Deputy completes CIT training

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Crisis Intervention Team training programs bring community leaders together as they seek to keep individuals with mental illnesses out of jail and in treatment on the road to recovery.

Diversion programs like Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) reduce the number of arrests of people with mental illnesses while simultaneously increasing the likelihood that those individuals will receive mental health services. CIT programs also do the following:

  • Give police officers more tools with which to do their jobs safely and effectively. Studies have shown that CIT is associated with improved officer attitude and knowledge about mental illness. In Memphis, CIT resulted is said to have created an 80 percent reduction of officer injuries during mental health crisis calls.
  • Keep law enforcement’s focus on crime. Some communities have found that CIT has reduced the time officers spend responding to a mental health call. This puts officers back into the community more quickly.
  • Produce cost savings. While it is difficult to estimate exactly how much diversion programs can save communities, incarceration is costly compared to community-based treatment.

Recently, the White County Sheriff’s Department announced that Lt. Will Randolph received CIT training and received his certificate of completion.          

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