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DA On Improving County's Approach To Helping Those With Mental Illness

 May 24, 2019 at 10:12 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 At least one in three adults in the criminal justice system have a mental illness while one in five adults and the overall population have a mental illness. With those statistics, the San Diego County District Attorney's office is out with a blueprint that lays out a new approach for addressing mental health and the criminal justice system in the county. Joining me to discuss this new approach is San Diego County district attorney summer. Stephan summer. Welcome. Thank you for having me. All right. I want to start today by asking you for your reaction to news that law enforcement groups no longer oppose assembly. Bill three 92 now to refresh everyone's memory that San Diego Assembly woman, surely Weber's bill, that proposes to change the standard for when police can use lethal force from when it's quote reasonable to only quote necessary. What are your thoughts on that? I'm studying all the details in the bill. Speaker 1: 00:50 There were last minute changes is my understanding and I look forward to learning all of the details and this is relevant to our conversation today because about eight and 10 officer involved shootings in San Diego county involve people who are having mental health or substance abuse issues. How much did that factor into the development of the blueprint for mental health reform you just introduced this week? Well, it was very important for us to address the huge intersection between mental health, substance abuse and the criminal justice system. So the blueprint was really a product of a year's work from a variety of stakeholders that we brought to the table to develop this one of the 10 recommendations from the blueprint because it all works hand in hand together. There isn't a simple one size fits all solution was to advance and enhance the training for police officers, first responders and dispatchers on how they deal with this large segment of the population with mental health and substance abuse. Speaker 1: 01:57 As you said, one of the recommendations and the blueprint is to give mental health training to first responders. How is this training different from the training officers currently receive? Officers receive training, but our capacity is, uh, the per team can only train about 300 officers a year. We have almost 5,000 officers in San Diego County, and the goal is to help advance that training so every officer can get that training in the next three years. We believe that that can be lifesaving tools that involves stigma reduction, more understanding of the symptoms of delusions of also of methamphetamine toxicity, being able to call paramedics as soon as you notice those symptoms that often turn fatal. And why is giving mental health training for first responders important for helping San Diego County residents who are experiencing a mental health crisis? Draining officers and first responders aren't on how to better respond, how to bring the right tools, how to de escalate it can save that individual's life. Speaker 1: 03:04 It can also help the officer from injury to themselves. It can also build that trust and the relationship with the community. Uh, being able to notice those symptoms really allows you to bring other tools than deadly force to that situation as needed. We believe that it's going to be one of those items that will result in a sea change in how we deal with mental health. One of the other big things that goes hand in hand in this is officers rely on the information that dispatchers give them and that information is often deficient. We produced nine one one cards working with Nami, the National Alliance of mental illness so that the families, when they call, when a mother is calling about a son, about a brother in crisis, she can at the same time describe access to weapons, medications, what has in the best calm this person down and brought down the violence levels, all sorts of information that can assist the officers when they arrive on scene to deal with that situation appropriately. Speaker 1: 04:18 How do you see officers with this training interacting with the county psychiatric emergency response teams? This is really dependent on that interaction. This curriculum is built with the county psychological response team with the per team. We know out of the 54,000 calls that officers receive, there's only capacity for per to respond to 10,000 of them. And even if Burke is present on scene, pert cannot react or get involved until the situation has been calmed down and there are no weapons or violence. So the officers still have to do that initial interaction. So pert and the officers can work hand in hand in a more seamless manner. And the report also recommends the creation of mental health urgent care centers. What services do you envision being offered at this type of center? This is a very exciting innovation that has been brought about in other regions. Speaker 1: 05:18 And the good news is the county board of Supervisors, supervisor Jacob has asked, um, the board and the county officers to bring back concrete recommendations with regard to the creation of mental health hubs. So in many of these interactions, the officers have two choices. Take this person to jail or take them to an emergency room. This offers a third option. When you've identified something as really a mental health crisis, you can take them to this mental health as stabilization hub and they don't have to wait four hours in emergency rooms that we're after a cardiac arrest and other things and their needs. They can be stabilized for a just under 24 hours and offered and connected with the continuum of care and service. And your office is investing 1.5 million for the training of first responders, but at where we'll funding for the rest of the recommendations come from. Speaker 1: 06:20 Um, the funding has to come from different sources. The county government, the HHS save funding, which there is a lot of funding there. Some private public partnerships are being explored with existing hospitals. Um, it's gonna take a whole unified front to come together. This issue cannot be solved by one agency alone, but it is such a priority for me that I wanted our office to basically put our money behind this and I felt that I wanted to spend the money that I have to support these efforts and to get them on their way. I have been speaking to San Diego County district attorney summer in summer. Thank you very much. Thank you. Speaker 2: 07:07 [inaudible].

The San Diego County District Attorney’s office is out with a "blueprint" that lays out a new approach for addressing mental health and the criminal justice system in the county.
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