AIBU to think mental health crises should not be treated as antisocial behaviour

[Serencwtch]

TW: Some references to suicide.

In my local area Police have started a new initiative to reduce the demands & costs involved in attending to 'concern for welfare'/mental health crisis type calls.

They have issued a number of formal enforcement notices and warnings using Antisocial Behaviour legislation to people who have caused inconvenience through mental health crisis/suicide attempts in public places. These enforcements are community protection warning (CPW), Community Protection Notice (CPN) & Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBO).

I know one individual very well who has received one of these & they were very distressed by it & have now become very withdrawn & secretive. It's also difficult as a loved one as if I was concerned this person may be at risk I would be hesitant to involve emergency services as even a call to ambulance would likely result in police attendance & therefore have criminal implications for them. I also can see that it has increased their risk but in a more secretive & less public way. No doubt police consider this a success as they have not been called out to them.

I fully understand the pressures on police, I have friends & family that have served as officers & police staff. The funding cuts are every bit as bad as NHS or social care but with less public awareness.

This doesn't sit right with me at all. I think it's misuse of legislation designed to tackle antisocial behaviour & that a mental health crisis/someone attempting to take their life should not be labelled as antisocial behaviour.

The parallels may well be extraordinary - this sort of life experience isn't a one off. Could just as easily be describing my youth! Or that of others I know of (some of us recovered and some completed suicide).

But they are not offered "more constructive options"!

The whole service operates in a fire-fighting way, only acting at crisis point then sending people off again once they're vaguely stable.

With issues based in trauma there's usually nothing on offer at all. People can't just rock up at the GP and ask to be referred for therapy (IAPT will not take complex or severe cases). They end up desperate and not thinking straight and these mad cries for help occur.

If we listened the first time they'd be a lot less likely to re-occurr.

Sorry yeah that's what I meant. Apologies if that wasn't clear. The second part of my post showed I found it unfair to criminalise them.

I meant the comments about the troll you were quoting rather than you. I agree with what you are saying

I think it’s dreadful .Often people get to this state because of awful life experiences, then dire services and lack of treatment. This way of handling it means you chuck in the stigma of a record on top which makes the rest of life and recovery even harder .

Should antisocial behaviour management measures be used in place of mental health support referrals. No.

Is it reasonable to say that they should never be used when there’s also a mental health component. Also no.

There will be some circumstances when there’s a potential for mutual benefit. Eg. Restricting access to a certain location.

Not exactly. The conditions are that they cannot leave their accommodation when in mental health crisis and cannot call the mental health crisis line whilst outside the home.

It's a part of a wider policy to push demand into ambulance service & NHS rather than police.

For context ambulance would attend a mental health crisis at a private fixed address whereas the police would be deployed if the person was in a public place.

It doesn't really address the problem & disregards safeguarding of the individual.

And this notification/order was issued after the 4th time the person had done this?

The community protection warning (CPW) was issued on the 3rd incident, the community protection notice (CPN) after the 4th.

If they are seen in any type of distress by police outside of their accommodation that could now result in arrest & fine as they would be committing an offence by breaching the conditions of the CPN.

That does seem a bit more global than the ones I have seen issued in our area which were more about being banned from going to particular locations like Mway bridges and railways which seemed proportionate to me. If the person in fact lives in supported accommodation then it seems more reasonable.

Theres a newish police policy called in true Orwellian fashion ‘Right Care Right Person’ that I thought had been rolled out nationally which limits police from responding to a lot of the stuff they previously did like welfare checks. Overall I tend to think it’s a good idea. Sometimes police responses to MH crisis have actually resulted in fatalities eg due to prone restraint. That says to me that the direction of travel is less criminalisation not more. Similarly places of safety no longer being police stations which they always were when I started a good few years ago.

In our area it would not be public vs private that determined police or ambulance it would be more about whether a crime had been committed and if not then a health ie ambulance response is more appropriate. MH services do not have any blue light crisis response so ambo is the closest you’ll get. Our area has some MH nurses deployed with police and ambulance but I don’t think that’s the case in all areas.

Well this is usually what CAMHS or other MH professionals call 'behavioural' then

Suicidal ideation and attempts are often behavioural, habitual behaviour to deal with an intensity of feelings which are being expressed that way as a maladaptive coping response, see also self harm.

The person you use as an example doesn’t have a diagnosis.

So… would it be the case that someone could engage in anti social behaviour and then claim to have a mental health illness and be excused?

They were attempting suicide. They weren't engaging in any antisocial behaviour.

The police are using the powers outside of the intended purpose which is what concerns me.

They very much do have serious mental health issues just not a diagnosed & easily treated illness eg schizophrenia, bipolar that could be treated. They are a vulnerable & traumatized young person with a history of abuse & the care system.

What did their 4 attempts at suicide involve? An overdose in their bedroom?
Or out in public, involving number police officers, passerbys trying to go about their business, children potentially walking up, travellers held up? That kind of thing

Were all 4 attempts at the same location in public?

Yet their victims may end up with mental health issues because of the criminals in the first place, where do victims stand in all this?

There are no victims. They are not committing a crime.

This is the most balanced post on this whole thread. I agree entirely and SOME people with mental health conditions would indeed be well served with proper consequences to encourage them to change their ways and coping strategies.

If my child saw someone jumping off a bridge on to a passing car and was seriously traumatised - hell yes there is a victim

The 4 suicide attempts - what did it involve? Same location?

I am guessing not in their bedroom but rather a public place involving lots of police, road closures, bystanders

@Serencwtch what is your friend saying thy want to happen?
who has advised that they have a severe undiagnosed mental health problem?

They were attempting suicide. They weren't engaging in any antisocial behaviour.

That doesn't really make sense. You could equally say: They were just having fun at a noisy party/dumping a sofa they no longer wanted/doing a bit of early morning DIY.

The behaviour is antisocial in virtue of its consequences, not a specific intention to cause problems for others. In this case, the consequence is wasting police time with knock-on effects for policing elsewhere.

Also, where the attempts are public and repeated, it is reasonable to think of the distinction between attempted suicide and threatened suicide. Threads in the Relationship topic on MN very often speak of a husband/boyfriend's threats of suicide, made as a way of getting control over partners and making them afraid to leave, or afraid to establish reasonable boundaries.

If we can easily understand the aggressive nature of suicide threats in that context, surely it is easy to see that a subset of incidents repeated, public, suicidal behaviour are inappropriate attempts to control the police, NHS, social workers, friends and family.

@Serencwtch how do you know so much about this teenager to the extent you have access to police reports?

Someone can have poor emotional health, poor mental health you might say but not have a MH condition, MH professionals say this is behavioural, its a learned response to feeling distress or overwhelmed about something but is coping in the wrong way, its not a MH condition though. New responses and coping strategies need to be learned.