A rising number of cities across the country are turning to civilian response teams instead of armed police officers to address nonviolent mental health crises, a new report shows.
The shift comes in response to numerous instances where police encounters with individuals undergoing a mental health crisis escalated and resulted in tragic outcomes.
According to data from the AP, 14 of the 20 most populous cities in the United States are in the process of implementing or exploring programs that deploy behavioral health clinicians and medical professionals such as paramedics to handle nonviolent, mental health-related 9-1-1 calls.
These initiatives, sometimes referred to as civilian, alternative or non-police response teams, are gaining momentum, with combined annual budgets exceeding $123 million as of June 2023.
The catalyst for this movement was the tragic case of Christian Glass, a young man with mental health issues who was fatally shot by sheriff’s deputies in Colorado during a crisis intervention call.
Experts point to this incident, along with the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and calls for police reform, as significant turning points in the discussion for utilizing unarmed response teams.
Tamara Lynn, from the National De-Escalation Training Center, said that law enforcement is not always equipped to handle mental health crises effectively, and advocated for the use of other tools.
“If someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, law enforcement is not what they need,” Lynn states.
Several major cities have taken steps to ensure that non-police experts handle such situations.
Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program, often hailed as a national model, has responded to over 5,700 calls in a year, diverting potentially dangerous situations.
In addition, New York City’s B-HEARD program, which had a budget of over $40 million last year, answered around 3,500 calls, despite receiving criticism from mental health advocates who believe it falls short in addressing the magnitude of the crisis.
Nevertheless, challenges remain, including staffing shortages, training dispatchers to send unarmed professionals and more.
Experts have convened to discuss these issues at conferences like the one held in Washington, D.C., earlier this year.
Laquisha Grant of the New York Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health said the aim of the program is to redirect emergency responses to situations that require a specialized approach.
“We really think that every single B-HEARD response is just a better way that we, the city, are providing care to people,” Grant said.
Grant added that she hopes the program will receive further funding to take more calls in order to provide “more options and letting people know that they can stay safely in their homes, in their communities, with the connection to the right resources.”
According to federal data, individuals with mental illness constitute a significant portion of those killed by police.
Indeed, reports of mental distress accounted for about 1% of police calls in a 2022 study across nine police agencies.
However, the long-established civilian response program in Eugene, Oregon, managed to divert 3–8% of calls away from police involvement.
The Vera Institute of Justice, a police reform advocacy group, suggests that alternative teams may be able to handle as much as 19% of such calls, encompassing issues like homelessness and intoxication.
Denver’s STAR program, a leading example of this approach, deploys teams equipped with medical supplies, blankets and essentials to respond to crises.
Notably, a Stanford University study found that in areas where STAR operated, reports of petty crimes dropped by a third while violent crime rates remained steady.
Importantly, police have never been called for backup during STAR interventions. STAR responded to around 44% of eligible calls last year.
“It’s really about meeting the needs of the community and making sure we are sending the right experts, so we can actually solve the problem,” said Carleigh Sailon, a former STAR manager.
However, some observers raise concerns about the effectiveness and safety of non-police programs as they expand.
Stephen Eide, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank, highlighted the difficulty of identifying the appropriate calls for non-police response.
Dispatchers must determine the level of risk for “imminent harm,” which adds complexity to the process, according to Eide.
