Abstract
ObjectivesTo measure disparities in experience of police use of force and injury among persons with serious mental illnesses.MethodsWe gathered novel police use of force and suspect injury data from 2011 to 2017 from a nonrandom sample of nine police departments in the United States and used synthetic methods to estimate the share of the local population with serious mental illness. We estimate disparities using multi-level models estimated in a Bayesian framework.ResultsPersons with serious mental illness constitute 17.0% of use of force cases (SD = 5.8) and 20.2% of suspects injured in police interaction (SD = 9.0) in sample cities. The risk that persons with serious mental illness will experience police use of force is 11.6 times higher (95% CI, 10.7–12.6) than persons without serious mental illness. Persons with serious mental illness are also at a higher risk of experiencing injury, 10.7 times (95% CI, 9.6–11.8), relative to persons without serious mental illness. These relative risk ratios are several times larger than racial and ethnic disparities estimated in the same cities.ConclusionPersons with serious mental are at a significantly elevated risk of experiencing police use of force and injury in police encounters than the general public. The disparities we estimate are several times higher than racial/ethnic disparities in force and injury. Efforts to reform police practices and reimagine public safety in the United States should address significant disparities in police use of force against those with serious mental illness.
Highlights
The current discussion of disparities in police contact and use of force largely revolves around racial disparities
Contact may be elevated, but force reduced among persons with serious mental illness (PwSMI) who are more likely to engage in behaviors that produce calls to 911 but may be viewed by police as less deserving of blame for their behaviors [4]
The estimated prevalence of Serious mental illness (SMI) in the population is plotted in blue and on the left, while the share of use of force incidents committed against PwSMI is plotted in red on the right
Summary
The current discussion of disparities in police contact and use of force largely revolves around racial disparities. Empirical work suggests that Black people are disproportionately more likely than White people to come into contact with the police, experience force, and to suffer adverse psychological outcomes as a result of encounters [1,2,3]. Contact may be elevated, but force reduced among persons with serious mental illness (PwSMI) who are more likely to engage in behaviors that produce calls to 911 but may be viewed by police as less deserving of blame for their behaviors [4]. It is not clear whether or to what extent PwSMI experience disparate police use of force. Past research suggests that police generally hold that PwSMI are less responsible for crimes they might commit and more deserving of care than persons without serious mental
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