British Columbia Schizophrenia Society

Lost in Transition: How a Lack of Capacity in the Mental Health System is Failing Vancouver’s Mentally Ill and Draining Police Resources:

To view a printable version of this report in its entirety, please click here: vpd-lost-in-transition.pdf

Executive Summary:

The purpose of this report is to provide a quantitative analysis of the prevalence of Vancouver Police Department (VPD) calls for service that involve mentally ill clients; to identify the significant factors that contribute to the frequency of these incidents, and the potential consequences for a mentally ill person who comes into contact with police; and to describe the capacity gaps in the mental health system’s response to the mentally ill from a police perspective. This report is the official position of the VPD and the Vancouver Police Board.

Anecdotal observations of calls for police service in the City of Vancouver in the first eight months of 2007 suggested a marked increase in those involving people who were mentally ill. Specifically, a significant number of disturbances, minor property offences, aggressive panhandlers and similar incidents that contribute to disorder and perceptions of a lack of safety in some communities were believed to be attributable to mentally ill people.

Additionally, there were a number of suicides and other tragic incidents involving mentally ill people that drew the attention of members of the VPD Executive, who were interested in knowing if this perceived increase was reality, what the causes were and what could be done about it.

This report is a summary of data collected over a sixteen-day period from September 9, 2007 to September 24, 2007 of police incidents that involved a person who was suffering from the effects of a mental illness. The calls were documented by patrol officers who indicated if they believed that the mental health of an involved person was a factor in police attendance. In total, 1,154 calls for service were recorded and, of those, 31% involved at least one mentally ill person; in some areas of the city this figure rose to almost half of all incidents where police contact was made with an individual.

Although the police members were not required to confirm any diagnosis of mental illness, the expectation of the patrol members to use their subjective judgement is consistent with the intent of the British Columbia Mental Health Act, whereby officers are afforded the power to apprehend a person based on their observations. In any case, generally speaking, when police identify that a mental health issue exists, the symptoms are readily apparent and would likely be obvious to any layperson. The result is a probable underestimation of calls for service that involve a mentally ill person as opposed to an overestimation.

A conservative economic analysis suggests that police time spent dealing with incidents where a person’s mental illness was a contributing factor in police attendance is equivalent to 90 full-time police officers, at an annual cost of $9 million. This would not include indirect policing costs, or the costs to other agencies such as the ambulance service, hospitals, or the court system.

There are several possible contributing factors to the excessive police interactions with mentally ill individuals. These include a mental health system that has not kept up with the loss of resources in the wake of deinstitutionalization; a profound absence of information sharing between mental health resources in the Lower Mainland; and an unwillingness on the part of service providers to fully utilize the provisions of the Mental Health Act due to a lack of available resources and/or personal ideology. These services are particularly sparse for people who are mentally ill and also addicted to illicit drugs or alcohol. Although patrol officers have become front line mental health responders, investigating over 1,744 incidents where an individual was arrested under the provisions of the Mental Health Act in 2007 alone, the options available to them when interacting with a person who is mentally ill are limited to institutions (jail, court, hospital) that are struggling to accommodate people for whom they lack capacity and/or were not designed to manage.

In particular, the Downtown Eastside is a predictable example of what happens when people who need various levels of community support are left to fend for themselves. Drawn by cheap accommodation and access to services, they are often the victims of predatory drug dealers, abusive pimps and unsavoury landlords who take advantage of their vulnerabilities.

These people are consequently coming into frequent contact with VPD members who in turn rely on the provisions in the Criminal Code in the absence of an acceptable response from hospitals to admit mentally ill patients.

Patrol members in the VPD receive adequate training to manage the current reality that up to 49% of all calls they attend in which contact with an individual is made involves a mentally ill person. In addition to police academy instruction, all new members are required to complete a comprehensive four-day “Crisis Intervention Training Course” within their first few years of service. Additionally, patrol officers can rely on the crisis negotiator team, Car 87, and the Police Records Information Management Environment (PRIME) for assistance.

Many of the problems described in this report are illustrated through “Corey’s Story”. Corey O’Brien was a young man who had the rare combination of both intellect and athletic prowess. Raised in a loving and supportive environment, Corey was a talented athlete, gifted artist and excellent student. After successfully graduating from High School, he thwarted university recruitment attempts to accept an enviable position at one of the country’s largest animation firms. Regrettably, with the onset of schizophrenia, Corey’s world changed dramatically. The story of his struggle and the tragic conclusion to this promising man’s life is documented to provide a real life illustration of the issues covered in this report. The key finding of this research is that there is a profound lack of capacity in mental health resources in Vancouver. The result is an alarmingly high number of calls for police service to incidents that involve mentally ill people in crisis. VPD officers, along with the citizens with whom they come in contact, are bearing the burden of a mental health system that lacks resources and efficient information sharing practices, often with tragic consequences. In an effort to address the current situation, several recommendations are made that centre on the need to better serve people who are mentally ill in Vancouver.

Topic Category: Advocacy