CIT-trained officers: what they are and what they aren't

If you call 911 in the United States during a psychiatric crisis, the officer who shows up may have a green pin on their uniform that signals they are CIT-trained — a graduate of the 40-hour Crisis Intervention Team training developed in Memphis in 1988. CIT is now the dominant model for training US police to respond to mental-health calls, and tens of thousands of officers have completed it. It has measurable benefits. It is also nowhere near the solution it is sometimes presented as. Families need to understand both halves of that.

How CIT started

The Memphis Model emerged in 1988 after Memphis police shot and killed a Black man in psychiatric crisis. The community pushed for a different approach. The Memphis Police Department, working with NAMI Memphis and local mental-health providers, designed a 40-hour curriculum. Officers volunteered for the training; those who completed it became the designated responders to mental-health calls. The model spread nationally through advocacy by NAMI and was widely adopted in the 1990s and 2000s.

What the training covers

A typical 40-hour CIT week includes:

• Education on major mental illnesses (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, autism, dementia)
• Lived-experience panels with people who have psychiatric diagnoses
• Family panels with caregivers
• De-escalation techniques specific to psychiatric calls
• Site visits to local psychiatric facilities and crisis services
• Role-play scenarios with actors
• Information on local resources for diversion

The official model also requires that the broader department supports CIT-trained officers — that dispatchers know how to identify mental-health calls and route them to CIT officers, and that local crisis facilities can accept drop-offs from police without long ER waits.

What the evidence shows

Research on CIT outcomes, summarised in publications including by NAMI and in Psychiatric Services, suggests:

• CIT-trained officers are more likely to divert people in psychiatric crisis to mental-health services rather than jail.
• Officer attitudes toward mental illness measurably improve after training.
• Use-of-force in calls handled by CIT-trained officers is somewhat lower than non-CIT.
• Effects on injury rates and arrest rates are real but modest.

The most important caveat: outcomes are best in cities that have built the full system around CIT — with dispatch protocols, dedicated facilities, and broad department buy-in. In places that did the training alone without the system, the impact is much smaller.

How to ask for a CIT officer

When you call 911 for a psychiatric crisis, you can — and should — say the words explicitly:

• "This is a psychiatric emergency."
• "Please send a CIT-trained officer if available."
• "My [son/wife/brother] has [diagnosis] and is in crisis. He is unarmed. He is in [room]."

Whether the dispatcher can route a CIT-trained officer depends on your jurisdiction. Some cities (Memphis, San Antonio, Houston, Albuquerque) have dispatcher protocols that automatically route mental-health calls to CIT officers when available. Many smaller jurisdictions do not.

What CIT training does not change

This is the part that is often left out of the success stories.

• The officer is still armed. A CIT pin does not change the fact that the person walking into your home has a gun. For some people in psychosis, the presence of a uniform and a weapon is itself a trigger that makes de-escalation harder.
• 40 hours is short. A nurse takes 2,000+ hours to become licensed; a clinical social worker takes years. CIT is meaningful but it does not produce a clinician.
• The system around the officer often isn't there. If the local ER takes 12 hours to see a psychiatric patient, CIT officers default to the same options non-CIT officers have — arrest or wait.
• It does not eliminate disparate outcomes. Research has consistently shown that race continues to affect outcomes of police encounters with people in mental-health crisis, including encounters with CIT officers.
• It is voluntary. Departments cannot force every officer to take CIT, so on any given shift, you may simply not have a CIT-trained officer available.

When to ask for a CIT officer — and when to ask for something else entirely

Ask for a CIT officer when:

• You have called 911 because of immediate physical danger
• You need a uniformed presence and there is no time for mobile crisis
• You know your local department has CIT and a working dispatch protocol

Ask for something different when:

• The situation is not actively dangerous — try 988 or your local mobile crisis team instead
• Your loved one has trauma history with police and a uniformed response is likely to escalate
• A clinical-only response is realistically available and the wait is acceptable

If a CIT officer arrives

Things that help:

• Meet the officer outside if you can, so you can brief them before they enter
• Tell them the diagnosis, current medications, and what specifically is happening
• Tell them what has worked in past crises ("she calms down when she can be alone in her bedroom for a few minutes")
• Ask if they can call mobile crisis or a co-responder if available
• Ask if they can transport to a crisis stabilisation unit instead of the ER

The bigger frame

CIT is genuine progress over what came before. It is not the future of mental-health crisis response. The countries that get this right — and a growing number of US cities — are building parallel non-police systems (988, mobile crisis, peer respite) so that the question "police or no police?" can usually be answered with a clear "no police needed." CIT bridges the world we have to the world we are still building. Use it when you need it. Build the alternatives when you can.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified mental health professional. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.