Project title

Policing Mental Disorder in London and Amsterdam since 1945: Engaging with Lived Experience

Project description

In 2018, the UK’s Inspectorate of Constabulary warned that too many parts of the mental health system were failing—leaving the police to deal with the fallout. By 2023, the Metropolitan Police in London announced they would no longer respond to mental health-related calls unless there was an immediate risk of harm. The Dutch police have faced similar difficulties. Since the 2015 introduction of the problematic policy term ‘verwarde personen’ (confused people), police contact with individuals in mental distress appears to have increased. The issue has now caught the attention of the new Dutch government.

Rebecca Wynter’s research, Engaging with Lived Experience, investigates how this situation developed and what can be done differently. Focusing on the Netherlands—particularly Amsterdam—it addresses a major gap: the absence of lived and living experiences from both sides of the story.

Through oral history interviews with police officers and, crucially, with service users themselves, Wynter aims to reshape our understanding of how mental disorder is policed. Her findings will contribute to evidence-based policy and practice, and create a long-term resource for researchers working at the intersection of mental health, policing, and social care.

Selected publications

  • Forged by Fire: Burns Injury and Identity in Britain, c.1800-2000, with Jonathan Reinarz, Shane Ewen and Aaron Andrews (in preparation, OUP).
  • Anniversaries, Memory and Mental Health in International Historical Perspective: Faith in Reform, co-edited and introduction with Rob Ellis and Jennifer Wallis (London: Palgrave Macmillan). 2023
  • ‘Choreographing Urban Ambulance in Britain, c.1880-1930: Bodies, Improvisation, Movement, Planning’, with Shane Ewen, Social History, 49(10), 78-105. 2024
  • ‘Law and Medicine: A History in Three Acts’ (with Jonathan Reinarz and Gayle Davis), Jean McHale and Atina Krajewska (eds), Reimagining Health Law: From Medical to Health and Social Care Law (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar), forthcoming.
  • ‘Photographic Memories: Historians, Family History, Mental Health and the Ethics of Sharing’, Anna Lavis and Karin Eli (eds), Exploring Mental Health through Material Objects: Transdisciplinary Perspectives (London: Routledge), forthcoming
  • ‘Conversion Therapy’ and the University of Birmingham, c.1966-1983, University of Birmingham, https://bit.ly/3eAXzEs. 2022