Law Commons^™

"Defunding" The Criminality Of Mental Illness By Funding Specialized Police Training: How Additional Training And Resources For Dealing With Mental Health Will Be Beneficial For All Sides, Margaret Ahern

Journal of Law and Health

The momentous public outcry for police reform is the result of police encounters ending fatally, which is notably sixteen times more likely for individuals suffering from mental illness in the United States. These horrific incidents highlight the systemic failings of traditional police departments training and its failure to provide officers with the necessary skills to de-escalate crisis situations involving the vastly overrepresented mentally ill population involved in the United States justice system. This article demonstrates that effective police training involving crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques equip police officers with knowledge and skills that enable them to contrive more positive outcomes …

Reforming The High-States Gamble Of Covert Government Seizures, Jonathan Witmer-Rich

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In a covert government seizure, police secretly enter a home when no one is present and seize contraband, often staging the scene to look like a burglary. These covert seizures are authorized by delayed notice search warrants. This Article identifies two serious problems with this practice and proposes reforms.

The first problem is that a successful covert seizure will likely provoke violent retaliation against innocent third parties. If the target of the covert seizure--say a drug dealer--believes someone has stolen a valuable drug stash, the dealer will seek to kill or harm whomever they believe conducted the burglary. The statute …