A Criminal Justice System–Wide Response to Mental Illness

Abstract

The present study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the Memphis Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training curriculum among law enforcement and correctional officers. A panel research design was used in which a sample of 179 law enforcement officers and 100 correctional officers in nine Florida counties were surveyed on the first day of training (pretest), the last day of training (posttest), and 1 month following their completion of CIT training (follow-up). These surveys measured the extent to which CIT training achieved several officer-level objectives, including increased knowledge of mental illness, improved self-efficacy when responding to mental health crises, and enhanced perceptions of verbal de-escalation skills. The results of these surveys revealed that the training effectively achieved these objectives in the short term, but a measurable decay was found in the follow-up time frame with regard to self-efficacy and perceptions of verbal de-escalation.