Knowledge And Attitude Of Police Officers Towards Mentally Disordered Offenders On The Decision To Divert: A Case Study In Accra

ABSTRACT The obligation towards handling of offenders with mental impairment has been a long battle among stakeholders. With the overrepresentation of Mentally Disordered Offenders (MDOs) in the Criminal Justice System (CJS), many of the affected individuals go unnoticed, undiagnosed, untreated and have poorer health outcomes. In spite of the various researches conducted about MDOs, little is known about them in Ghana. For example, little is known about the attitude of police officers towards MDOs and the influence of the diversion legislation which is to intercept MDOs from the Criminal Justice System (CJS). A cross – sectional survey was conducted with a sample of 379 police officers in Accra Region through the use of purposive and convenient sampling techniques. The attitude towards MDOs was measured by PACAMI – O, attitude towards mental illness was measured by Day’s Mental Illness Stigma Scale, knowledge of diversion legislation was measured by a newly constructed instrument by the researcher and the decision to divert was measured by Original Conceived Items. The findings revealed that knowledge of the law on diversion had the greatest degree of influencing the decision to divert MDOs amongst attitude towards MDOs and mental illness. Nevertheless, the results from this exploratory study revealed that attitude towards MDOs and the knowledge of the law on diversion do not influence the decision to divert MDOs. These findings call for continuous education and training of police officers on mental health. Also, further investigation will be needed to understand the attitude of police officers towards specific mental illness. In addition to that, prison officers, lawyers and judges could be included in further studies as comparison groups since they are all institutions within the Criminal Justice System. However, this study was limited by unavailability of senior ranked police officers to participate in the study and a qualitative approach to better understand the lived experiences of police officers and diversion.