Better equip the police to deal with psychological distress
This new development worries the PS. Socialists believe that law enforcement must be given full tools to manage cases of psychological distress. “Managing interactions between police and people with mental or psychological disorders presents several complex challenges.”they warn in a proposed resolution tabled in the House in mid-December.
People with mental disorders who commit a crime plunge into the abyss of internment
In 2017, the Standing Committee for the Control of Police Services (Committee P) highlighted that the police were not able to properly deal with the mentally ill by “lack of clarity” in the instructions relating to how to intervene with them. Committee P therefore recommended that Parliament legislate and that the ministers in charge – Justice, Interior and Health – provide clarity.”on what the police can and cannot do to properly intervene with the mentally ill”.
A series of complaints, included in a 2023 Committee P report, shows that the police’s treatment of people with mental difficulties still needs to evolve significantly. Families and doctors testified that they did not feel listened to by the police, which would have led to an escalation of tensions in these specific situations. The suffering person would have even ended up being locked in a police cell rather than receiving the medical-psychiatric help they needed.
Unnecessarily locked up
In 2023, the head of the Brussels-Ixelles police zone, Michel Goovaerts, indicated at a press conference that an inestimable percentage of the 10,000 people arrested each year in his zone for disturbing public order would find themselves in a cell even though they had nothing to do there.
“We lock up 10,000 people every year for disturbing the peace. That’s 30 a day. If someone commits criminal acts, that makes sense. But a lot of these people suffer from psychological disorders, but they have done nothing punishable. These people have no place in a cell.”
The PS therefore asks to evaluate the urgent psychological and psychosocial support system for the police existing in the Brussels police zones (Brussels-Ixelles, Brussels-North and Brussels-South) to see how to extend it to other local police zones. It’s important”to ensure the best possible care for people suffering from psychological and/or psychiatric problems”, writes MP Ridouane Chahid.
