Does It Work?

The evidence base for mobile crisis response includes independent evaluations from Stanford, the National Bureau of Economic Research, Wayne State University, and a multi-study review in BMC Health Services Research, alongside operational data from programs in cities across the country.¹²³⁴

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The Safety Record

Six programs have published safety data.

16,000

calls, zero serious injuries — Minneapolis. “Not a single unarmed responder has been seriously injured on the job,” according to KSTP.⁵

6,500

calls, zero incidents — St. Petersburg CALL program.⁶

13,000+

calls, 98% resolved without police — San Diego County, according to CBS News San Diego.⁷

4,400

calls, 94% resolved without law enforcement — Chicago FACT, according to WGN News.⁸

Zero

police backup ever needed for safety — Denver STAR, according to American Police Beat Magazine.⁹

Zero

police backup ever needed for safety — Durham HEART. Responders reported feeling safe after 99% of calls, according to Durham Community Safety Department data.¹⁰

The Marshall Project’s Christie Thompson reported in July 2024, after surveying programs and experts across the field, that no major injuries to community responders had been documented in any program surveyed.¹¹

Police Workload

Durham’s HEART program has responded to over 32,000 calls, saving police officers more than 10,000 hours, according to the ICMA 2025 Award documentation.¹² The Oklahoman reported that Oklahoma City’s mobile crisis program contributed to a 57% reduction in police responses to mental health calls in a single year.¹³ WDSU reported that New Orleans’ mobile crisis unit produced a “36% burden reduction on NOPD platoon personnel.”¹⁴ Philadelphia’s network of mobile crisis teams averages 20 mental health emergencies per day diverted from police.¹⁵

Oklahoma City Police Chief Ron Bacy told News 9 that mental health professionals are the “more appropriate” responders, “allowing us to not be the subject matter experts in certain situations that don’t require our physical presence… Having people who are specifically trained to address people in crisis produces a better outcome at times.”³⁷

Before we had this [program] these calls for service would have gone to police and fire… I can tell you, with 100,000 calls for service, the Albuquerque police officers that are out here in our community, they’re now able to focus more time on those felony crimes.

— Albuquerque police commander¹⁶

Minneapolis Deputy Chief Eric Fors: “Feedback from the rank-and-file officers has been very positive.” Program manager Candace Hanson: “Immediately, we would get officers just thanking us for the work, thanking us for taking over in a situation where they’re like, ‘I’ve got to get to the next call.'”¹⁷

In Los Angeles, a report by the L.A. City Administrator’s Office found that crisis responders “are highly efficient, which is crucial for mitigating the impact of a crisis… not just responding quickly but also taking the time to evaluate the situation properly and plan for any necessary follow-up.” In their first year, the team responded to 6,738 calls and produced “6,900+ hours of law enforcement patrol time saved.”¹⁸ Albuquerque’s Community Safety Department has responded to more than 100,000 calls since launch, with approximately 60 percent diverted from police.⁴⁴ In Santa Rosa, The Press Democrat reported that the mobile crisis program diverted 3,568 calls from law enforcement and another 1,408 from fire and EMS in a single year. Santa Rosa Police Lieutenant Chris Mahurin described the program as a “win-win for both responders and the community.”¹⁹

The Cost Picture

Per-Case Economics

SAMHSA’s 2025 guidelines report that mobile crisis programs show “a 23 percent lower average cost per case compared to regular law enforcement intervention” and “reduced inpatient hospitalization costs by approximately 79 percent.”²⁰ 9News Denver reported that processing mental health crises through the criminal justice system “would have cost the city four-times more” than mobile crisis response.²¹

The 2024 NBER evaluation of Durham’s HEART program, by economists Bocar A. Ba, Patton Chen, Tony Cheng, and colleagues, found the average response costs $1,191 but generates estimated fiscal savings of $2,093 per call, a net savings of $902 per call. The researchers’ conclusion: “the program pays for itself through fiscal externalities.”² When Durham residents were surveyed, 95% reported a willingness to pay for the program, with the average valuation at $102.91 per year — more than eight times the program’s per-resident cost.²

Program-Level Savings

Madison, Wisconsin’s CARES team handled over 3,500 calls in 2024 on a budget of $1.7 million.²³ KVUE reported that Austin “expects to save about $12 million every year” through its mobile crisis program, with “thousands of dollars saved for each diverted call.”⁴¹ The L.A. City Administrator’s Office reported that the city’s crisis team produced “6,900+ hours of law enforcement patrol time saved” in its first year across 6,738 calls.¹⁸

Liability Exposure

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of court records (2015–2024), local governments representing 25 of the nation’s largest police and sheriff’s departments paid out over three billion dollars in liability costs over a recent decade.²⁴ A Law Enforcement Action Partnership report examined whether sending unarmed first responders to behavioral health calls increases or decreases a jurisdiction’s exposure to civil lawsuits.²⁵ The DOJ’s investigation of the Phoenix Police Department documented officers who “fire Tasers at people with little or no warning” during behavioral health encounters and “fail to recognize that a person’s disability may impact whether they can understand commands.”²⁶

Crime, Arrests, And Criminal Justice Diversion

Denver (Stanford University, Science Advances, 2022)

Economists Thomas Dee and Jaymes Pyne found that in areas where Denver’s STAR program operated, reports of petty crimes dropped by 34% while violent crime rates remained steady. Dee described the mechanism: “Many of the people who get proper treatment from these programs have fewer run-ins with police moving forward, as well as fewer detentions and hospitalizations.”¹

Durham (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024)

Economists Bocar A. Ba, Patton Chen, Tony Cheng, and colleagues found that crime reports declined over 50% relative to baseline and arrests dropped from a 5% baseline. The improvement in response times was nearly twice as large for HEART responses as for police. The researchers found that these effects “are driven by the program itself rather than changes in enforcement behavior.”²

Michigan (Wayne State University, Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice, 2025)

Leonard Swanson, Sheryl Kubiak, and colleagues tracked outcomes across five Michigan communities over 11 months and found that individuals who received help from mobile crisis teams were 45.2% less likely to be arrested. The finding: “Only the mobile crisis response had a statistically significant reduced incidence rate of arrest.”³

Multi-Study Review (BMC Health Services Research)

A review found that “mobile crisis proved to be the only intervention that led to significantly lower incidence of arrest in the year following an initial crisis.” Mobile crisis treatment also reduced jail admissions and emergency room admissions.⁴

The Cycle-Breaking Evidence

In Guilford County, non-emergency 911 calls from a group of high-frequency users dropped from 344 to 4 in 30 days after social workers connected them to ongoing care, according to the Rhino Times. The county documented nearly $400,000 in direct savings and 170 staff hours freed through the intervention.²²

344 → 4

Guilford County, NC. Non-emergency 911 calls from one group dropped from 344 to 4 in 30 days.²²

St. Petersburg’s CALL program: “CALL never closes a client. They do as much follow-up as needed so that the client can get engaged with long-term services.” One family went from “several 911 calls daily” to zero calls after months of sustained intervention. Megan McGee described the outcome: “the child is now employed part-time, attending school, getting excellent grades, and there have been no calls for service at that residence since.”²⁷ In Austin, KVUE reports that EMCOT clinicians “can continue helping for up to 90 days with transitional crisis services.”²⁸

In Connecticut and Oklahoma, youth-oriented “mobile crisis programs have been linked to decreases in school arrests, improved school attendance, and a decline in police calls,” according to SAMHSA’s 2025 guidelines.⁴² Ohio’s statewide program for youth serves anyone under 20, with six weeks of follow-up support “helping to ensure that the young person remains stable and successfully returns to their normal routine,” according to WKBN.⁴³

Federal Endorsement

SAMHSA’s 2025 guidelines describe mobile crisis response as a best practice, stating that “law enforcement presence should be minimized to the degree possible.”²⁹ HHS designated Austin’s EMCOT a “national role model.”³⁰ As of September 2024, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 21 states had opted in to Medicaid reimbursement for mobile crisis services, with an 85% federal match rate for three years.³¹

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.³⁸ A Michigan survey found that 80% of county sheriffs and local police chiefs support specialized emergency response teams that include mental health and social work professionals for some 911 calls.³⁹ In Harris County, Texas, Gydence Research found that 78% of residents say the mobile crisis program is effective at making the county safer, rising to 88% after learning more about the program. Support was bipartisan: 84% of Democrats and 83% of Republicans.⁴⁰

The presence of officers “can lead to more harm for people with behavioral health disabilities.”

— U.S. DOJ, Civil Rights Division, investigation of the Phoenix Police Department²⁶

The Trust Finding

In Durham, NBER researchers found that “HEART does not deter future calls.” Residents served by HEART generated slightly more follow-up calls than those served by police, which the researchers interpreted as evidence that civilian teams “handle emergencies without escalation and may encourage continued, constructive use of emergency services.”²

In Portland, initially 57.9% of unhoused respondents reported feeling “unsafe calling 911.” After two years of Portland Street Response, that dropped to 44.9%. Clients: “treated us like humans.” One client: “I don’t worry anymore. I can say I need Portland Street Response.”³²

In Whatcom County, Washington, the Alternative Response Team responded to 2,410 calls in a single year, “acting as a vital alternative to law enforcement,” according to Whatcom News. The two-person teams averaged a 14-minute response time and focused on “de-escalation and connecting individuals to housing and mental health services.”³³

In San Francisco, the NYU Policing Project found “positive results” from the Street Crisis Response Team and described the work as “invaluable” and marked by “consistent innovation.” San Francisco police officers told researchers: “This is the right model. It’s what always should have been happening. It’s what we wanted.”³⁴

What Remains Untested

Several evidence gaps remain. Longitudinal data, whether people connected to services by mobile crisis teams stay connected over years — has not been published at scale.³⁵ The independent evaluation base covers a handful of cities; the 130+ programs documented nationally include programs of widely varying maturity.³⁵ The NBER cost-benefit data comes from one city; whether those ratios hold in cities with different cost structures has not been independently tested.³⁵ The 85% federal Medicaid match rate is for three years; no state has completed the transition to standard rates.³⁶ These gaps are covered fully in What Are The Risks?

The Bottom Line

The NBER evaluation found Durham’s program “pays for itself through fiscal externalities.”² Stanford found a 34% reduction in petty crime in Denver.¹ Wayne State found mobile crisis was the only model to produce statistically significant arrest reductions.³ SAMHSA endorsed mobile crisis as a best practice.²⁹ The evidence gaps, longitudinal data, scaling, workforce sustainability — are covered in What Are The Risks?