When I started writing this blog in 2011, I’d no idea how long it would last and wondered aloud where it would all go. And here we are – wherever this is – at one thousand published posts. As it feels like something of a meaningless milestone, I thought it might be worth marking by writing about this arbitrary point on the journey. I did write early-on I would have said everything I wanted to say and run out of subject matter by a hundred posts, yet here we are – me still banging on about all of this. And I say “banging on” quite deliberately, I bore myself witless saying and writing the same things over and over again, merely hoping I can do it in different ways each time, or in light of yet another example helping ram home the point – and this year has been the third busiest year on the blog, with over 100 posts totalling almost 150,000 words and it’s been used almost 3,000,000 times by almost 1,500,000 users.
Happy with that! – glad its useful.
I’ve kept going despite feeling I’m now well it to repetition of the same themes and ideas because because although we’ve no learned a lot and talked a lot, we haven’t actually done what we can to put that learning in to practice – and I don’t just mean policing here: I mean “we” in the wider sense of all public agencies. We saw this earlier in the week when His Majesty’s Coroner for Northern Ireland issued quite devastating conclusions after an inquest which followed the unlawful killing of an elderly couple in Portadown in 2017. We see it in ongoing initiatives which have been well covered on this blog where I still have one or two hundred questions to which I can’t easily find answers.
I now use social media much less than previously, having more-or-less come off X (Twitter). I’m grateful to people who’ve been in touch via the blog itself to comment on things, ask questions and to encourage me to keep going. These last twelve months, a number of people have been in touch to talk – it all shows there is still much interest and discussion to be had and it’s probably for that reason I’ve kept writing.
The current time fascinates me, I must say and it’s an unusual position to be in, merely watching on.
LEARNING LESSONS
We’ve seen a resurgence of discussion about the role of the police in the last year, we’ve seen police forces preparing a coordinated initiative to address whatever they think the problem is and I phrase it like that for a reason. It’s not exactly obvious to me what they do think the problem is – I keep hearing things about ensuring the “right care”, but little which acknowledges who is best placed to identify what the “right” “care” is or the reality that the right care may not be available at all because of deliberate choices the country has made. Comments about the “right care” often come after headlines about saving resources so I admit to being curious what the real driving factor is.
And whilst I keep hearing the police need to free-up resources to focus on crime, we see ongoing problems with responses to crime where those of us involved in it are affected by our mental health. It is obvious these recent debates are affecting decision-making in forces who are yet to commence initiatives with mental health professionals reporting on social media and national mental health charities telling Parliament forces are increasingly just saying “no” to requests, even where they do involve crime. Some of the examples sent to me via this blog by mental health professionals terrify me, taken at face value and I’m left with nothing other than hope the incidents have been misunderstood or misrepresented by those who got in touch.
So this has all made me think about where to go next – including whether to continue at all. I’m still keen to be involved in this area for no other reason than it became my life’s work and it’s remains obvious the lessons I’ve tried very hard to highlight and emphasise on this website really haven’t been absorbed — and / or are being actively ignored. I’ve always remained very busy reading, keeping as up to date as I can and frankly, studying this topic as I always have. I’ve have plans on how I intend to take forward more work on this in my personal life, to keep chipping away at this topic so I don’t see an option to pretend I’m no longer interested, especially given comments I’ve received about how the posts help operational officers and others alike.
WHAT PROBLEM ARE YOU TRYING TO FIX?
I continue to think there are a number of problems which require fixing and I’m really not convinced politics and funding are the solution to them all, as is often claimed. But most importantly, I think there is a balance to be struck in how those problems are addressed. Yes, the police are over-exposed to crisis care type demands, many of which are beyond their competence practically and none of their business legally. But in addition, many of those things which require addressing are within the gift of public authorities to affect at little financial cost – primarily, legal training for the staff involved (inc senior staff!) and review of policies and procedures to actually reflect the law. You just need to go online and do some Google searches for policy and procedures to see problems which are often ignored after Coroner’s hearings.
But the fact we over-focus on the police role in crisis care (with a view to reducing their over-involvement) means we under-focus on the police role in crime related to people’s mental health: that’s where things still have the potential to go badly awry, as the Northern Ireland inquest in to the deaths of Mr and Mrs Cawdery show us all too plainly. The inquest reveals, as others have, the link between effective, timely crisis care and crime – the ensuring of one can often be about the prevention of the other (and quite obviously about suicide prevention). Other inquests which have involved unlawful killings have come off the back of poor responses to those of us in need to urgent, unscheduled care and it still remains true those of us who live with mental health problems are more likely to be victims of crime than those without – three times more likely overall but some specific demographic disparities are even more shocking. Women affected by their mental health are ten times more likely to be victims of violent crime, than women who are unaffected – TEN TIMES! We see much of that reflected in domestic homicide reviews and serious domestic abuse cases, sadly.
So I’m not convinced we’re getting this right, either in terms of fixing problems, all too often undefined, or in terms of striking the balance between mental health and criminal justice responses to those of us in need. There are a number of death after contact investigations ongoing with the IOPC, Coroners are having to point out again things we’ve known about for many years now and it’s interesting how the various initiatives over the last ten years to address whatever we think the problem is are all focussed on the imperative to reduce police involvement in crisis care responses, not on addressing the need to improve police involvement in crime responses involving those of us who are mentally ill. There is much still to do and if the blog is still useful to those of you kind enough to read it, I’ll keep writing it in order to highlight ongoing events and cases which may be of use to those involved in it.
I wish you and yours all the very best for Christmas and 2024.
Michael./
Winner of the President’s Medal,
the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Winner of the Mind Digital Media Award
All opinions expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation.
(c) Michael Brown, 2023
I try to keep this blog up to date, but inevitably over time, amendments to the law as well as court rulings and other findings from inquests and complaints processes mean it is difficult to ensure all the articles and pages remain current. Please ensure you check all legal issues in particular and take appropriate professional advice where necessary.
Government legislation website – www.legislation.gov.uk
Mental Health Cop 