Hillary Clinton Made A Key Point About Mental Health And Policing

[Rob L 3,811]

Her nod to this during the presidential debate is heartening

Reports on the first presidential debate of 2016 have largely focused on Hillary Clinton’s one-liners and Donald Trump’s penchant for interruptions, but Clinton also managed to squeeze in a key point about mental health and policing that’s gotten far less media attention.

It came after a moderator Lester Holt asked whether or not police are implicitly biased against black people.

“I’ve met with a group of very distinguished, experienced police chiefs a few weeks ago,” Clinton said. “They admit it’s an issue.”

And according to the police chiefs Clinton consulted, a second pressing problem for law enforcement officers is insufficient training on how to interact with mentally ill constituents in crisis situations. While this is a separate issue from race,discrimination against the mentally ill is widespread and extends beyond policing.

“Police are having to handle a lot of really difficult mental health problems on the street,” Clinton explained. “They want support, they want more training, they want more assistance. And I think the federal government could be in a position where we would offer and provide that.”

If elected, Clinton promises to allocate $1 billion of her first federal budget to law enforcement training programs to reduce implicit bias, according to NPR.

Law enforcement training on bias is actually part of Clinton’s larger mental health plan, which calls for more funding for community mental health centers, increased research on the brain and behavior, and better access to care and insurance coverage for psychiatric disorders.

The police are right to want more training in this regard. According to a Washington Post investigation tracking fatal shootings by police last year, one in four police killings involved a person with mental illness.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-train-police-to-help-the-mentally-ill_us_57ea8416e4b082aad9b6fb12?

[Jacque67 7,328]

Bring back Law and Order!!!!!!! One of the best shows everrrrrrrrrrr!!!!