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'Booked for Safekeeping' Police Training Film (1960)

submitted by schmawy

1 decade 6 years 6 months 2 weeks ago

"Booked for Safekeeping (Part I) (1960); Fascinating documentary made to train police officers in the assistance and management of mentally ill and confused persons, produced in New Orleans by eminent filmmaker George C. Stoney using real New Orleans police officers as actors. A little-known ethnographic classic that is strongly rooted in the place where it was made. The film is correct in advocating that mentaly ill people be held in the least restrictive environment possible, particularly NOT in a jail cell unless absolutly essential. Demonstrates the proper management of mentally ill persons by members of the large city police department to prepare the mentally ill persons for their subsequent medical treatment. Describes the different types of mentally disturbed people a police officer must deal with, such as the senile, the mentally retarded, and the attempted suicides. Stresses the need to talk with the family to get a person's background, using the case of a mental patient who feels his neighbors are planning to kill im. Shows a case in which a policeman handles a mentally disturbed person improperly. Points out the need for 24-hour medical help for police offices who deal with the mentally disturbed. This early 60s police training film, made in New Orleans, was designed to educate officers in how to handle people who are mentally ill, a type of situation that is more common in police work than you might think. The film is quite well-made and realistic, showing us scenes of police officers handling a confused, senile old lady making a scene at a grocery store; a depressed man who tried to kill himself by jumping off a bridge; a frightened, paranoid psychotic armed with a knife; and a catatonic who doesn'tspeak English who suddenly goes from a state of stupor to a violent attack. The main cop in the film keeps his cool in these very difficult and dangerous situations, trying to talk down the disturbed people, and when this fails, physically subdues them in the least painful and frightening ways possible. The film points out in a number of different scenes that there are often inadequate facilities and services to deal with such people, and that is why the job falls to the police. For example, the narrator repeats several times that jail is not a good place for such persons, yet in all cases shown, the disturbed person ends up being held in a bleak jail because there is no other safe place available to keep them until they can be seen by a doctor. The New Orleans setting of the film gives it a strange, otherworldly quality. All in all, this is a fascinating film about a difficult social problem. Producer: Stoney Associates. Creative Commons license: Public Domain."[YT]