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People experiencing mental or behavioral health crises or addictions are often targeted for use of force by police, arrest, and incarceration. Last week's newsletter briefly touched on efforts across the country to change this situation, and this week we'll take a closer look.
One of the most popular new approaches, and one that has rapidly gained traction since 2020, are civilian joint response programs. In this program, behavioral health professionals, often social workers, respond to specific emergency calls alongside police. These may include situations such as suicide threats, drug overdoses, and episodes of mental illness. Officers on the team typically have special training in crisis intervention. While these programs are often popular with law enforcement, some critics argue they don't go far enough to remove police from the situation.
In general, these teams aim to avoid arrest, resolve the reason for the emergency call, and de-escalate a crisis or conflict, especially in simple cases. This week, the New Jersey Monitor reported, “One call for a welfare check for a worried woman ended with the following outcome.” [state] The officer had picked up her new cell phone from the post office and was fixing a broken toilet. ” the emergency call screener was setting up her new phone.
The monitor also found that the program prevented arrest or police use of force in 95% of responses.
Alternative response programs are a closely related strategy in which social workers or behavioral health professionals show up to calls instead of police officers. These teams respond only to calls with a low likelihood of violence, and many also work proactively to connect people with behavioral health issues to services outside of crisis settings. I'm here. In 2020, my colleague Christy Thompson wrote about an alternate responder program in Olympia, Washington, modeled after a long-standing program in Eugene, Oregon, known as CAHOOTS.
These programs have less ties to law enforcement than co-responders, making it easier to build long-term relationships. “One of the biggest things we've had to overcome is the idea that we're going to be the informants,” an Olympia counterpart told Thompson in 2020. [their names] For a warrant or something similar. ”
Programs vary greatly in approach and scale depending on location. In Eugene, a small city of less than 200,000 people, his CAHOOTS, which has been in existence since 1989, responds to about 20 percent of his 911 calls. Meanwhile, his B-HEARD program in New York City, just three years old in a diverse city of 8.5 million people, accounts for about a quarter of the jurisdiction's mental health consultations conducted in the first half of 2023. Compatible with Officials say they account for 10% of all 911 calls in the city. In Denver, a study of the city's STAR program found that an alternative response model reduced low-level crime.
One of the challenges CAHOOTS employees face is that some of the people they serve are afraid to call 911 because of past traumatic interactions with police. A related initiative that is gaining momentum nationally is the federal government's 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, launched in 2022. The program primarily focuses on providing support via phone and text, but may also provide in-person support in some situations. Too.
988 is widely supported by mental health providers and has strong support from the general public in opinion polls. But it's also a little-known fact: a Rand Corporation analysis released this week found significant inefficiencies in the way 988 and 911 calls are routed and switched. . Some activists have warned that the program can still lead to police action in some situations and people being subjected to mental health treatment against their will. California and New York City are just a few places that have recently moved to expand the government's power to mandate mental health treatment.
Many jurisdictions are also investing in “crisis intervention centers” on the premise that prisons are not designed to solve behavioral health crises and emergency rooms are not always better. . These crisis centers are intended to “provide short-term behavioral health care, including mental stabilization and drug withdrawal treatment, in a setting that is less restrictive and less disruptive to a person's life than a hospital or prison.” The Nevada Current reported.
Other approaches extend beyond crises and emergencies to address non-police responses to unmet behavioral health needs and chronic, low-level criminal behavior that stems from poverty, such as drug possession, prostitution, and petty theft. trying to promote.
Lisa Dugard, chief architect of Seattle's LetEveryone Advance with Dignity program, launched in 2011, says, “We're developing alternative responses not just to non-crime crises, but to a much broader range of situations.'' I'm thinking of doing that,” he said.
The LEAD model (previously stood for Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) has since been exported to other cities working to address public safety concerns without punishment or incarceration. Caseworkers with LEAD help people secure stable housing and provide drug treatment and other behavioral health services.
All of these different initiatives are subject to changes in political power, public opinion, and funding from government and private sponsors. In Iowa, members of the Joint Response Program are concerned they could be left in the cold by a plan to overhaul and centralize the state's mental health and disability services. In Minneapolis, a recent federal audit found that the Trump administration used “deeply flawed” procedures to deny the city $900,000 in LEAD program payments in 2020. In their denial, Trump officials noted that some city council members had expressed support for the movement to “defund the police.”
And this week, House Republicans called for a financial review of the 988 program, finding that more than 80% of federal funding meant to help states, territories and tribes implement the 988 hotline remains unused. .
