Report Recommendation 5.8

Pillar 5: Training and Education

5.8 Report Recommendation: POSTs should ensure that basic recruit and in-service officer training includes a curriculum on the disease of addiction.

BRPD Alignment

  1. BRPD Officers are trained to recognize the signs of addiction and respond accordingly when they encounter individuals who may be impaired due to an addiction.
    • The BRPD Training Academy conducts roughly 35- 40 hours of Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) Academy scheduled. This training is led by an outside instructor from the Capital Area Human Services (Capital Area Human Services) along with guest instructors from various organizations.  Below are bullet point topics included in the CIT, including Addiction:
    • Introduction to CIT
    • CIT in Action
    • Getting Started with CIT
    • Signs/Symptoms
    • Coroner’s Mental Health Investigations
    • Motivational Interviewing
    • De-Escalation Techniques, Part 1
    • Understanding and Preventing Suicide
    • The Bridge Center
    • Review of Major Psychiatric Illnesses and Treatment
    • Developmental Disabilities
    • Homeless Services
    • De-Escalation Techniques, Part 2
    • Mood Disorders
    • Child and Adolescent Intervention
    • Coroner’s Investigations
    • Schizophrenia Simulator Exercise
    • Medications
    • De-Escalation Techniques, Part 3
    • De-Escalation Techniques, Part 4 
    • Alzheimer’s Disease
    • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD
    • Addiction/Recovery
    • Gambling/Recovery
    • Consumer and Family Perspective
    • Assessing Dangerousness
    • De-Escalation Techniques, Part 5
    • Nation Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
    • Domestic Violence
    • Legal Status and Competency
    • Review of CIT Principles

  2. The BRPD partners extensively with other agencies to respond to those situations that require a mental health crisis intervention team. This team combines law enforcement, public health resources, and social service agencies to address complex situations involving persons in mental health crises or domestic violence situations. This strategy addresses both short- and long-term objectives: to avoid dangerous escalations in response to enforcement-based situations and to provide long-term resources to some of our community’s most vulnerable citizens.

    • Recognizing the need for a more comprehensive approach to addressing mental health crisis, BRPD partnered with the mayor’s office, the district attorney’s office, the sheriff’s office, the business community, and mental health providers to bring a crisis stabilization facility to East Baton Rouge Parish. Together, the partners worked with local policymakers to develop a strategy to inform the public about the need for a crisis stabilization center that would be funded through a mental health tax. In 2018, voters in East Baton Rouge approved a property tax of $1.5 million for 10 years, which funds the Bridge Center for Hope. The Bridge Center for Hope opened in February 2021.
    • Since the Bridge Center for Hope opened, police officers have gone from waiting four to twelve hours to drop people off at hospitals or taking them to jail, to drop-offs of less than four minutes. 

  3. East Baton Rouge President Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome’s Safe, Hopeful, Healthy Initiative works to interrupt the cycle of violence, strengthen family support, revitalize neighborhoods, promote academic education, and prioritize access to care.

     

    The initiative centers on implementing mentorship programs, connecting residents to social services, improving the opportunities available within the community through youth development programs, and connecting residents to neighborhood-based public benefits and supportive services.


    Resources