Editorial
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRPP-03-2017-0015 |
| Date | 12 June 2017 |
| Pages | 77-78 |
| Published date | 12 June 2017 |
| Author | Philip Birch,Nick Crofts |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology |
Philip Birch and Nick Crofts
Three international conferences on the intersection of law enforcement and public health
(LEPH) –Melbourne 2012, Amsterdam 2014 and 2016 –have shown a vast range of areas and
issues in which the partnership between the two sectors is critically important in devising and
implementing the most effective approaches to complex social issues. This area, newly identified
academically but with a long and respectable history (e.g. Bittner, Punch), is beginning to receive
long overdue scrutiny with the realisation that effective approaches to these issues come only
with multi-sectoral collaborations and partnerships. The conferences demonstrated that
these issues are manifold –the last conference highlighted themes including mental health,
violence (especially gender-based), crises and catastrophes, infectious diseases (especially HIV)
and trauma (especially PTSD and road traffic), but there are many more areas that can be
considered. This special issue of JCRPP highlights a few of the more important areas, including
papers from talks given at the 2016 LEPH Conference providing an excellent illustration
of the range of substantive themes: mental health, domestic/family violence, child abuse and
alcohol-related harm; and of some overarching issues of leadership and collectivisation of
responses. It should be emphasised, and the papers herein manifest this, that few of these
issues exist in the single person or the single situation in isolation –mental ill-health, alcohol, other
drugs and violence all commonly inter-relate and reinforce each other’s untoward impact.
As Julian et al. observe in this issue, this movement to recognise the importance and examine the
operation of LEPH is gaining worldwide traction (Jardine, 2013; Wood et al., 2013). They note
how, “LEPH is an evidence-based multidisciplinary approach that challenges the way law
enforcement and health are currently administered, shifting from intersection to integration at the
level of program design upwards. This trend is particularly relevant to how we understand
prevention, treatment and harm reduction interventions in many areas of policing and health”.
An area in which the intersection of LEPH is especially critical and often tragic in its
consequences is that of mental health crises, in which behaviours can be constructed
simultaneously as being criminal in nature or manifestations of ill-health. The history of police
encounters with those undergoing a mental health crisis is strewn with tragic outcomes.
Two dominant approaches to these issues are joint responses by police and mental health
agencies to such crises and mental health crisis intervention training for police. Thomas et al. in
this issue (a focus for mental health training for police) focus on the latter, examining mental health
training for police in the USA, Canada and Australia to facilitate improved outcomes for people
experiencing mental health crises. Their finding that availability and uptake of mental health
training programmes offered internationally remains piecemeal and idiosyncratic indicates a need
for police agencies to better recognise and invest in such programmes. But Thomas et al.
emphasise the need for operational experiential learning, which police strongly prefer, and
extended training for specialist officers –and, critically, further examination of the effectiveness of
different approaches to training. We would argue that the need for collaborative approaches in
such situations also requires increased attention from the mental health sector. Current and
former patients can play a very useful role in the education of both police and mental health
agencies in dealing with mental health crises.
An example of the former approach, that of integrating service sectors in their responses to
mental health (and other personal) crises is that piloted on the Isle of Wight and examined here by
Matheson Monet et al. (multi-agency mentoring pilot intervention for high intensity service users
of emergency public services: The Isle of Wight Integrated Recovery Programme). Integrating or
embedding trained police officers with mental health services –or the other way around –has
much evidence to support increased safety and effectiveness of responses, but is not without its
DOI 10.1108/JCRPP-03-2017-0015 VOL. 3 NO. 2 2017, pp.77-78, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2056-3841
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JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH, POLICY AND PRACTICE
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Editorial
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