Psychology Commons^™

Dangerous Criminals Or Misunderstood? Assessing Police Perceptions Of The Mentally Ill, Amy Roach

Psychology Theses

People diagnosed with mental illnesses are often confronted with stigmatization and discrimination because they are stereotyped as dangerous and unpredictable. Police officers are typically the first to respond to a potentially dangerous mentally ill person and therefore, it is important to understand how police officers’ perceive mentally ill persons and how they respond to a call regarding a suspect displaying symptoms associated with mentally illness. Sixty police officers read one of six vignettes involving a call to investigate a suspicious male loitering behind a store. The vignettes differed only on the perceived severity of the mental illness (mild or severe) …