Three Things To Read This Week
1. New Safer Cities Polling On Mobile Crisis Response Teams
Safer Cities joined lawmakers and practitioners from around the country this week for NYU’s Advancing the Field of Alternative Response Convening where we presented new national polling on mobile crisis response teams.
To gauge public support for mobile crisis response teams as part of a city’s public safety infrastructure, Safer Cities recently conducted a national survey of 2,503 registered voters.
First, we defined mobile crisis response units as “teams composed of healthcare experts, including licensed clinicians, who respond to 911 calls instead of police officers for most issues related to mental health crises, substance abuse, or homelessness. ”
We then provided participants with “reasons for implementing mobile crisis response units as a public safety policy” that a city might consider, and then asked them to tell us “how convincing, if at all” each of those reasons are. Here are the three most persuasive arguments:
+66 Net Effective (81% to 15%): “Medical professionals know how to recognize signs of acute mental illness, de-escalate fraught situations involving mental illness and get people in acute mental health crises the help they need. Police officers, no matter how compassionate and skilled, simply don’t have this level of medical expertise and training.”
These results also reflect broad bipartisan support, including 88% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans who support this reasoning for implementing a mobile crisis response team.
+65 Net Effective (81% to 16%): “Letting medical professionals handle mental health-related calls for service lets police officers focus on more serious public safety threats like solving robbery, rape and murder..”
These results also reflect broad bipartisan support, including 87% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans who support this reasoning for implementing a mobile crisis response team.
+60 Net Effective (78% to 18%): “Police officers often show up with sirens blaring, bright lights, and firearms. They also are trained to use their authority to control a situation. These work in a home invasion, for example, but can backfire when dealing with people in acute mental crises because they further escalate the situation.”
These results also reflect broad bipartisan support, including 87% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans who support this reasoning for implementing a mobile crisis response team.
2. How Mobile Crisis Response Is Reshaping How People Get Help Around The Country.
City Of Minneapolis Pledges To Double Volume Of 911 Calls To Alternative First Responders—Like Mobile Crisis Response Teams—To Ease Reliance On Law Enforcement. As Renée Cooper reported for KSTP News, local leaders in Minneapolis set a goal “to double the number of diverted calls to 20%” to first responder teams, like the Behavioral Crisis Response team, the city’s mobile crisis response division, “over the next ten years”—a dramatic shift that is a “first of its kind for a major city.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a champion of the mobile crisis responder program, told Fox9 news that the shift is possible because “we have entirely revamped our safety system… when we get a difficult [mental health] call in now, it’s not just about sending officers with a gun to this particular problem.”
The shift arrived last year following researchers from NYU School of Law who took a deep dive into the city’s emergency response services data and found that the city was “redirecting roughly 9% of its calls for service” (the city gets roughly 600,000 emergency calls annually) related to mental health emergencies, low-level traffic issues, and animal control, but found areas where the city could expand that volume of calls. “The idea here is this is long-term and sustainable— that’s why we’re moving the way that we are,” Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette told the news station about the shift.NYU Projects: If Top 100 Cities Joined Minneapolis Milestone—12 Million Calls For Service Could Be Handled By “Specialized Alternative Response Systems” To Help “Overburdened Police Departments.” As The New York Times reports, NYU is now offering “technical assistance and research and policy support, including in identifying diversion-eligible calls, as well as access to a growing community of practice,” to any municipality that is interested in achieving this goal.
In recent years, city leaders have launched mobile crisis response teams—there are “now more than 130 alternative response programs operating across the country”—as NYU’s Barry Friedman writes, because “it has become clear that police officers cannot be expected to resolve every social issue or solve every dispute or problem, whether it’s homelessness, a public health crisis… [and] local police leaders have become increasingly vocal about their rank and file being asked to do too much… argue[ing] that sending the police to nearly every 911 call is unnecessary, ineffective, wasteful and dangerous.” More from Friedman on what his researchers, and the cities they work with, are finding:
“Over the past five years, a movement of local alternative response programs that don’t involve the police has flourished and redefined what the 911 system and municipal emergency response can do. The use of trained alternative responders for situations that don’t require the police would mean safer communities for everyone…. [with] the police focus[ing] on serious crimes, and more appropriate responders would deal with mental health crises, fender benders and quality-of-life issues like noise complaints… early published studies show the possibilities… alternative response teams have the potential to reduce crime, ease the burden on the police and better meet the needs of 911 callers.”
Related: As Safer Cities has previously reported, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government also offers technical assistance to municipalities looking to modernize their public safety infrastructure, through “helping participating jurisdictions test and demonstrate methods of developing, improving, and expanding the use of unarmed emergency response teams that can be directly dispatched to 911 calls… jurisdictions receive customized support which can include short-term active coaching for local government staff, access to adaptable implementation template materials and peer government examples, and real-time support from staff and monthly jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction troubleshooting.” The Harvard researchers have already helped roughly two dozen emergency response systems in 35 jurisdictions, across the country.
Experts Urge Cities To Develop More Mental Health Response Teams. Researchers at the Bazelon Law Center for Mental Health and the Legal Defense Fund released two new toolkits last week to “provide an overview and guidance for community-based services and strategies” for cities interested in launching mental health focused responders, like mobile crisis response teams. The full toolkits are worth reading, but here are the key takeaways, encouraging local leaders to:
Modernize “Emergency Call Centers [with] staff with mental health expertise who can handle mental health-related calls.”
Ensure “that where an in-person response is needed, Emergency Call Centers can dispatch mental health professionals.”
Aid in the “prevention of future mental health crises… [by] helping people secure and maintain housing and find and maintain employment.”
Provide “training to 911, 988, and police staff about when calls involving people with mental illness or who are experiencing a crisis can and should be handled entirely by the behavioral health system.”
3. Momentum For Mobile Crisis Response Teams:
In Oklahoma City, A Sweeping New “Mobile Integrated Healthcare” Program Is Handling 911 Mental Health Calls For Service “Instead Of Police Officers,” Sierra Pfeifer reports for KOSU. The program, “housed in the Oklahoma City Fire Department” and composed of “trained social workers, peer support specialists and paramedics,” has “four different teams, each with a specific function,” here’s more from KOSU:
“Crisis Call Diversion. When a 911 operator picks up an incoming call and the person on the line is experiencing a mental health crisis, the operator can transfer them to the Crisis Call Diversion Team. Embedded in the city’s 911 Communications Center, the navigators use the same software and communication systems as other operators. . . If a call can’t be stabilized remotely, navigators are also able to dispatch the Crisis Response Team, sending behavioral health professionals to respond in person.”
“Crisis Response Team. made up of a paramedic and a navigator. The teams respond to mental health emergency calls where an individual is displaying symptoms that may be a risk to themselves or others. They work to de-escalate situations and stabilize the individual in place.”
“Alternative Response Team responds to less severe behavioral and mental health needs in the community. The team also tackles overdose response, providing treatment, support and follow-ups to people struggling with substance use. . . along with a navigator and paramedic, the team also includes a certified peer support recovery specialist.”
“Community Advocacy Program helps frequent 911 callers with non-emergency issues like housing, food or mobility needs.”
In Indiana, Greenfield’s “Mobile Response Team Expands To Serve Youth In Crisis.” For The Daily Reporter, Shelley Swift reports that “in response to a youth mental health crisis… [the city] has expanded its Mobile Response Team services to local youth experiencing mental health or substance use distress.” The team has handled thousands of mental health calls for adults since its launch in 2023, and after that success, city leaders decided to expand the team’s function so that “the team’s clinicians are now able to assist youth ages 5 and up.” The team “meet with youth and complete an assessment, then determine goals and resources… [as well as] ensure the family has services, if needed.”
Hancock County Sheriff Brad Burkhart, a vocal supporter of the mobile crisis response unit, told the news station that “the team is a vital resource in the community,” explaining that: “This collaboration not only provides crucial support for those in need but also allows law enforcement to focus on their primary duties, knowing that those in need are receiving the specialized care they deserve.”
Related: Indianapolis’s mobile crisis response team, which launched in 2023 and recently expanded again now “operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in Indy’s Downtown, East, and North districts,” is holding a series of town halls “to reach even more people through in-person events,” Jeremy Jenkins reports with WISHTV8. The town halls are “designed to equip attendees with a mental health toolkit” so that residents know what to do, and who to call, if they find themselves, a neighbor, or loved one in the throes of a mental health crisis.
