Mental Health Cop
1,297 FOLLOWERS
Hi! I'm Michael. Welcome to my award-winning BLOG on policing, mental health and criminal justice. I've run this site for the last ten years and it's been used way more than two and a half million times around the world. Perhaps more importantly, it got me a job working full-time on the issues I've written about and a chance to influence the laws, policies and policing across..
Mental Health Cop
2d ago
A new Preventing Future Deaths report from Greater Manchester is worth considering, following the sad death of Mr Michael Heath in August 2023. It was only issued this week following conclusion of an Article 2, jury inquest which examined Mr Heath’s suicide after a history of mental health contact and, crucially, emergency services contact in ..read more
Mental Health Cop
6d ago
The Home Office has caught us all unawares this year with very early publication of their police powers data, which includes use of s136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. It normally comes towards the end of the calendar year but the last data took until after the New Year to publish. It came out ..read more
Mental Health Cop
6d ago
Imagine a situation – but before you do, grab a cuppa or a soft drink because this one goes on a while! The officer raising the question raised a lot of issues and counterpoints in addition to posing me an exam-question to answer. Someone is arrested for an alleged offence, they are assessed in custody ..read more
Mental Health Cop
1w ago
How would you know if section 136 is over-used in an area? The alleged overuse of this power has been a near-constant refrain in the background of the work I’ve done over twenty years. Regularly brought up, various reasons given for the alleged over-use: it is one of those ‘zombie’ arguments, that never dies ..read more
Mental Health Cop
2w ago
The United Kingdom and New Zealand are worth contrasting when it comes to policing and mental health. To the extent I’ve tried to find out, they are the only two countries who restrict their police service to legally intervening in a mental health crisis to public places. Section 136 Mental Health Act 1983 (England ..read more
Mental Health Cop
3w ago
You may not have heard about “swing beds” in mental health care – this is a term used in some of the annual reports by the Care Quality Commission in to the operation of the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA). A little explanation about this term before we look at the sad case of Mr ..read more
Mental Health Cop
1M ago
I turn fifty today – so happy birthday to me! I didn’t really do anything radical or treat myself to anything when I turned thirty or forty, so I decided a while back I should think about things for the present occasion. A comedian I recently saw pointed out being propelled in to your fifties ..read more
Mental Health Cop
1M ago
Officers attend a mental health incident in private premises where section 136 Mental Health Act 1983 cannot be used. The situation is volatile and threatening, sufficiently so they could justify detaining the man to prevent a Breach of the Peace because those present have been threatened and are at risk. Exam question: if they use ..read more
Mental Health Cop
1M ago
Some years ago, the (then) Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigated two separate incidents in a police force in the north of England where two separate ‘concern for welfare’ calls had been received. The call handlers had failed to identify that what was, in fact, being described was a missing person – probably because the ..read more
Mental Health Cop
1M ago
A query from an east of England force today involved something referenced in brief across a few blogs but when I went looking for one to send across and explain the answer to their question, it was hard to find so an individual post is warranted, not least because the officer contacting me said they’ve ..read more