> CIT officers make up about 15 to 20 percent of patrol officers and receive 40 hours of training that focuses on scenarios derived from actual incidents. Officers receive extensive training in de-escalation techniques.
It's ambiguous whether "officers" in the second sentence refers to all officers or only CIT officers (I read it as the latter). Regardless, according to this analysis only 0.45–3% of all patrol officers receive this training that is specifically with regard to people with mental illness.
Edit in case my math is unclear: according to this research, 3% of all department use CIT or similar. Assuming 100% of officers in those departments receive the training, that works out to 3% of all patrol officers. Assuming only the ~15% of CIT officers receive the training, that works out to 0.45% of all patrol officers.
I did read it as if it were written: 15-20% of Memphis Police patrol officers are also CIT officers
edit: I’d highlight that the authors did emphasize the intensive nature of de-escalation techniques for CIT training and that perhaps they were singling out Memphis as “state-of-the-art” police policy, at that time, with regard to law enforcement officers being tasked with mental health care.
Can dig into the research to find out if anyone has empirically studied the attitudes of the trainers, themselves.
There is no reason to believe that de-escalation training is less normative than that disturbing seminar, either.
In tabular form:
CIT 3%
police-based specialized mental health response 12%
mental- health-based specialized mental health response 30%
no formal policy 55%