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Legal
Questions Answered:
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Question Title: court requirements for police training on EDP's
E-Newsletter
Edition: July 18, 2007
Always note that state law may be
more restrictive on police power than the U.S. Constitution.
Do you know how many hours the courts are requiring police departments
to train their officers in the area of mental illness/emotionally
disturbed persons?
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I will tell you that the “best practice” presently
available is the 40 hour CIT training that was modeled after Memphis,
TN- The “Memphis
Plan” is what everyone cites as the way to go- this involves
a 40 hour block of instruction. The court cases, for the most part,
have not criticized law enforcement on the length of instruction-but
that may come. Bear in mind, that a lot of departments have not
figured out the potential exposure in this area and as a result
do not do any training at all. I hate to admit
this,
but
the courts
continually say, if you do something (even a little) you overcome
the standard of care for training which is, deliberate indifference.
If you do something, your trainers and agency have not been deliberately
indifferent.
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