While there are no hard and fast rules about what Specialized Policing Response (SPR) model is best for what community, our research has shown that classic Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) approaches appear to work best in communities with “medium-sized” law enforcement agencies. We generally think of small agencies as those with fewer than 25 officers and large communities as those with greater than 100 officers. There are many small and large communities with successful CIT programs, however, allowing for some modifications. For example, very large law enforcement agencies may deploy CIT-trained officers only in certain areas, often those with the highest volume of calls related to people with mental illnesses. We advocate developing a SPR by tailoring specific program elements to the problem at hand in the individual community (e.g., safety concerns or inefficient access to mental health services) and the available mental health resources. The Council of State Governments Justice Center released a publication about how to match programs elements to specific communities titled “Tailoring Law Enforcement Initiative to individual Jurisdictions.” This publication can be downloaded for free from:

http://consensusproject.org/jc_publications/tai…

My understanding is that law enforcement agencies are not a “covered entity” under HIPPA. Consequently, HIPAA does not affect what information police can collect from individuals, what information police can document about these encounters or what information law enforcement can share with mental health.

I urge communities grappling with this issue to consult the work of John Petrila, who is an expert on this topic. You can begin by reviewing the following resource on the Consensus Project website: http://consensusproject.org/documents/0000/0940…. This article touches on this issue and refers to additional resources from Professor Petrila.