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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A new report says law enforcement officers in Los Angeles County need more training to handle the mentally ill.
The Los Angeles Times (http://bit.ly/1tjwchD ) says the report released Wednesday comes from a consulting agency hired to find ways of keeping the mentally ill out of jail.
It recommends expanding law enforcement use of special teams to handle people having mental health crises and says there should be more safe places for those people.
The report says it's often easier for an officer to jail someone on a minor charge than spend hours waiting for that person to be seen at a psychiatric emergency department.
It's estimated that 17 percent of men and 24 percent of women in county jails are mentally ill — and the percentage nearly doubled since 2011.
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