What Calls Does This Handle?

A mobile crisis team handles mental health emergencies. A violence intervention team handles retaliatory conflict. A clean team handles needle pickup. A Community Safety Department handles all of these and the calls that fall between them.

The scope of a CSD is broader than any single program it houses. The department covers the full range of 911 calls that do not require weapons, arrest authority, or emergency medical transport. Where a mobile crisis team might pass on a call about an intoxicated person who is not in psychiatric crisis, and a homeless outreach team might not be dispatched through 911 at all, a CSD can receive the call, assess it, and route it to the right internal team.

The Core Call Types

Every established CSD handles a common set of call types that previously went to police.

Mental health crises. Suicidal ideation, psychotic episodes, panic attacks, severe anxiety, dissociative episodes. Durham’s protocol includes “suicide threats” and “behavioral health problems.”¹ Albuquerque’s teams respond to mental health calls as a core function.² The responder arrives trained to sit with someone through the worst of an episode, assess the situation, and connect the person to care.

Substance use emergencies. Active intoxication, overdose (when the team carries naloxone and has medical capability), drug-induced psychosis, alcohol-related incapacitation. Albuquerque’s most common call type is what the department calls “down-and-outs,” people found intoxicated or incapacitated in public spaces.³ These calls previously went to police, who had no tools to address the underlying condition and limited options beyond arrest or transport to an emergency room.

Welfare checks. Family members who cannot reach an elderly relative. Employers concerned about a worker who has not shown up. Neighbors reporting someone they have not seen in days. Welfare checks are among the most common 911 call types, and most do not involve crime or danger. Durham and Albuquerque both handle welfare checks as a core call type.¹ ²

Trespassing and unwanted persons. People on commercial property who are asked to leave, often because they are visibly experiencing homelessness, mental illness, or intoxication. Durham and Albuquerque both include trespassing-related calls in their protocols.¹ ²

Homelessness-related calls. People sleeping in doorways, camping in parks, panhandling at intersections. These calls represent a consistent source of 911 volume in every American city. Police can enforce trespassing or camping ordinances, but enforcement does not produce housing. CSD teams with outreach capability can connect people to shelters, treatment, benefits enrollment, and housing applications. Albuquerque’s department includes a dedicated street outreach division for homelessness.⁴

Public intoxication. Durham’s protocol specifically includes “public intoxication.”¹ The call is common, the police response is limited (arrest or leave), and the person’s actual need is medical monitoring, a sobering facility, or connection to addiction treatment.

Needle and syringe pickup. Discarded needles on playgrounds, sidewalks, bus stops, and parks. This is a public health hazard that requires biohazard-trained removal, not a law enforcement response. Albuquerque handles needle pickup requests through its community responders division.²

Non-injury traffic accidents. Fender benders where no one is hurt, no crime occurred, and the police role is limited to taking a report. Albuquerque’s teams handle these calls, freeing officers for situations that require investigative or enforcement capability.²

Abandoned vehicles. Another common 911 call type that consumes officer time without requiring law enforcement authority. Albuquerque handles abandoned vehicle reports through its CSD.²

Neighbor and community disputes. Noise complaints, property line disagreements, parking conflicts, verbal altercations between residents.

The Bright Line

One boundary is universal across every CSD: any situation involving a weapon, credible threats of violence, an active physical altercation, or a crime in progress goes to police.

Durham’s protocol states it plainly: “Suicide threats, welfare checks, public intoxication, behavioral health problems, and trespassing, yes. Anything with a weapon or threat of violence, no.”¹

The line is enforced at dispatch. The 911 call-taker screens for weapons, history of violence, active threats, and crime in progress before routing a call to the CSD. If any of those conditions exist, the call goes to police. If conditions change after the community safety team arrives, such as a weapon appearing or the situation turning violent, the team has clear protocols: withdraw and request police response. Across more than 120,000 documented calls in Albuquerque, police backup was needed in fewer than 1% of cases.⁴ Durham’s responders have never needed police backup for a safety threat.⁵

Some calls require a layered response by design. Durham operates a co-response segment specifically for calls that involve weapons or threats of violence but also have a clear behavioral health component.¹ A CIT-trained officer and a clinician respond together, combining security capability with clinical expertise.

The Specialist-Generalist Spectrum

CSDs sit at different points on a spectrum between narrow clinical specialization and broad community response. The placement matters because it determines how many calls the department can absorb and how deep its clinical capability can go.

Specialists handle only behavioral health calls with strict eligibility criteria. Some departments and programs define a narrow set of eligible call types, focusing clinical resources on a defined scope. The advantage is deep expertise for every call taken. The tradeoff: a large volume of non-violent, non-clinical calls still goes to police.

Generalists handle the full range of non-violent, non-emergency calls, including many that have no behavioral health component. Albuquerque’s ACS represents this model: abandoned vehicles, non-injury accidents, needle pickups, and parking disputes alongside mental health crises and substance use emergencies.² The team captures a larger share of calls that do not need police. The tradeoff: some responders may encounter situations that require clinical credentials they do not have.

Hybrids combine multiple specialized functional areas under one organizational umbrella, routing different call types to different units within the department. Durham’s model is the clearest example: separate teams for non-violent field response, calls involving weapons, phone-based dispatch resolution, and follow-up case management (reorganized into two direct-service divisions in July 2025).¹ Each division handles the call types matched to its capability. The tradeoff: this is the most complex model to build and staff.

The pattern among established CSDs is that most start with a defined set of call types and expand as the safety record accumulates. Denver’s crisis program began as a pilot in a single district with limited hours and a handful of call codes and now operates citywide with a broader scope.⁶ Oklahoma City’s program started with mental health calls and expanded to include substance use and welfare checks.⁷ San Diego County grew from 2 pilot teams to 44 teams, now covering schools, tribal communities, and a military base.¹²

The Scale Gap

Even the broadest CSD handles a fraction of the calls that could theoretically be diverted from police. A Vera Institute of Justice analysis of 911 call data from nine cities found that an average of 19% of community-initiated calls qualified for civilian crisis response diversion.⁸ The University of Chicago’s Health Lab found that over 75% of 911 calls dispatched to police do not involve serious crime or public safety threats.⁹ In Atlanta, researchers determined that more than 600,000 calls over four years could have gone to a crisis response program instead of police.¹⁰

Albuquerque’s CSD handles roughly 3% of the city’s million-plus annual 911 calls (reported by The New Yorker).³ Denver’s crisis program covers only about 44% of eligible calls within its defined scope.⁶ Austin’s analysis found the city needs three times its current staffing to meet demand for alternative crisis response.¹¹

The gap between eligible calls and actual capacity is the central operational challenge these departments face. It is a staffing problem, a funding problem, and a coverage-hours problem. Most departments operate less than 24/7. Albuquerque achieved 24/7 coverage in September 2023, but remains the exception; Durham expanded to 12 hours daily, and the overnight hours remain police-only in almost every other jurisdiction.⁴

What Falls Outside CSD Scope

Several categories of calls remain police functions regardless of how broad a CSD’s scope becomes:

Calls involving weapons or credible threats of violence. Active crimes in progress. Traffic pursuit and DUI enforcement. Warrant service and arrest execution. Calls requiring investigative authority (homicide, assault, robbery). Domestic violence calls where physical violence has occurred or is imminent. Any situation where the safety of the responder or the public requires armed response.

These boundaries are not limitations of the model. They define the model. A CSD exists to handle the calls that do not require law enforcement authority. The calls that do require it are what police departments are designed for.

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The Bottom Line

Community Safety Departments handle the full range of 911 calls that do not involve weapons, violence, active crime, or medical emergencies requiring hospital transport. The scope is broader than any single crisis response program: mental health emergencies, substance use, welfare checks, trespassing, homelessness, needle cleanup, non-injury accidents, neighbor disputes, and abandoned vehicles. The bright line at weapons and violence is universal and enforced at dispatch. Even the largest CSD handles a small fraction of eligible calls.⁴ The gap between what these departments could take on and what they currently staff for is the field’s central operational challenge.

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Source Appendix

1. CSG Justice Center, “Durham, NC — Expanding First Response Program Highlights,” updated December 2024. HEART four-division structure, dispatch protocol (“suicide threats, welfare checks, public intoxication, behavioral health problems, and trespassing, yes”), co-response unit, 911 integration. https://csgjusticecenter.org/publications/expanding-first-response/program-highlights/durham-nc/

2. City of Albuquerque, “What Is Community Safety?” ACS services page. Call types include behavioral health crises, welfare checks, substance use, trespassing, abandoned vehicles, non-injury traffic accidents, needle pickup. https://www.cabq.gov/acs/services

3. Murat Oztaskin, “Sending Help Instead of the Police in Albuquerque,” The New Yorker, February 4, 2023. “Down-and-out” call type, 3% of million-plus calls, ACS operational profile. https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/sending-help-instead-of-the-police-in-albuquerque

4. City of Albuquerque, “Albuquerque Community Safety Department Marks Four Years of Impact and Innovation,” press release, September 2025. 120,000+ calls, <1% police backup, 24/7 since September 2023, street outreach division, 85% diverted. https://www.cabq.gov/acs/news/albuquerque-community-safety-department-marks-four-years-of-impact-and-innovation

5. Tradeoffs / The Marshall Project, “How Durham Got Police Onboard with Unarmed Crisis Response,” May 2, 2025. 99% felt safe, 25,000+ calls, zero police backup for safety threats. https://tradeoffs.org/2025/05/02/how-durham-north-carolina-got-police-onboard-with-unarmed-crisis-response/

6. Urban Institute, “Evaluating Alternative Crisis Response in Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) Program,” interim findings, 2024. 38,375 STAR-eligible calls June 2020–Dec 2023; STAR responded to 38% in 2023, up from 16% in 2020 (≈44% of calls within operational hours). https://www.urban.org/research/publication/evaluating-alternative-crisis-response-denvers-support-team-assisted-response

7. KOSU, Sierra Pfeifer, “Oklahoma City plans to expand mental health crisis response with state opioid settlement money,” February 6, 2026. OKC program expansion context. https://www.kosu.org/health/2026-02-06/oklahoma-city-plans-to-expand-mental-health-crisis-response-with-state-opioid-settlement-money

8. Vera Institute of Justice, “911 Analysis: How Civilian Crisis Responders Can Divert Behavioral Health Calls from Police,” April 2022. Analysis of 15.6 million calls from nine cities (Baltimore, Burlington VT, Cincinnati, Detroit, Hartford CT, New Orleans, New York, Seattle, Tucson). Average of 19% of community-initiated calls qualified for civilian crisis response diversion under an expansive behavioral health category. https://vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com/production/downloads/publications/911-analysis-civilian-crisis-responders.pdf

9. University of Chicago Health Lab / Transform911, “Blueprint for Change, Chapter 7: Ensuring the Right Response at the Right Time.” “More than 75% of 911 calls for service dispatched to the police are not related to public safety threats.” https://www.transform911.org/blueprint/chapter-7-response/

10. CSG Justice Center, “Atlanta, GA — Expanding First Response Program Highlights,” updated December 2024. Applied Research Services, Inc. analysis: “identified 600,000, or approximately 18 percent, of all incoming 911 calls as suitable for diversion.” https://csgjusticecenter.org/publications/expanding-first-response/program-highlights/atlanta-ga/

11. KVUE (Austin), Melia Masumoto. Marisa Malik (Integral Care): EMCOT “needs three times the number of members it currently has to fully match the volume of mental health calls coming in.” https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/austin-mayor-and-council/austin-city-council-expand-integral-cares-mental-health-crisis-outreach-team/269-e85ce07b-74b0-4fd7-b420-f6fc6d92e855

12. San Diego County News Center, “Mobile Crisis Response Program Celebrates Four Years,” January 22, 2025. 2 pilot teams to 44 teams, school coverage. https://www.countynewscenter.com/mobile-crisis-response-program-celebrates-four-years/. San Diego Union-Tribune, Tammy Murga, April 20, 2024: tribal communities, Camp Pendleton. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/04/20/thousands-of-people-seeking-help-did-not-get-a-police-response-thats-a-good-thing/