[net.suicide] State of the Art question

hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (Jerry Hollombe) (01/15/85)

Ok, here's a technical, state-of-the-art question for the net:

When I used to work for the L.A.S.P.C. one of our major problems  was  with
repeat  callers.  A  statistical analysis showed that 60% of our calls were
from 20% of the callers.  Most of  these  were  lonely  people  who  wanted
someone  to  talk to (having burnt out all their friends, if any).  Some of
them were actually classified as high suicide risks  but  were  getting  no
apparent  benefit  from  our  service.  We  tried  all kinds of schemes and
strategies for dealing with these people (at least one Master's Thesis  got
written about it), but never came up with a really satisfactory solution.

So, who else has suffered with this problem and what have  you  tried?  Any
reasonably elegant solutions?

Respond to me or the net.  I'll summarize if I get a large response.

-- 
==============================================================================
   ... sitting in a pile of junk on the runway, wondering what happened ...

The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
Citicorp TTI                               If thy CRT offend thee, pluck
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.                      it out and cast it from thee.
Santa Monica, California  90405
(213) 450-9111, ext. 2483
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