How Is This Different?

Three models are often discussed alongside mobile crisis teams: co-responder programs, Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training, and hospital-based psychiatric response. Each differs from mobile crisis teams in structure, staffing, and documented outcomes.

Co-Responder Programs

Co-responder programs send a clinician and a police officer together on every call. The officer stays present and armed throughout the interaction, often in uniform.

A 2025 Wayne State University study compared outcomes across three crisis response models in five Michigan communities. The researchers found that “the co-response model showed limited success in meeting diversion, service linkage, and follow-up goals” and that co-response “had similar arrest proportions to law enforcement only responses.”¹ Co-response also “had higher proportions of hospitalization and lower proportions of informal crisis resolution.”² By contrast, mobile crisis teams “produced a statistically significant reduction in arrests in the eleven months following the crisis encounter” and showed “high proportions of diverting users from criminal legal and medical systems.”³ The researchers noted that mobile teams resolved crises “either informally or without hospitalization” and provided “more transport to home, family, and friends.”⁴

St. Petersburg Police Special Projects Manager Megan McGee described how her department’s chief reached a similar conclusion before launching the CALL program: “The chief wasn’t sold on co-response, because he said there are enough calls that are non-violent and non-criminal that we can completely divert these.”⁵

Several cities have moved from co-responder models toward civilian-only teams. Eugene, Oregon moved CAHOOTS from the police department to the fire department after 33 years.⁶ Denver explored co-response before launching the civilian-only STAR program in 2020.⁷ In July 2025, Portland’s City Council passed a resolution “formally establishing” Portland Street Response “as an equal branch of the city’s public safety system,” with staff receiving “the full designation as first responders, with all the associated employment benefits.”⁸

Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training

CIT training teaches police officers mental health awareness and de-escalation techniques, typically through a 40-hour course. The responder remains an armed, uniformed officer.

Police Chief Robert Spinks of Parsons, Kansas, described a limitation of the CIT model in American Police Beat Magazine:

Many officers are not ready nor interested, or do not have the disposition to fully engage in this advanced specialist training. Just as many officers are not cut out to be a K-9 handler, bomb tech, SWAT or dive team officer, not all officers are cut out to be or are interested in taking on Crisis Intervention Training.⁹

CIT-trained officers retain the same set of options available to any officer on scene: arrest, emergency room transport, or departure. Most departments have only a fraction of their officers CIT-trained, meaning the CIT-trained officer may not be the one who responds to a given call.¹⁰

Hospital-Based Psychiatric Teams

Hospital-based psychiatric teams serve people who come to the emergency room. Mobile crisis teams go to people wherever they are. In King County, Washington, the Seattle Times reported that mobile crisis teams can bring people to crisis stabilization centers offering “everything from 23-hour observation to 14-day residential stabilization,” with “guaranteed acceptance” for anyone brought by first responders.¹¹

Dr. Jonathan Porteus of Ri International described the ER pathway to CBS News: before alternative programs, a mental health crisis call to 911 typically led “to a hospital, or to jail.”¹² The ER model requires someone to transport the person, which typically means police.

The Federal Guidance

A 2025 NAMI/Ipsos national poll found that 85% of Americans believe people in a mental health crisis “should receive a mental health response” rather than a police response.¹³ The SAMHSA 2025 National Behavioral Health Crisis Care Guidelines drew the same distinction. The guidelines stated that “law enforcement presence should be minimized to the degree possible, recognizing the potential harm and stigma associated with police involvement in behavioral health crises.” Instead, SAMHSA reported, “communities across the country have designed their mobile crisis services to rapidly meet the needs of individuals, provide support, ensure safety, and coordinate follow-up care.”¹⁴

The Cost Difference

SAMHSA data showed mobile crisis services produce “a 23 percent lower average cost per case compared to regular law enforcement intervention” and “reduced inpatient hospitalization costs by approximately 79 percent in follow-up periods after crisis episodes.”¹⁵ Denver’s analysis, reported by 9News, found that handling mental health crises through the criminal justice system “would have cost the city four-times more” than mobile crisis response.¹⁶

The Outcome Data

A Stanford University study of Denver’s STAR program found that in areas where the civilian-only team operated, “reports of petty crimes dropped by a third while violent crime rates remained steady,” according to American Police Beat Magazine.¹⁷ Police have never been called for backup during STAR interventions.¹⁸ A Denver officer told NYU researchers: “Very quickly we’re all like, ‘No, why would we fight this? Why would we argue?’ Because this is the right model. It’s what always should have been happening. It’s what we wanted.”¹⁹

Minneapolis reported that “not a single unarmed responder has been seriously injured” across its mobile crisis program.²⁰ Durham’s HEART program has responded to over 32,000 calls; WRAL reported that “HEART’s responders have never needed police backup for safety.”²¹ In San Diego County, CBS News reported that “over 98% of calls have been diverted from armed law enforcement.”²² In Chicago, WGN News reported that the FACT program “resolved 94 percent of calls without law enforcement.”²³

The Wayne State researchers summarized their overall comparison: mobile response teams “divert service users from criminal-legal systems, reduce emergency room use, and improve linkages to community-based services and provide follow-up, often without law enforcement involvement.”²⁴

The Bottom Line

The 2025 Wayne State University study compared co-responder, mobile-only, and law enforcement-only models in the same Michigan communities. Co-responder programs produced arrest outcomes similar to law enforcement-only response. Mobile crisis teams produced statistically significant arrest reductions. CIT training changes how an officer approaches a call but not who arrives or what options are available on scene. Hospital-based teams require transportation to the ER rather than responding in the field.