Crisis Intervention and Mental Health Response
What the exam tests
Crisis Intervention and Mental Health Response tests recognition, communication, legal authority, and coordination with mental-health providers. ND questions often involve emergency detention, suicide threats, and people who cannot comply because of disability.
Core rules
- Recognize: behavior may reflect psychosis, mania, depression, PTSD, autism, or intoxication. Noncompliance is not automatically defiance.
- De-escalate: slow down, reduce stimuli, use one voice, give simple choices, and allow time. Ask about suicidal intent, means, and plan.
- Legal authority: NDCC ch. 25-03.1 governs emergency mental-health custody. A peace officer may take a person into custody when there is probable cause the person is mentally ill and poses a serious risk of harm, then must arrange evaluation and transport under the statute.
- 988 is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline; mobile crisis teams can respond or consult. Use them when the scene is stable.
- Firearms and suicide: ask directly about access to guns, medications, and other means; document the answers.
- Excited delirium is a contested label; focus on the medical emergency. Hyperthermia, agitation, and sudden collapse require immediate EMS.
Worked example
A woman is on a porch, crying, saying she cannot do this anymore, with a bottle of pills beside her. The officer stages EMS nearby, approaches alone with a low voice, and asks directly whether she is thinking about killing herself. She says yes. The officer asks about a plan and means; she says she has already taken some pills. The officer calls EMS, secures the pills as evidence, and transports under the emergency detention statute. The officer does not debate her feelings or promise confidentiality.
Traps
- Treating a mental-health crisis as a criminal matter by default.
- Arguing with delusions or trying to prove the person wrong.
- Failing to ask about firearms and means.
- Using force to speed up a person who cannot process commands.