By C1 Staff
TUCSON — The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is adding crisis intervention training and mental health education to the list of correction officer necessities.
PCSD deals with over 300 court orders a month related to mental illness, reports KVOA. With the numbers on the rise, Chief Deputy Christ Nanos said everyone who enters the force needs to be well prepared.
Thirty-eight new corrections officers joined the force with a type of specialized training normally designated for officers with years of experience under their badge. It’s an attempted to make sure 100 percent of the Sheriff’s Department knows how to handle mentally unstable suspects as soon as they walk through the door.
PCSD is technically the largest mental health facility in Southern Arizona, Nanos explained, so it’s turning to experts in the field to train incoming recruits.
All new PCSD corrections officers and deputies going forward will receive crisis intervention training and mental health education while in the academy.