Three Things To Read This Week
1. New Study: Mobile Crisis Teams Appear To Be More Effective Than Co-Response.
Policymakers are embracing the need for a trained mental health professional to respond to 911 calls that involve a person experiencing a mental health crisis. The question that remains, though, is whether to send armed law enforcement and mobile crisis response teams—or send the mobile crisis response teams alone?
A new study from researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit tackles that question, finding:
“mobile response can 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.”
By contrast, relative to a mobile crisis response:
“The co-response model showed limited success in meeting diversion, service linkage, and follow-up goals.”
Co-response “had higher proportions of hospitalization and lower proportions of informal crisis resolution.”
Strikingly, “the co-response model also had similar arrest proportions to law enforcement only responses.”
Dive Deeper:
Localities in Michigan tend to mix and match between four dominant models for responding to behavioral crises—send the police; send the mobile crisis team; use a co-response with police and mental health professions; or provide an office-based response.
Starting with “administrative data on crisis cases and outcomes” from five localities in Michigan, the researchers observed how the impact of using each of the four different response models on desired outcomes, including:
“diverting service users from criminal-legal systems,”
“reducing emergency room use,”
“Improving linkages to community-based services,” and
“providing follow-up.”
The “results suggest that the office and mobile response models meet crisis response goals.” Specifically, “Both showed high proportions of diverting users from criminal legal and medical systems. They do so by largely resolving crises either informally or without hospitalization.” Moreover, “mobile response provides more transport to home, family, and friends.”
2. Santa Rosa Mobile Crisis Diverted 3,568 Away From Police Last Year.
As Madison Smalstig reports for The Press Democrat, “Santa Rosa police Lieutenant Chris Mahurin described InResponse, the city’s mobile crisis program, as a win-win for both responders and the community.”
Why? The mobile crisis team:
“limits the number of calls police respond to,”
“reduces the potential for use-of-force incidents,” and
“increases the amount of people getting the service they genuinely need.”
All told, last year, Smalstig reports that the mobile crisis response “program’s impact on emergency services has been significant” not only for the “3,568 calls that were diverted from law enforcement” but also another “1,408 from fire and emergency medical services.”
Even Better News: the city council just expanded the mobile crisis response team to provide coverage 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
The Press Democrat Editorial Board welcomed the expansion, noting every call the mobile crisis team can handle means “one less call that police, fire and emergency medical units did not have to roll out for …”
If last year, “In Response handled all those calls while running just two shifts,” imagine the positive impact that a 24/7 operation will achieve, the editorial board mused.
Credit Where Credit’s Due: “With Santa Rosa’s ongoing budget problems,” the Press Democrat editorial board writes, this expansion comes as surprising and welcome news … Give credit to local leaders for understanding the value of InResponse.”
Related: The Santa Rosa Police Department’s enthusiastic response to the city’s mobile crisis team reminds us of how Ron Bacy, Oklahoma City’s Police Chief, responded last month when the news broke that the city’s mobile crisis team contributed to a 57% year-over-year reduction in calls that require a police officer presence.”
In October 2023, 911 dispatchers sent Oklahoma City police officers to nearly 1300 mental health-related calls.”
One year later, in October 2024, the police departments responded to just over 500 mental health-related calls.
Chief Bacy recently told Oklahoma City News 9 that mental health professionals often 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.”
3. New Poll: Voters Prefer To Invest Limited Budgets To Build More Mental Health Care Facilities Over Building New Jails.
The Challenge: First responders—including police officers and mobile crisis teams—often need a place to take a person who is in distress. For example, a person suffering from an acute mental illness or someone who is intoxicated and needs to sober up. That place is often a jail or an emergency room, but neither local is ideal for a person experiencing a mental health crisis. Moreover, space in jails and emergency rooms often are very limited and should be saved for people who must be there.
Potential Solutions:
Solve The Crisis Without The Need To Transport The Client Anywhere. As the Wayne State study discussed above illustrates, using mobile crisis response teams—instead of law-enforcement only or co-responder models—is one way to reduce jail or emergency room admissions by resolving the conflict without needing to take the client anywhere.
Building Care Facilities Like Crisis Stabilization Centers and Sober Centers. Even when a mobile crisis response team responds some significant percentage of people in crisis need to be taken somewhere. That’s why, in recent years, city and county governments have created new facilities where first responders can take people—often instead of jail or an emergency room—to receive specialized care.
“These centers connect people with longer-term care options and provide a short-term place to stay while the person heals. They also provide a safe place to receive medically-assisted withdrawal, mental health treatment, peer support and connections to long-term treatment.”Example: Last month, for example, we reported on the opening of a new crisis stabilization center in Polk County, Iowa, for example. We wrote: “Iowans facing addiction and mental health crises” will be able to receive treatment. Patients “can stay up to 23 hours at the facility” and when they complete their short-term treatment, staff connect them to additional resources, “so the care doesn't end when they leave.”
Axios recently reported that while “until recently, metro law enforcement had few places to take people facing addiction for help other than emergency rooms or jails,” just 30 days after opening, the crisis stabilization center had admitted “over 30 people” far “exceeding operator’s expectations.” Indeed, the people who operate the center “thought it would take months longer to reach that level.”
Under Budget Constraints, Do Voters Prioritize More Jails Or More Care Facilities?
Programs like sobering centers and crisis stabilization centers are meant to supplement, not replace, the roles of jails. However, in lean budget times, local leaders need to prioritize limited public safety dollars.
To better understand how the public would prioritize the choice between spending additional budget dollars on new care facilities versus new jails, Safer Cities recently conducted a survey of 2414 registered voters nationally.
Results:
If your city or county government was looking to invest additional funding to make your city safer, would you prefer that they:82%: Spend the additional funds on specialized care facilities such as crisis stabilization centers. (Partisan breakdown: 89% D | 75% R).
9%: Spend the additional funds to build new jails. (Partisan breakdown: 4% D | 15% R).
