Policing and care in mental health crisis response: Boundary work and the politics of safety and authority

Key Points

• Mental health crisis response involves intricate authority dynamics, shaping community interactions with care systems.
• Findings suggest that policing practices can influence perceptions of safety within mental health contexts, potentially limiting effective care.
• Analysis of boundary work highlights the tensions between the roles of policing and mental health interventions in crisis situations.
• These insights may enable improved collaborative frameworks, fostering better outcomes in mental health support scenarios.