Is It Safe to Take Away Police Officers and Bring in More Social Service Workers or Can We Combine the Two and Give More Training?

Purpose (and Scope) of the Study

The problem with the current policing in the US is that police officer are not equipped with the skills needed to handle mental health cases. Police officers tend to use force more often than not to maintain law and order. Their approach to situations is threatening since they arrive at a scene with vehicles on sirens and guns. However, some cases, especially those involving mental illness, require a calmer intervention or a more person-oriented and negotiable approach. Due to the mismatch in policing approach for such cases, negative consequences, such as panic, shooting, or escalated tension due to misunderstanding the mentally ill person, have been witnessed (Karma, 2020). That is the basis for the argument that police alone should not be left to deal with mental health issues cases. Nevertheless, some cases are violent, or involved parties are aggressive, which necessitates the use of necessary force. It is therefore also not ideal replacing police with social workers. This problem forms the thesis of this proposal, that police and social workers should be given more training and work collaboratively.

In that perspective, the people involved in this problem are the police, social workers, and mentally ill people. Police officers are currently the primary responders to all emergency calls through 911, while social workers are rarely involved. The victims of this problem are mentally ill because, as Karma (2020), their needs are not understood straightforwardly by the police. This problem is happening throughout the nation, mostly in residential areas.

This proposal prefers qualitative methods using questionaries for exploration of the topic. The policing behavior and the outcomes in cases that concern mental health crises and arguments that infuse interpersonal conflict will be observed, and the data collected will help nullify the hypothesis. Qualitative methods are ideal for this study since they address ” the “how” and “why” research questions and enables a deeper understanding of experiences, phenomena and context” (Cleland, 2017, p.61). In this case, the research will understand how police and social workers can collaborate and how more training will improve policing of mental health cases.

Significance of the Study

One of the functions of the US Constitution is to protect all citizens from injustices. As such, the constitution has given mandates to various sections of the government, leading to a criminal justice system. The US criminal justice system is comprised of the police, the judiciary, and corrections. Over the years, the police have had many controversies which concern hindering the efficiency of the criminal justice system. Issues such as excessive use of force, racial profiling, false arrest and planting evidence, and unlawful stop and search are among the issues facing policing in the US. These issues compromise the integrity of the criminal justice system causes an increased rate of social injustices and crimes in local communities. Although this affects the whole US society, the impact is most severe on a vulnerable population, including people living with mental health issues (Tangcharoensathien et al., 2018). Therefore, it is important to address policing issues that affect vulnerable populations.

In addition, the US is working together with other nations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). One of the key areas addressed by the SDG is ensuring social justice and equity (Tangcharoensathien et al., 2018). However, the problem stated above indicates that although police are the primary stakeholder in the criminal justice system, they have failed to ensure equity. It is not entirely a problem of individual police, but studies have found that policing education and practice pays less attention to the needs of a vulnerable population (Rincon, 2021). Therefore, it is important to address such issues that hinder equity in policing and meet the SDG.

In addition, this study will help in improving the health of mentally ill patients and improve both policing and social work. For instance, while social workers are rarely involved in policing, a collaboration with the police will immerse them into the criminal justice system, where they will obtain incredible data about mental health from a law enforcement perspective. The police will also understand the various approaches other than the use of force, which are effective and lead to a calmer delivery of justice. In the end, it will be a win for the whole society as minimal cases of unintended shooting and unnecessary use of force against mentally ill patients are reported.

Limitations of the Study

In this study, I acknowledge several limitations. First, I investigate the need to integrate social workers and police officers. This is somewhat a broad area since there are several categories of social workers, each dealing with a specific social issue such as substance abuse, psychiatric worker, child and family, among others. Therefore, the results obtained might not apply to all categories of social work disciplines, but they will create a background for future research. Secondly, I will be doing my investigation in Boston, Massachusetts. That makes the results less generalizable since policing policies change from one state to another. In addition, there are different state laws on the mandates of social workers, besides related legal issues such as consent and practitioners’ legal duties (Reamer, 2013). Besides, the study faces the disadvantages of a qualitative study, which include relying on the researcher’s expertise to collect data, difficulty in replicating the study, lack of rigor, and is prone to various biases.

References

Cleland, J. (2017). The qualitative orientation in medical education research. Korean Journal Of Medical Education, 29(2), 61-71. https://doi.org/10.3946/kjme.2017.53

Karma, R. (2020). We train police to be warriors — and then send them out to be social workers. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2020/7/31/21334190/what-police-do-defund-abolish-police-reform-training.  

Reamer, F. (2013). Essential Law in Social Work Ethics. Socialworktoday.com. https://www.socialworktoday.com/news/eoe_101813.shtml.

Tangcharoensathien, V., Mills, A., Das, M., Patcharanarumol, W., Buntan, M., & Johns, J. (2018). Addressing the health of vulnerable populations: social inclusion and universal health coverage. Journal Of Global Health, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.08.020304