ABSTRACT
The police are in the front line in dealing with mental illness in the community. Their everyday work involves encounters with people with psychiatric problems in the context of disturbed behavior, social disintegration, and exclusion as well as reported crime. The mentally ill commit criminal offenses through public disorder, substance use, survival offending, psychotically driven law-breaking, and criminal activity disinhibited by illness. Only a small proportion of contacts will lead to detention.
