Police Officers Overwhelmed by Mental Health Incidents

A senior officer has stated that frontline police officers are overwhelmed by the daily volume of mental health incidents they must address. Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson informed a Stormont committee that the frequency of these contacts has reached “unprecedented levels”. The PSNI received nearly 40,000 calls concerning individuals potentially at risk over the last year, with only 3% of these calls being crime-related. Mr Henderson commented that society is “criminalising mental health” by assigning police officers to handle vulnerable individuals experiencing crises. He suggested that the public would be “shocked and surprised at just the sheer scale and amount of time” the PSNI dedicates to tasks that might not be perceived as traditional police duties. He further stated: “The police service have become the emergency service of first resort for mental health crises in Northern Ireland.” He added, “If you talk to our call handlers or our frontline officers, they would give you a very real insight into how overwhelming that has become in terms of volume,”. Mr Henderson noted that this situation is not unexpected, stating: “For those of us who are involved in this work would know, that would not be a surprise, as Northern Ireland is acknowledged to suffer higher rates of common mental health problems, higher rates of psychosis, higher rates of addiction than similar sized populations.” Mr Henderson reported that police handle an average of 107 mental health incidents daily, estimating that over 100,000 hours of police time are expended on these annually. He informed MLAs that this represents an annual cost of approximately £4m. He emphasized the inappropriateness of the current approach, stating: “This is not right for those members of the public who are in a health crisis.” He continued, “I don’t think there is anyone who thinks that having a police officer with their gun, their stab proof vest, their handcuffs should be the mental health support for someone in health crisis for significant periods of time.” Mr Henderson highlighted that the substantial call volume results in reduced general policing, occurring amidst considerable financial strain and with the PSNI operating with its lowest officer count since its inception. He contrasted these duties with what he considers core police responsibilities, stating: “It feels that the threats to our community are becoming ever more challenging – four women murdered in a six-week period since August at the hands of men, race hate riots in the summer, the awful (Alexander) McCartney catfish case, the continued shadow of paramilitarism and the criminal exploitation of young people.” He concluded, “That is police work, that is protecting our communities from harm.”