Mental Health Stigma and Police Violence: Exposing Historical and Contemporary Realities

Background: Not only does exposure to police violence worsen mental health, but individuals living with mental illness are more likely to experience violence at the hands of police. Police continue to be the first line of response when a mental health crisis arises, yet a lack of training and knowledge of or existence of available resources often worsen these situations. Arguably the rise of deinstitutionalization that led to dramatic reductions in the amount of people being served in inpatient facilities by the 1970s created greater pressures on law enforcement responses to mental health crises. Larger societal stigma surrounding mental health also exacerbates a general lack of understanding for effectively supporting individuals living with mental illness. Often overlooked is the role that journalism plays in spurring mental health stigma by either sensationalizing the issue, reinforcing dominant stereotypes of mental health, and diagnosing an individual without the appropriate clinical qualifications. Deploying case study analysis, this paper compares the intersection of mental health and police violence historically and how news media describes police violence victims using organizational archival data.

Methods: This study utilized archival data on police violence from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of over 100 incidents of police violence that occurred in St. Louis, Missouri between 1960 and 1980 (N=141). Drawing from this sample, a case study analysis was conducted to examine more specific cases that involved the intersection of mental health and police violence (n=6). The sample included individuals who were reported by the news media source to have been experiencing mental health challenges during the police violence incident.

Results: Among the six individuals in the sample, all were male, between 17 to 59 years old, and all were armed with a weapon. Unfortunately, all individuals were killed by police except for one individual who was allegedly unarmed and a St. Louis police officer at the time of the incident. Analysis of these six cases allowed for a more in-depth look into the complexity of police violence incidents that intersect with alleged mental health crises. Results also draw from the often-insensitive descriptors used by local news outlets when describing the mental health of a victim of police violence.

Conclusion: This study contributes methodologically as an approach to decolonize police violence research by leveraging organizational sources of data that would otherwise be erased from historical memory. Utilizing organizational archival data provided a foundation to better understand historical narratives related to the intersection of police violence and mental health. Findings also highlight the carelessness media engages in when covering incidents of police violence involving individuals with suspected mental health issues. These descriptions arguably reflect larger societal views of mental health that are often mired in stigma. This case analysis emphasizes the importance of “person-first” language which aims to emphasize the person rather than their illness, condition, or disability. The onus of unlearning stigmatizing labels and learning “person-first” descriptors is not solely on service providers or researchers with expertise in these areas, but on society overall.