Cops 16x more likely to kill people with untreated mental illness [View all]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/mental-illness-a-smoking_b_8839128.html

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A new study released last week by the Virginia-based nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center reported that people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by police than people without.
In fact, people with severe mental illness account for one in four of all fatal police encounters. One reason for this is that those suffering from mental disorders are more likely to come in contact with authority figures: Although less than four percent of the general population suffers from severe mental illness, they generate 10 percent of all calls for police services and they take up at least 20 percent of spots in American prisons -- where, it should be noted, they are often unable to get the care they need.

Another reason may be that police officers often lack the training to approach the mentally unstable, according to a report published earlier this year by the Washington Post. This lack of training, of course, makes little sense, given the significant size, and possible threat, of that very population -- of an estimated eight million Americans living with severe mental illness, half, according to the TAC report, are untreated.

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