CIT Overview"What holds the promise for our future is when someone comes along with fresh eyes who can look at a problem from a new perspective, and who then says “what if we tried this?”
In 1988, in Memphis, Tennessee, just such a person came along. Responding to a series of bad outcomes involving police use of force against people with serious mental illness, then Lt. Sam Cochran developed a new approach, partnering with mental health colleagues to develop the first Crisis Intervention Team (CIT).
Rather than focusing on blaming someone or something for the bad outcome, Lt. Cochran decided to develop a novel approach to policing that has spread across the country. Now, less than 25 years later, nearly every state has at least one CIT, and there are international conferences focused on this unique approach."
