Each year there are millions of calls made to 911 that involve an individual who is experiencing a mental health crisis, or a crisis related to substance use disorder. The way that these calls are handled by law enforcement can determine if these calls end safely, the individual is arrested, or the individual receives and is connected to the care they truly need (New Research Suggests 911 Call Centers Lack Resources to Handle Behavioral Health Crisis | The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2021).

Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets, or CAHOOTS, is a program out of Eugene, Oregon, that is considered the model of how communities can rethink responses from 911. This program includes crisis intervention teams provided by a mental health provider in the community. Over time this program has seen an increase in the need for services. In 2014, CAHOOTS responded to 9,646 calls. In 2019, the number of calls increased to over 24,000. In addition, CAHOOTS gets about 5-8% of calls redirected from police. A study of the program showed that of the 24,000 CAHOOTS calls, just over 1% or 311 required police backup (Betancourt, 2022).

Police officers today arrive on active calls where they are needing to provide services. They are undertrained and have limited knowledge of how to approach the "suspect". It is time that officers quit treating everyone as a "suspect" and start arriving on the scene to see what services need to be given. Moving Police Officers to Peace Officers and restructuring departments by bringing in experts from other fields to complement areas of need they encounter. Mental health is one of those areas that has long been underserved by police officers. Officers are on the scene and can unknowingly escalate the situation through their verbal and non-verbal responses. These officers may not be aware that the cadence of their voice or the way they are standing is increasing the paranoia or making the psychosis worse. 

If each police department had a mental health unit, made up of clinical mental health providers, available to assist with calls and train police and dispatchers to recognize signs of psychosis and teach them ways of psychological de-escalation that can be used when responding to individuals in crisis, this would help to increase the safety of both law enforcement officers and those who are having a mental health or substance use disorder crisis. This unit would also review all police reports that involve a mental health crisis to oversee compliance with standards and where more training and assistance may be needed. 

Please sign and share this petition to support more mental health units in police departments across the country. 

References:

Betancourt, S. (2022, February 23). Should there be a separate 911 system for mental health crises? News; GBH. https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2022/02/23/should-there-be-a-seperate-911-system-for-mental-health-crises

New Research Suggests 911 Call Centers Lack Resources to Handle Behavioral Health Crises | The Pew Charitable Trusts. (2021, October 26). The Pew Charitable Trusts | The Pew Charitable Trusts. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2021/10/new-research-suggests-911-call-centers-lack-resources-to-handle-behavorial-health-crises