You asked if police officers are trained to deal with people with mental illnesses and special needs.

The Police Officer Standards and Training Council (POST) provides four hours of training on issues pertaining to people with special needs. The course teaches police officers how to recognize and deal with people who have special needs, “persons in crisis, and persons demonstrating social/emotional deviance such as neurotic or psychotic behaviors. ” POST provides an additional two hours of training on suicide recognition, management, and intervention. The course emphasizes youth suicide issues.

The State Police provides four hours of training on mental disorders. Additionally, the division provides all police recruits with a police officers’ handbook entitled Citizen’s With Special Needs/Mental Health and Substance Abuse Training, which describes ways to identify and deal with people with mental disorders. The division also addresses some mental health issues in a six-hour course entitled Stress and Post Traumatic Stress, a two-hour course on suicide recognition and prevention, a one-hour course on Alzheimer’s, and various other courses.

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