As a psychologist who has worked most of his life in the public mental health system, I was dismayed by how the reporting of your Spotlight Team seemed to present only one side of the story of difficulties helping people with mental illness and challenging behaviors. While we have many people with serious mental illness in our jails, we also have many people with serious criminal behaviors in our psychiatric programs (“When despair meets deadly force,’’ Page A1, July 10).

Not all of these people have major mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. Some have committed crimes and, mentally ill or not, need to be held accountable by legal authorities for their behaviors. Every time we “divert’’ a person from an arrest to a hospital emergency room, we are essentially giving them a pass. Without fear of punishment from police and courts, some have little motivation to get help from mental health providers who are then tasked with “treating’’ them against their will.

What’s needed is a better collaboration between mental health providers and legal authorities, where police and courts hold people accountable and mental health providers offer voluntary treatment. If we don’t want police to become mental health workers, neither should we ask mental health workers to become police.

Neil Glickman

Natick