As loved ones prepare to lay to rest a Fairhope Police officer who died last week after suffering from mental illness, Baldwin County Sheriff Huey “Hoss” Mack explained how local law enforcement can be impacted heavily by the mental health crisis.
With more people leaving policing due to a harsher environment, police departments are experiencing major shortages, which add to officers' stress. Officers may feel burnt out and overwhelmed at the end of a long career.
Mack said the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office can focus on mental health for deputies, police officers at local departments, and people in the community.
The sheriff’s office has a peer-to-peer program for law enforcement. Deputies experiencing crisis are connected with other deputies who have experienced similar situations. When a member of law enforcement is killed in the line of duty anywhere in the county, an extra layer of support is given.
“Unfortunately, we've had this,” Mack said. “If we have an officer that's killed in the line of duty, we deploy not only our chaplains, but we also deploy a part of our crisis intervention team to work with that agency and do debriefs and counseling.”
“We basically walk with them through the process, which is what we're doing with Fairhope,” Mack added. “We deployed our team to Fairhope that night, and we'll continue to do so.”
There are also public components in place for the sheriff's office.
The jail is part of the nationwide “Stepping Up Initiative, where Mack says inmates are put through an initial assessment and offered help based on a point system.
“Then they might get referred to our medical department for an additional assessment, which then refers them to an in-house case worker that's going to assess them to determine if they need to see a physician,” Mack explained.
The Stepping Up Initiative follows up with inmates after being released from jail.
Another aspect is the sheriff’s office’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT). CIT is called when an officer responds to someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis. There are currently 25 certified CIT officers.
“Law enforcement's only option to protect that individual and that family might have only been to arrest that individual for disorderly conduct, things of that nature, and take them to the jail, which is really where they didn't need to be,” Mack said. “Now, when they respond, they do a basic interview. They're trained to deal with those people.”
“They actually have a tablet that they can go through,” he said. “And they can actually contact a counselor by that tablet 24/7, and then we work with them to get them to the crisis center.”
The sheriff’s office performs around 35 to 40 interventions each month. Mack said it has improved the treatment of those in the community dealing with mental illness. He is also working with the Baldwin County Commission to reconfigure 12 jail cells into mental health cells.
Each cell will be monitored 24/7, and inmates will have access to treatment within the facility.
There will be male and female mental health cells. The project is expected to begin in October.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email erica.thomas@1819news.com.
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