A Deadly Dance: The Police and the Mentally Ill

by B. Lana Guggenheim

Police brutality against citizens, particularly minorities, has been much discussed these past few years. However, one minority group has been ignored: the mentally ill. Across the USA, and beyond, police are frequently the first responders to situations involving the mentally ill, usually with dire consequences for the latter. Reliable statistics on police interaction are difficult to find, but anywhere from one-tenth to a quarter of all police interactions involve the mentally ill, approximately 15-20% of those in jail suffer mental illness, and about one quarter to one half of those shot by police struggled with mental illness. Estimates are that people with mental illness are sixteen times more likely to be killed by the police. While being ill is not a crime, being mentally ill is often criminalized, and problems involving or associated with people with mental illness often involve police, who are often not properly trained to handle such situations.

It is commonly but inaccurately thought that people with mental illness are likely to be violent or engaged in violent crime. While a small percentage are indeed more violent than the general population, this is not true for the majority. Most people with mental illnesses are not criminals, and of those who are, most are not violent. That these non-violent people in need of help often end up in jail or worse is an avoidable tragedy. After all, nurses and other medical staff are unarmed, unarmored, and they aid mentally ill patients every day, with no fatalities on either side.

Part of the problem is that our gutted health system cannot handle the burden of caring for the people who need it most. Many mental health clinics are closing, leaving their patients without the care they need, and they often end up on the streets as a result. And the top mental health institutions in the nation? They are found inside jails like in New York City’s Riker’s Island, Cook’s County, and Los Angeles County. Because the existing system withholds treatment until a mentally ill person becomes dangerous to themselves or others, police officers are forced to act as the front line in mental health work. Instead of treating the illness, people call the police and if things go relatively well, the ill person is arrested for things like loitering, shoplifting, or public urinating. Too often though, they get shot instead.

Riker's Island Correctional Facility

The lack of services is exacerbated by the lack of training. Many officers are ambivalent about being the front-line of mental health services, seeing it as outside their mandate to protect the safety of the public, and that caring for the mentally ill is properly the mandate of the healthcare system. This attitude is reinforced by the lack of training available to police officers about recognizing mental illness, mental health crisis intervention, and lack of contact or cooperation from mental health and emergency services. Police are trained to respond to criminal threats with shows of force and authority, which can escalate a crisis for a person suffering a breakdown. The resulting injuries and deaths are traumatic both for the officers, but especially for the victim, their friends and family, and the wider community as a whole.

The Washington Post reports that most of the mentally ill killed by police are men, and over half of them white. Most of them died close to home. Often, the police are called by family members who are overwhelmed and worried about their relative’s erratic behavior. For example, Yvonne Mote of Alabama dialed 911 in March of last year hoping the police could help her schizophrenic brother, Shane Watkins. He was shot and killed by police instead. While an average of nine out of ten of the mentally ill confronted by police were armed with some kind of weapon, they were mostly less lethal than firearms, including toy guns, or knives, or even pens. A percentage of these people are military or police veterans suffering PTSD as well. And according to the data maintained by the FBI and other organizations, only three officers have been killed by edged weapons in the past decade. However, of the thousands killed by police over the years, only a few officers have been prosecuted. For example, Dallas police officers John Rogers and Andrew Hutchins were not indicted for killing mentally ill Jason Harrison for holding a screwdriver in Dallas in 2014.

Jason Harrison

Some police departments have changed their policies. One such is the Las Vegas police department, who adopted a use-of-force policy in 2009 that put the highest premium on the “sanctity of human life,” which stresses proportionality as a guiding principle to limit the use of force. Four years in, the police shootings have fallen by nearly half. However, restrictive policies are not a panacea, as while they lead to fewer injuries for officer and civilian alike, they also lead to more crime.

While it is tempting to advocate rebuilding both the law enforcement and healthcare systems from the ground up, it isn’t practical advice. A number of communities have recognized the terrible situation for what it is, and developed programs that foster collaboration between police and mental health service providers, with noticeable success. These programs can take a variety of forms, such as mobile teams of police and mental health professionals to respond to crisis events, reception centers where specially trained officers can address persons suspected of having mental illness, crisis intervention teams, and joint protocols between police and mental health clinics or hospitals. Police are trained to de-escalate a situation and increase meaningful communication, including nonverbal communication skills, such as recognizing body language and active listening, alongside verbal communication skills that focused on tone of voice, portrayed empathy, and establishing rapport, rather than the opposite. It is a drastic shift in culture and behavior of traditional policing.

Mental Health Liaison officer Grant Humerickhouse (right) assists
 training with the Madison Police Department

In communities where such programs have been instituted, such as in Houston, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee, and Akron, Ohio, results of implementing these programs have been positive. Results have included getting those in need access to the support they lack, including crisis centers. Individuals referred to mental health services experienced less frequent contact with the police, and in cases where police transported people in need to crisis centers and hospitals, an increased percentage of those transportations were voluntary rather than involuntary, and family members have reported greater comfort in calling the police to request help for a loved one, as well as openly acknowledge the mental illness of their relative. And the police department incurred fewer costs, including less frequent mobilization of high-cost SWAT teams. Interestingly enough, the average number of mental health calls also tended to increase, but the amount of time spent on each call decreased, along with a decreased use of force. This shows that trained officers were better able to both recognize and handle calls that involved individuals with mental illness.

However, relatively few officers have received crisis intervention training, nor is this policy pursued across the country. Combined with the cutbacks in mental health service, the future of more such collaborations looks shaky. That leaves too many people dangerously vulnerable, with nowhere else to turn.

Images courtesy of Daily Mail, Yelp, and the Madison, Wisconsin Police Department

Works Cited

Cordner, Gary. "Center for Problem-Oriented Policing." Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. SUNY: University at Albany, 2006. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Corey, E. Fuller, Dr. "Law Enforcement Interactions with Mentally Ill." Law Enforcement Interactions with Mentally Ill. Mental Illness Policy, 2011. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Kindy, Kimberly, Marc Fisher, Julie Tate, and Jennifer Jenkins. "A Year of Reckoning: Police Fatally Shoot Nearly 1,000." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 26 Dec. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

King, Shaun. "American Tragedy: At Least 50% of Police Shooting Victims Struggled with Mental Illness." Daily Kos. Daily Kos, 5 Apr. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Krameddine, Yasmeen I., and Peter H. Silverstone. "How to Improve Interactions between Police and the Mentally Ill." Frontiers in Psychiatry. Frontiers Media S.A., 14 Jan. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Landsberg, Gerald. "Neglected Issues -- Police Killings of the Mentally Ill and the Lack of Police and Mental Health Relations." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 Apr. 2013. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Lennard, Natasha. "Half of People Shot by Police Are Mentally Ill, Investigation Finds." Saloncom RSS. Salon.com, 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Lowery, Wesley, Kimberly Kindy, Keith L. Alexander, Julie Tate, Jennifer Jenkins, and Steven Rich. "Distraught People, Deadly Results: Fatal Shootings by On-duty Police Officers." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 30 June 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"Mental Health Liaison/Officer Programs." Special Units. City of Madison Police Department, 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"Of All U.S. Police Shootings, One-Quarter Reportedly Involve The Mentally Ill." NPR. NPR, 04 July 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"People Living with Mental Illness Propose Improvements to Interactions with Police in Canada." PsycEXTRA Dataset (2005): n. pag. Canadian Mental Health Association, Mar. 2005. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Reuland, Melissa, Matthew Schwarzfeld, and Laura Draper. "Law Enforcement Responses to People with Mental Illnesses: A GUIDE TO RESEARCH-INFORMED POLICY AND PRACTICE." Council of State Governments Justice Center (2009): n. pag. Council of State Governments Justice Center. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Szabo, Liz. "People with Mental Illness 16 times More Likely to Be Killed by Police." USA Today. Gannett, 10 Dec. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Teller, Jennifer L.S., Mark R. Munetz, Karen M. Gil, and Christian Ritter. "Crisis Intervention Team Training for Police Officers Responding to Mental Disturbance Calls." PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES 57.2 (2006): n. pag. Ps.psychiatryonline.org. PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES, Feb. 2006. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Tellier, Stephen. "Officers Push for Increased Mental Health Training Funding after 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Investigation." KSTP.com. ABC Eyewitness News, 01 Mar. 2016. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Watson, Amy C., Melissa Schaefer Morabito, Jeffrey Draine, and Victor Ottati. "Improving Police Response to Persons with Mental Illness: A Multi-level Conceptualization of CIT." International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 15 July 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Wilonsky, Robert. "Dallas County Grand Jury Declines to Indict Officers Who Killed Man Holding Screwdriver." The Dallas Morning News Crime Blog. The Dallas Morning News, 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Poisoned Apples & Privacy: Apple vs. the FBI

By B. Lana Guggenheim, Staff Writer

Update: On Monday, March 28, 2016, the US Department of Justice asked the federal judge overseeing the suit to drop the case, as the FBI had found another way to access the iPhone's information without assistance from Apple. Read more updates on the case here.

On December 2, 2015, in San Bernardino, CA, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, committed mass murder inspired by Islamic extremist terrorist organizations, having evidently become self-radicalised via the Internet. Neither had a criminal record, nor were they on Terrorist Screening Database lists. But on that day, the two nonetheless killed 14 and injured 22 in a mass shooting and attempted bombing. Since then, there has been a massive investigation underway, which naturally includes the couple’s technology.

The couple had already destroyed their personal phones, but Syed’s employer-provided phone was recovered intact. Apple was handed a warrant for the information the couple stored in their clouds, and the company cooperated. A great deal of information is already in the hands of the FBI; however, not all the data was uploaded to the cloud, particularly the shooter’s online activity in the months immediately leading up to the attack, as well as where they traveled and who they might have contacted just minutes after the attack. The FBI has thus far been unable to unlock the phone, in part due to Apple’s encryption of user data, which itself was a development to foil government surveillance of civilian personal data, a fact that garnered a lot of attention due to Edward Snowden’s whistle-blowing in 2013.

However, the FBI is partially in a mess of its own making; they lost the chance to capture much of that encrypted data when they ordered the password to Farook’s storage in the iCloud be reset shortly after his criminal rampage. They had believed that resetting the password would enable them to access the information stored on the iPhone. Instead, it locked them out and eliminated any other means of getting in. Apple had wanted them to try to connect the phone to a “known” Wi-Fi connection - in other words, one that Farook had used and stored in his phone, as doing so might have recovered some of the information saved to the phone since October, after which it had not been connected to the iCloud. Once connected, the phone would have automatically backed up the data to the Cloud, and Apple would have been able to access it and hand it to the FBI. However, the automatic update would likely not have backed up all relevant data, and thus the FBI asserts they would have been forced to seek Apple’s assistance anyway.

In order to access this information, the FBI has requested that Apple write a program - essentially a crippled version of their iOS software - that would act as a back-door to their own technology, disabling the feature that wipes all data on the phone after 10 incorrect password attempts. This would allow the FBI to use a computer to cycle through any number of PIN combinations, eventually hitting the correct one to unlock the phone, a process that would take less than half an hour were Apple to provide the back-door as requested. Though the FBI told Apple that the key they demand from them would be for this one application only, James B. Comey Jr., the director of the FBI, admitted that “of course” they would seek to unlock other encrypted phones were they to prevail in the San Bernardino case.

Apple has refused to cooperate, with its CEO Timothy D. Cook arguing that this would set a dangerous legal precedent for all user privacy, as such a program could be used against any and all Apple users, both in the hands of the US government, foreign governments, and bad actors alike. Apple attorney Marc Zwillinger states that “This case is about the Department of Justice and the FBI seeking through the courts a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe.”

Several other tech companies have also voiced their concerns about creating such encryption-breaking back-doors for the government. Speaking at a congressional hearing last week, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said “We at Microsoft support Apple and will be filing an amicus brief next week.” An amicus brief, or amicus curiae, literally “friend of the court,” allows someone not party to a case to offer information that bears on said case, even if it has not been solicited by any of the parties involved. “My experience in security technology tells me that the creation of the firmware….would give enough blueprint for the government (and the hackers who have demonstrated proficiency at hacking government) to exploit millions of other iPhones,” wrote Pravin Kothari, CEO of cloud security specialist CipherCloud in a statement emailed to Fox News. Some legal analysts say this is a “Pandora’s box” of unknowns. “If a court has the power to order a third party like Apple to devise software that it does not already possess [to aid in surveillance], what can’t a court order a company to do?” asks Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at American University. “There’s a real search for a limiting principle here that we haven’t identified.”

The FBI says they are requesting custom software that would apply to only that device, and offered to let Apple install the program itself to ensure it doesn’t leave Apple’s campus. But while that proposal seems to ensure the containment of the code, in practice, once the code is created, it is only a matter of time until it leaks - whether through incompetence by the ones holding it, or from being targeted by hackers. Andy Sellars, a lawyer specializing in technology issues at the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard Law School says that “the privacy benefit right now comes from the fact that nobody knows how to do this. Not Apple, not the FBI, and we think not the NSA...As soon as Apple does this, there’s no way this wouldn’t get out, be stolen, be leaked. There is no way that would stay a secret.” Apple’s lawyers write that “given the millions of iPhones in use and the value of the data on them, criminals, terrorists, and hackers will no doubt view the code as a major prize and can be expected to go to considerable lengths to steal it, risking the security, safety, and privacy of customers whose lives are chronicled on their phones.” Nor would the security breaches be limited to Apple technology. “In the meantime...criminals will continue to use other encryption technologies, while the law-abiding public endures these threats to their security and personal liberties,” adding that this is an “especially perverse form of unilateral disarmament in the war on terror and crime.” Apple contests that heeding the FBI’s request will result in less security, not more, and very quickly at that.

But the government counters that the public safety is at stake. This case of domestic terrorism resulted in more deaths than any other case since 9/11. New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said the government’s requests are reasonable, especially in a case that has ties to the so-called Islamic State, or ISIL, as this case seems to. “No device, no car, and no apartment should be beyond the reach of a court-ordered search warrant. As the threats from ISIL become more divergent and complex, we cannot give those seeking to harm us additional tools to keep their activity secret,” he said. The NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau says that phones that can’t be cracked leave the city and country at large vulnerable to terrorists and criminals. “Do we want to create an army of devices where they are impenetrable to a search warrant signed by a court?” said NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism and Intelligence John Miller. “It should probably be decided by someone other than just Apple.”

In order to force compliance from Apple, the FBI invoked the All Writs Act of 1789. This Act allows the courts to compel people to perform actions within the limit of the law, so long as it is not unduly burdensome. It is a vaguely worded piece of legal literature, and as such is open to constant re-interpretation. The government has used this Act before to gather information from phone companies. In 1977, they forced New York Telephone Co. to give them technical assistance in accessing phone calling records. The phone company cited undue burden in order to deny the government this assistance, but the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the phone company could be compelled to assist as it was already collecting this information itself for business purposes, such as billing customers, detecting fraud, and troubleshooting. The government used the All Writs Act again more recently when they linked the All Writs Act to the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act in 1999 when the government required all cellphone providers to be able to geo-locate their customers’ phones. However, the Act has its limits. For example, a federal judge ruled in 2005 that the Act could not be used to force a phone company to allow real-time tracking of a phone without a warrant.

Nor is this the first time Apple has refused to comply with a request for information either. In a currently active criminal investigation in Brooklyn, New York, Apple has refused to comply with the FBI and the All Writs Act in unlocking an iPhone 5s that the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) had seized in a drug investigation, belonging to one Jun Feng, who was suspected of drug trafficking. In fact, Apple has been involved in nine cases since October, including two in Manhattan and the aforementioned one in Brooklyn, the latter involving two phones. But on February 29th, New York federal magistrate Judge Orenstein ruled that Apple did not have to comply with the FBI’s request. Though this ruling isn’t legally binding in regards to the San Bernardino case, it may wield some influence. But Attorney General Loretta Lynch has agreed with California federal magistrate Sheri Pym in defending the government’s demands that Apple assist the FBI (though she did not name the company by name), saying this legal battle shows how encryption is a real threat to law enforcement and that judges do indeed have the authority to direct third parties to assist the government in gathering evidence.

Apple argues in both cases that rendering this assistance and delivering such a back-door code would be unduly burdensome for them, as it would severely harm their reputation, and thus cause them significant economic harm, thereby putting the FBI’s request outside the jurisdiction covered by the All Writs Act. The FBI counters that writing code is part of Apple’s normal set of activities, and therefore is not burdensome. But Apple is also citing their First Amendment rights, as code is legally recognized as a form of speech, and therefore is protected as such. Apple asserts that being forced to write new software would be an act of “compelled speech and viewpoint discrimination,” which is indeed outlawed by the First Amendment. And, were they to do this, the government could demand Apple do it again, including writing code to turn on the microphone, activate the video camera, record conversations, and turn on location services to track a phone user - and that last one is already illegal without a warrant.

Apple is also citing their Fifth Amendment rights to due process. In Apple’s own words, the FBI, by “conscripting a private party with an extraordinarily attenuated connection to the crime to do the government’s bidding in a way that is statutorily unauthorized, highly burdensome, and contrary to the party’s core principles, violates Apple’s substantive due process right to be free from ‘arbitrary deprivation of its liberty by the government.’” While Constitutional arguments are not likely to be relied upon this early in the case, given the large likelihood this will move to an appeals court and further, “Apple needs to include all of its arguments in the lower court if it wants to raise them again in a higher court,” said Larry Downes,  project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.

To complicate matters further, both Apple and the FBI have asked Congress to step in and settle the question of when and how law enforcement can get access to citizens’ private data. Professor Joel Reidenberg from Fordham University’s Center on Law and Information Policy agrees. “Congress really ought to be doing [this] rather than a magistrate judge in Brooklyn, a magistrate judge in California, [and] a couple judges here or there. It is really a national policy choice,” he said.

Policymakers say they want a compromise between the two, but that isn’t exactly possible. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have proposed a national commission on security and technology challenges, modeled on the panel Congress formed to investigate the security and intelligence failures before 9/11, which would bring together experts such as law enforcement officials, cryptographers, and technology company representatives, to develop viable recommendations on how to balance both security and privacy concerns, which are now so at odds.

But it is hard to envision a way to selectively undo encryption protections without doing away with the concept of having encryption entirely. “Either Apple weakens security or they do not,” says Bruce Schneier, a cryptography and security expert. That Apple even can work around their own encryption, even if it is with difficulty, intimates that their iOS software is more vulnerable than any of us might wish to admit. However, as technology continues to evolve, future versions might be more secure and prevent the work-around that the FBI is demanding Apple provide.

The court has set a deadline of March 10 for the government to respond to Apple, and a hearing is scheduled for March 22 in the US District Court of Central California.  Whenever Magistrate Sheri Pym delivers her decision, the case will be appealed no matter the ruling. If the magistrate rules in the government’s favor, as she did in February, and Apple refuses to comply, the government can ask the court to fine Apple. This was a strong-arming tactic used in 2008 against Yahoo after they fought a court order to hand over data under NSA’s PRISM program, and the government threatened Yahoo with a $250,000 daily fine if they refused to comply. But Apple CEO Tim Cook said he is willing to take this fight right to the top - the Supreme Court. Apple has already hired the renowned Washington attorney Ted Olsen, a man who earned his fame when he successfully represented former President George W. Bush in his Supreme Court battle of Bush vs. Gore, in which he won Bush the 2000 presidential election.

Ultimately, this case will not be settled soon, and we can look forward to a period of bitter litigation. Privacy and civil liberties have tangled with national security needs before, though the tension between the two has escalated since 9/11. But as society continues to become ever more dominated by rapidly evolving and invasive technology, both our security and privacy needs will change - likely faster than the law can keep up. The results of this case will set the tone for much future litigation on the issue, as well as our control over our own private, for now, data.  

Sources
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https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600923/in-apple-vs-the-fbi-there-is-no-technical-middle-ground/

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-me-ln-apple-says-fbi-demand-violates-its-constitutional-rights-20160225-story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/why-apple-is-in-a-historic-fight-with-the-government-over-one-iphone/2016/02/17/c512c9ba-d59b-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.html?tid=a_inl

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/02/17/tim_cook_says_apple_will_resist_federal_order_to_unlock_san_bernardino_shooter.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-fbi-apple-legal-20160219-story.html

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-all-writs-act-1789-has-do-iphone-180958188/?no-ist

http://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/technology/apple-and-fbi-face-off-before-house-judiciary-committee.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1

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http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/03/01/us-cannot-make-apple-provide-iphone-data-in-drug-case-ny-judge-says.html

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/24/loretta-lynch-justice-apple-san-bernardino/80843576/

http://www.scmagazine.com/apple-doesnt-have-to-unlock-iphone-new-york-judge-rules/article/479953/

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Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Keeping the Lights On: Electricians in America

As we rapidly approach the holiday season, millions of American households are being covered with all manner of lights & festive electronic decorations of every kind. We all know the houses in our neighborhood that go all out for the season & probably spend more in a month on electricity than most households do in a year! However, one of the aspects of the holiday fun that most people either ignore or do not know about is the increased risk of fire from all of these holiday-related electric devices & lights. Every year, over 50,000 fires are caused by electrical failures or malfunctions, with 30% of these happening during the holiday season. Dry Christmas trees, too many light strings attached together, overloaded electrical outlets, & lights/devices left plugged in too long are some of the main causes of house fires during the holiday season.

In connection with this focus on safe holiday decorating, we're focusing this week on a profession

that can help ensure your decorations are safe: electricians. Electricians are professionals who install and maintain electrical power, communications, lighting, & control systems in homes, businesses, & factories. They have worked through a 4 or 5 year apprenticeship program that is designed to teach them what they need to know to work on the job in many different capacities. This program includes in each year at least 144 hours of technical training & 2,000 hours of paid on the job training. Most states require electricians to pass a test and be licensed. Requirements for licensure vary by state. There are a wide variety of industries & jobs that electricians can work in, but 2 main classes of electrician are inside electricians & residential electricians. Inside electricians maintain and repair large motors, equipment, & control systems in businesses & factories, while residential electricians install wiring & troubleshoot electrical problems in peoples’ homes. To learn more about these dedicated & essential professionals, check out our helpful infographic below. And be sure to keep tuned in to our Facebook & Twitter pages all week for more great electrician & holiday-related content!

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