Big rise in Police call-outs to mentally-ill

Queensland Police attended more than 300 incidents every week last year involving mentally-ill people raising questions of the State government’s release protocols.

LNP police spokesman Vaughan Johnson said the call-out rate to incidents involving mentally-ill persons was up alarmingly with the rate last year (2009) up 8.35 per cent on 2008 – government figures, table below.

“Clearly police are being asked to attend a growing number of incidents, where in many cases the behaviour is of a threatening and violent nature,” Mr Johnson said.

Mr Johnson said while the rise in incidents involving mentally-ill across the state rose 8.35 per cent, there were very big rises in the police Central region (up 23 per cent) and the Metropolitan South region (up 18 per cent).

“We need to ensure our police officers are not being used to increasingly cover for failures in other areas of mental health management.

“The real question for the Bligh Government is whether mentally-ill persons who should be in care are being dumped back into our communities to save costs.”

Source – Police Minister answer to QON – No. 122