Tim Beveridge: Is it time we let police get on with the job they're trained for?

There's a big story, a big call, that's been made by the Metropolitan Police in the UK.

It’s pretty dramatic on the face of it. The police chief there has announced that the Metropolitan Police in the UK will no longer attend emergency calls related to mental health incidents. 

It's not just an advisory; it's an order by the chief to their officers not to attend the thousands of calls that police get every year to deal with mental health issues.

There are two essential reasons given.

One is that in sending police instead of medical professionals, those in a mental health crisis are being failed, and not getting the right people to assist them. And secondly, the failure to the public, in general, and the huge amount of time that it takes away from the police from the essential duties they have in solving and preventing crime, as well as dealing with the victims of crime.

And one of the stats there, which I imagine is quite comparable to here, is it takes about 14 hours to deal with the mental health patient and hand them over to people who are better qualified to look after them.

Now, look, it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see that this issue has likely inevitable parallels with New Zealand.  

If I had a relative who was having a mental health crisis and needed help, I'm actually not sure where I'd turn, especially in the wee small hours. 

Maybe with the challenges that we have with law and order, it is time for us to follow suit and be a bit more hard-nosed about this and make the same call and let the police get on with their job.

And what is their job? Dealing with crime.

Let them look after dealing with crime, preventing crime and dealing with the victims of crime.  

You don't have to look too far, of course, to see that we’re obviously we're not doing well on that. Another $11 million from the Government for fog cannon when it's not stopping some people being robbed. 

So is it time for us to make the same call and let the police get on with the job that they're trained for? But then how do we handle our mental health patients? 

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