“We really got some momentum in the last couple months to determine what types of calls we should be responding to,” the commissioner said. “We are currently evaluating how we bring these programs together.”
National research shows law enforcement has a high rate of contact with individuals with serious or moderate mental illness, individuals who comprise 27% of people arrested three or more times. Francis Healy, a special adviser to Outlaw, said police in many jurisdictions struggled with a sometimes unwanted role as the de facto first responders to mental health crises.
“We are the only people available 24/7, so people call us for anything and everything. And we’ve accepted that responsibility, but oftentimes we may not be the best response,” he said in an interview earlier this month. “The ability to have alternates and be able to be the second chair when responding to these incidents I think would have a great deal of impact in de-escalating them.”
The idea is not without controversy. Experts are concerned about placing so much responsibility for responding to behavioral health crises in the hands of the police in the first place.
“There’s a longstanding concern about net-widening. That some of the coercive model of law enforcement might seep over into the public health response and you’ll provide more potential ways for people to get caught up and more ways for behavior to get criminalized,” said Evan Anderson, a public health and criminal justice researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.
Anderson said that the 911 dispatch system nevertheless remains the fastest way to deploy assistance in an emergency situation, and that when rolled out properly, programs like the partnership between the Police Department and the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services show promise.
Johnson said it was clear to Wallace’s surviving kin that the status quo wasn’t sufficient.
“The folks who called the authorities didn’t deem the police necessary, which is why they called and specifically requested an ambulance,” he said. “That says, to not only the dispatcher but the dispatcher putting that out over the airwaves, to anyone listening, this is a medical crisis.”