Montgomery County jail have a diagnosed mental illness — or in the worst case put the community in danger. The man who shot four people at a Beavercreek Walmart in December had been pink-slipped twice and never involuntarily committed.
4. The numbers say: There are 10 times more individuals with a severe mental illness ― such as schizophrenia spectrum disorders, severe bipolar disorder and/or major depression with psychotic features ― in jails or prison than in state psychiatric hospitals, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national policy and research organization.
5. Solutions: Sam’s story explores how this problem is decades in the making, and both near- and long-term solutions are needed.
6. Pink slip process: Wondering what pink slips are and how they work? Sam did a separate piece on that, and proposed legislation to change it.
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