How many mentally ill people are killed by the police? It's a lot more than you think...

Intro

We teach police that everyone is out to get them and that the only way for them to be safe is to demand instant obediance from the civilians they deal with. As you can imagine this approach doesn't work well with people in a mental health crisis. Frankly, it's not working that well with any of us at this point.

• There are more than 1400 arrest-related deaths in the United States each year.
• During the years of this study 12.3% of firearm homicides were due to police use of deadly force.
• Mentally ill persons and African Americans are many times more likely to be killed by police

The reduction of arrest-related deaths should be a national priority. Some police departments have already begun taking steps to reduce the use of deadly force, such as the deescalation training in Salt Lake City.

I presented a poster at the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists' Annual Conference, in Boise, ID. The poster was titled Discussing Mental Illness As a Risk Factor In Arrest-Related Deaths. This poster is a small piece of the work that I've been doing on the topic of arrest-related deaths. I start out by looking at data for the entire United States, and then narrow down to just Washinton State (that's where I live). Don't worry about trying to read the photo, I've expanded the sections below and will walk you through the research and my results. At the end I list the sources for all the numbers that I used to calculate the results.

Background

• 62.9 million persons interact with police officers in some capacity each year in the United States.
• Law Enforcement Officers make 11.8 million arrests each year in the United States.
• Hospital Emergency Departments treat approximately 80,000 non-fatal injuries each year due to law enforcement use of force.
• Previous surveys of law enforcement records have estimated that 7% of all law enforcement contacts with civilians involve mentally ill persons

Methods

This study was a secondary analysis of data gathered by the Fatal Encounters Project in order to examine the role mental illness has in arrest-related deaths. Records were chosen for events occurring over a six-year time period from January 2010 through December 2015 and analyzed using R version 3.3.2.

Frequency of Symptoms of Mental Illness in Arrest-Related Deaths

Table 1: The Number of National Arrest-Related Deaths between 2010 - 2015 with perceived mental illness at the time of encounter with law enforcement. Data Source: Fatal Encounters project

Subject Status	Count
Showed Symptoms of Mental Illness	1620
No Symptoms of Mental Illness	5427
Unknown Mental Health Status	1491
Total Arrest Related Deaths	8538

Table 2: The Number of Washington State Arrest-Related Deaths between 2010 - 2015 with perceived mental illness at the time of encounter with law enforcement. Data Source: Fatal Encounters project

Subject Status	Count
Showed Symptoms of Mental Illness	63
No Symptoms of Mental Illness	102
Unknown Mental Health Status	39
Total Arrest Related Deaths	204

Results

United States

• Arrest-related deaths occur at a rate of 12 per 100,000 arrests
• 36% of arrest-related deaths occur in California, Texas, and Florida
• 58% of arrest-related deaths occur in 10 states
• 23% of all arrest-related deaths were persons exhibiting symptoms of mental illness
• Nationally persons exhibiting symptoms of mental illness were 3.97 (95% CI 3.75 - 4.19) times more likely to be killed during interaction with police

Washington State

• There are 21.6 arrest-related deaths per 100,000 arrests
• 33% of all arrest-related deaths were persons exhibiting symptoms of mental illness
• Erratic behavior by a suspect is attributed to drug/alcohol use twice as often compared to the US.
• Persons exhibiting symptoms of mental illness were 8.59 (95%CI 6.31 - 11.72) times more likely to be killed during interaction with Police

Limitations

• There are significant gaps in data availability on law enforcement and its use of deadly force; both nationally and at the state level. There is no official record or "gold standard" by which to evaluate data on arrest-related deaths.
• The determination of mental health status or drug use relies on the report of witnesses or the officer involved, rather than official diagnosis, which limits the ability to separate the two conditions.

References

Washington Accoiation of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. Crime In Washington: years 2010 - 2015. http://www.waspc.org/crime-in-wa-archive-folder. Accessed May 31, 2017

FBI: Uniform Crime Reporting; years 2010 - 2015. Available at https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s. Accessed May 31, 2017

U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). (2013). Police behavior during traffic and street stops, 2011. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2013. http:// www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4779 Accessed February 2016

Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) nonfatal injury data. 2017. Available at https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html Accessed April 5, 2017

Deane, M., et al. (1999). Emerging Partnerships Between Mental Health and Law Enforcement. American Psychiatric Association Psychiatric Services Online; January 1999; Vol. 50 No. 1.

Photo Credit: [Jamelle Bouie] (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbouie/sets/72157646091879339)

Photo Credit: Whitney Curtis for the New York Times