2.2.3: Cognitive-Behavioral Psychology in Law Enforcements

Those who investigate and enforce the law are as human as those who offend and are just as susceptible to beliefs and attitudes that misrepresent objective reality. Heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow us to filter and process the massive amount of information we are faced with daily. Heuristics are necessary to allow humans to make decisions, but they can be affected by cognitive bias (Beck, 1963; Beck, 1995).

Confirmation bias is the tendency to over-value evidence that confirms our beliefs over evidence that counters our beliefs. For example, police will more often encounter marginalized individuals as criminals. They may form a belief that Indigenous or BIPOC individuals are more likely to be criminals than White individuals. This affects their behavior going forward, as when they encounter non-White individuals, they seek evidence confirming this individual is engaged in criminal behavior. Racial profiling is the inevitable result of confirmation bias, in which people of color are more likely to be stopped by police than White people (Charman et al., 2017).

Medical Model of Psychopathology and Criminal Behavior

Although mental illness would seem to fall solidly in the camp of individual psychology, the interface between mental illness and criminality is as much socially determined as it is individually determined.

Theories that draw a straight line between individual mental illness and criminal behavior rely on the medical model of mental illness, with its focus on abnormal psychology. In the early 1900s, doctors and psychiatrists began seeking ways to classify recurring patterns of thought and behavior that significantly reduce an individual’s ability to function in an attempt to diagnose and treat “mental illness” utilizing an approach similar to that used to deal with physical disease.

Today, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2022) is used in North America to diagnose mental disorders. The DSM-5-TR describes mental disorders, their symptoms, and the criteria for diagnosing them. The DSM-5-TR seeks to ensure clinicians are consistent in their communication about disorders and diagnostic criteria and researchers are consistent in how they define disorders so that they can meaningfully add to the body of scientific knowledge. As most research that informs the DSM has involved predominantly White Americans, it is acknowledged that there is limited evidence of the cross-cultural validity of the DSM. To the extent that mental illness leads to behaviors that violate the norms and standards of a particular society, people with mental illness would be expected to have a higher rate of contact with the criminal justice system.

In the United States, people with mental illness are over-represented in the criminal justice system. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA), it is estimated that 18% of the general population has a mental illness. However, an estimated 44% of those in jail and 37% of those in prison have a mental illness. It is estimated that 11% of 18–25-year old’s, and 6% of those over 25 years old have a substance use disorder. It is estimated that 63% of people in jail and 58% in prison have a substance use disorder. People with these disorders have challenges in getting appropriate treatment and often incarceration exacerbates their symptoms. This can lead to individuals staying incarcerated longer than those without behavioral health concerns.

Upon release from incarceration, people with behavioral health issues face many barriers to successful reentry into the community, such as lack of health care, job skills, education, stable housing, and poor connection with community behavioral health providers. These factors may jeopardize their recovery and increase their probability of relapse and re-arrest.

To reduce the human and fiscal cost and consequences of repeated arrests and incarceration for people with behavioral health issues, SAMHSA approaches the work through:

• Early identification of individuals with mental and substance use disorders at all points of contact with the justice system – pre-arrest, booking, adjudication, reentry.
• Use of screening and assessment to ensure linkage with evidence-based treatment, services and support.
• Diversion of individuals from the justice system into home- and community-based treatment.
• Engaging law enforcement, first responders, and crisis management teams, justice court personnel, and community treatment providers in diversion strategies that meet both clinical and public safety needs.
• Provision of training and technical assistance for law enforcement officers, juvenile and family court judges, probation officers, and other judicial decision-makers on behavioral health issues; and conversely, training for behavioral health treatment providers on criminogenic risk and the criminal and juvenile justice system.
• Provision of an array of services and support to enable successful reentry into the community for those transitioning from incarceration or detention.
• Assurance of equitable opportunities for diversion and linkage to community services and support for all populations to decrease disproportionate minority contact with the justice system.
• Promotion of cross-sector collaboration to better serve these populations dually involved with the behavioral health and criminal justice systems.

Although social factors such as underfunded mental health systems, poverty, deinstitutionalization and a lack of access to treatment play a part in the over-representation of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system, some mental illnesses include criminal behavior as part of their diagnostic criteria, including antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, psychosis, and substance abuse disorders.

In-group bias is the tendency to trust peers and colleagues more than those outside your in-group. Police form a very strong “in-group,” as they are mutually dependent on one another for safety and support. In-group bias plays a role in identifying and managing inappropriate police behavior, as complainants are less likely to be believed than police officers (Smith & Alpert, 2007).

The cognitive bias of criminal justice officials has been documented in the literature (see Meterko & Cooper, 2022) and influences how our society defines, investigates, and prosecutes criminal behavior. These biases also influence the way police and prosecutors deal with the intersection of mental illness and criminal and criminalized behavior.