Urge NYPD, Mental Health Staffs Coordinate on EDPs; Privacy Concerns Main Obstacle

The General Counsel to the city's Criminal Justice Coordinator Oct. 28 made recommendations for revising NYPD policy towards emotionally disturbed people concerning treatment and notification before a City Council committee that is considering a law to create a database of contacts with such people.

KAREN AGNIFILO: Wants database of prior EDP calls.

Karen Agnifilo said 18 percent of the offenders in the justice system have a serious mental illness. Of the 10 million 911 calls received annually by the NYPD, roughly 90,000 involve emotionally disturbed persons, or EDPs as they are called by the police. "The panel recognized that contacts with the criminal justice system are potentially important opportunities to identify a significant number of individuals with mental illness and either ensure continuity of treatment or provide links to appropriate mental health services," she testified at City Hall. "This could, in turn, reduce the risk of violence and promote public safety."

The NYPD arrests roughly 1 percent of the emotionally disturbed people the Emergency Services Unit comes into contact with.

Wants Information Shared

The General Counsel said the lack of sharing of information between mental-health providers and the NYPD significantly hampered police. "Barriers imposed by privacy laws, which are intended to safeguard personal health information, prevent sharing mental health information with the criminal justice system without consent, even when that information could help ensure continuity of care or help determine whether an individual may be an appropriate candidate for treatment-based alternatives," she testified. "Second, the panel found that the criminal justice system could be enhanced to provide better training, supports, and tools to identify and engage individuals with mental illness."

City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. and eight of his colleagues sponsored a bill that would require the Police Department to create and maintain a database of information collected after police contacts with emotionally disturbed people. The hearing came a month after NYPD Lieut. Michael W. Pigott committed suicide in response to departmental discipline for his role in the death of a mentally ill man, who fell head-first 10-feet from an awning after he was Tasered on Lieutenant Pigott's order.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at a press conference Oct. 30 that the legislation "may be problematic to privacy issues."

Bill 'Comes With Baggage'

"I think it comes with baggage," he said, suggesting that a location-based solution would be a better fit for the NYPD. "What we are hoping for is that the Police Department is informed and information is put into a database of facilities that take care of people who have a history of emotional problems."

At City Hall, Ms. Agnifilo also suggested a location-based database of prior calls involving emotionally disturbed people would better prepare the Police Department. "Indeed, 911 calls often involve information only about a location, rather than identifying the specific individuals involved in an incident," she testified before a joint hearing of the committees on Juvenile Justice, Mental Health and Public Safety. "An identification from a name-based database, without other confirming information, could lead to mistaken identification and potential confusion, rather than providing useful information to the responding officers."

The sharing of information between mental-health providers and police, though, remains a touchy issue. "The panel determined that such information-sharing could be beneficial; however, there are significant impediments to this information-sharing, including privacy laws, lack of mechanisms in the criminal justice system to routinely screen for mental illness, and the inability of criminal justice and mental-health data systems to facilitate sharing of information," she said.

Ms. Agnifilo said the stigma attached to emotionally disturbed people was a chief concern preventing the sharing of information. Currently, only Texas allows such sharing. She suggested several pilot programs to bridge the information gap without violating privacy. "The goal of these projects is to determine whether information-sharing under current laws can enhance continuity of care and reduce the likelihood that individuals with mental illnesses will repeatedly cycle through the criminal justice system," she said.

Screening Proposals

First, Ms. Agnifilo continued, individuals who are arrested should be screened for mental-health problems. Case managers can then be notified where appropriate. Another pilot will involve the use of post-arraignment mental-health screening in Bronx Criminal Court for defendants sentenced to brief community-based programs. "This screen will seek to identify appropriate candidates for more in-depth mental-health assessment, intensive engagement, and voluntary case management as an alternative to the original sentence," Ms. Agnifilo testified. Lastly, she suggested, an alternative to detention programs should be set up for mentally ill people awaiting trial who do not pose a flight or recidivism risk.

Call for Special Probation Unit

The Council report prepared for the hearing found "poor coordination, fragmented oversight and lack of accountability in the mental-health treatment system," and suggested, among other things, the creation of a dedicated mental-health unit at the Department of Probation.

In a letter in support of the legislation, Council Members wrote that the current policy of police not keeping records of EDP contacts who are let free is not putting the information to its best use.

"One aspect of the complexity of these calls is that the police know very little, if anything, about the emotionally disturbed person, including whether or not he or she suffers from mental illness, has weapons, or is prone to violence," the Council Members wrote.