Families of the mentally ill are many times frustrated at the inefficiency of the criminal justice system. On the other hand, responding officers to an armed confrontation with a mentally ill individual often find themselves face-to-face with situations for which their training has not properly prepared them. More training helps officers; however, the Memphis Police Department went several steps further than extra training. The department created a program that today is used successfully in dozens of agencies across the country. The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) builds a team of officers available to respond to calls that partner with families, mental health providers, and individuals who are diagnosed with mental diseases. The CIT preserves the individual’s dignity, insures safety for both responding officers and the mentally ill individual. The Memphis Police Department states that the benefits of the program have been significant, immediate, and verifiable and include: immediate crisis response, decrease in the number of arrests and use of force, identification of consumers (mentally-ill persons) who are not being fully served, better training and education in verbal de-escalation techniques, fewer officer injuries, good public relations, fewer arrests in these cases, a decrease in jail health care issue liabilities, and savings to the taxpayer.