Do People Support This?

National polling shows broad, consistent public support for the concept of routing mental health calls to mental health professionals. The documented positions of police chiefs, police union leaders, and elected officials across the political spectrum add institutional weight to that polling. Where disagreement enters is typically over implementation details — who pays, how it connects to existing police work, whether specific designs are adequate.

National Polling

A NAMI-Ipsos 2023 national poll found that among nine policy options for improving mental health care, voters showed the strongest support for creating “a 24/7 mental health, alcohol/drug, and suicide crisis call center that can respond effectively to callers and follow-up later” — the model that most directly describes dispatch integration with clinical call center capacity.

The same poll found that by a 73-point margin, voters said people in mental health or suicide crises “should receive a mental health response” rather than a “police response.”

A 2024 NAMI-Ipsos tracker updated the figures: 86% of voters said people in mental health crises should receive a mental health response, compared to 12% who said police response.

A Safer Cities national survey of registered voters found 75% support for creating a community safety department functioning as a separate, coequal city department alongside police and fire, with 89% agreeing such a department would make their city safer while freeing police to focus on serious crime. This is first-party polling commissioned by Safer Cities; its directional findings align with independent NAMI polling.

The polling is consistent across demographic groups that might be expected to diverge. The University of Michigan CLOSUP spring 2024 survey showed 84% of county sheriffs and 82% of local police chiefs — typically among the most skeptical constituencies for alternative response programs — support specialized emergency response involving mental health and social work professionals for some 911 calls. When police chiefs and the general public converge on the same position at similar levels, the political argument is qualitatively different from one where they diverge.

The awareness gap: A 2023 Pew Charitable Trusts survey found only 18% of U.S. adults were aware of 988, the national mental health crisis line that launched in July 2022. The polling documents strong support for a concept, not necessarily awareness of which programs in a given city embody that concept.

Police and Law Enforcement Support

The political framing that places dispatch integration inside the “defund the police” debate has not matched the documented positions of working police officers and law enforcement leaders.

A University of Michigan CLOSUP spring 2024 survey found 84% of Michigan county sheriffs and 82% of local police chiefs support having some form of specialized emergency response involving mental health and social work professionals for some 911 calls. Many stated their 911 systems receive too many calls for situations that do not require law enforcement.

Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper: “Being mentally ill is not a crime and we can’t be the answer. Law enforcement officers are not trained mental health professionals.”

Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock testified before City Council: “It’s time that we work towards getting law enforcement out of mental health. We have never claimed to be the experts, but yet we have been charged with the responsibility of responding to mental health crisis.” Bullock characterized the fourth-option model as “positive steps towards identifying better ways to divert these calls, to have a more robust mental health response system.”

Resident Satisfaction

Durham’s Community Safety Department conducts annual resident surveys. In 2023, 57% of Durham residents said they were more likely to call 911 because the HEART program existed. In 2024, more residents reported satisfaction with HEART than with any other public safety unit in the city, including police and fire departments. Durham’s HEART includes both dispatch and field components; the resident survey measures the program as a whole, not the dispatch layer specifically.

Awareness vs. Support: What Polling Actually Measures

Public support for mental health crisis response is not the same as public awareness of the programs that provide it. A 2023 Pew Charitable Trusts survey found only 18% of U.S. adults were aware of 988, the national mental health crisis line that launched in July 2022 — a number that is itself higher than awareness of most city-level dispatch programs. SAMHSA reported 988 handled nearly 5 million contacts in its first year, indicating significant use among those aware of it.

The gap between support and awareness shapes how polling data should be used in policy arguments. The 73-point margin and the 86% figures from NAMI-Ipsos measure support for the concept — “people in mental health crises should receive mental health responses” — not support for a specific program in a specific city. Decision-makers who cite national polling to support a local program are making a reasonable inference, but they should understand what the polling measures and what it doesn’t.

The practical implication runs in two directions. On the one hand, strong conceptual support means programs launch without needing to build public support from scratch — the baseline is favorable. On the other hand, conceptual support does not translate automatically into political protection for specific programs. Austin had the national polling, the HHS designation, and documented outcome data, and still lost Proposition Q. Awareness of the specific program, not just the concept, is what drives ballot-measure-level support.

Programs that have built awareness at the resident level document it. Durham’s 57% “more likely to call 911 because HEART exists” finding is meaningful precisely because it measures program-specific awareness and behavioral intent, not just conceptual support. That kind of resident-level awareness requires sustained public communication — not just a launch announcement.

Chicago Local Polling

A January 2023 SMS survey of 1,040 likely Chicago voters by IZQ Strategies found 74% support for reassigning certain duties currently handled by police — including “certain 911 calls related to homelessness, mental health, minor crime, and substance abuse” — to unarmed civil officers, social workers, and EMTs. The survey’s full methodology has not been independently published; the finding was reported in Safer Cities’ February 2023 newsletter. Chicago is a city with high political polarization on police issues, which makes 74% support across likely voters a notable directional finding, with the methodological caveat attached.

The Opposition: Named Critics

Support is not universal. Named critics come from multiple directions, and both lines of opposition are documented with specific named individuals.

From the right: safety and accountability concerns. Tim Davis of the Sacramento Police Officers Association raised concerns about whether civilian clinical staff can handle calls that escalate unexpectedly. Sacramento Sheriff Don Barnes, while broadly supportive of the direction, articulated the boundary: police are “not in the profession of white coats coming out to take somebody to the hospital” — but there are calls where law enforcement authority is irreplaceable, and the program’s boundaries need to be clearly defined and enforced. Brian Saggau of the Police Officers Research Association of California raised scope and accountability questions about programs dispatching civilian staff without the legal authority that police carry.

The safety objection surfaces most consistently at program launch, before programs have operational safety records to present. Programs have addressed it primarily through protocol design — defined safety screens, backup protocols, documented exclusion criteria — and through post-launch data: Durham HEART reported 99% of responders felt safe across nearly 25,000 calls; Albuquerque ACS required police backup on less than 1% of FY2025 calls. The figures are self-reported, but they address the objection on its own terms.

From the left: scope insufficiency. Christy Lopez of Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality has characterized dispatch integration programs as “too limited in scope” — routing specific call types to clinicians while leaving structural conditions intact. The critique is that better 911 routing does not address the underlying social determinants, resource gaps, or power dynamics that produce crisis calls in the first place.

From fiscal positions. Austin’s Proposition Q failure — which cut EMCOT funding by $1 million annually despite the program’s national recognition and documented outcomes — illustrates that well-performing programs can lose ballot measures when funding depends on a single city appropriation exposed to a vote.

The Partisan Pattern

Minneapolis built a fourth branch of its 911 system alongside police, fire, and EMS, and by April 2025 the Behavioral Crisis Response team had responded to approximately 30,000 calls — nearly double the volume of mental health-related calls police had historically handled annually, according to the National League of Cities.

In Albuquerque, Mayor Tim Keller, a Democrat, launched ACS in 2020. APD Chief Harold Medina characterized ACS as “already helping to free up our officers so they can respond to high-priority calls.”

Houston’s CCD has operated since 2015 through multiple mayoral administrations with different political orientations. Dakota County’s program operates under county government accountability without attachment to any major city’s political dynamics. The programs with the longest operational track records — Houston, Austin, Dakota County — have demonstrated durability across political cycles by staying anchored to the efficiency frame rather than the reform frame.

Bottom Line

National polling shows 73–86-point margins favoring mental health responses over police responses to crises. Law enforcement leaders including Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper, Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock, and 84% of Michigan county sheriffs have publicly supported the concept. Named opposition comes from two directions: safety and liability concerns from policing advocates, and scope insufficiency from progressive reform advocates. Both critiques are documented with named critics. Durham’s 2024 resident survey found more satisfaction with HEART than with any other public safety unit in the city.