The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) announces the publication of Redesigning Public Safety: Mental Health Emergency Response. The second white paper in our ongoing Redesigning Public Safety Resource Series focuses on the imperative need to rethink our approach to mental health emergencies nationwide. The recommendations include a thoughtful set of short-term and long-term solutions for various stakeholders to improve our collective response to mental health emergencies and build stronger systems of community-centered support to ensure safety.
“Mental health emergencies are medical emergencies and should be treated as such,” said Eric Cumberbatch, Senior Vice President, Policy & Community Engagement for CPE. “There is no reason crisis responses should end in death as often as they do. Involving police in mental health emergency calls leads to violence and a higher risk of arrest, incarceration, and forced institutionalization – especially for Black and Brown communities. The recommendations outlined here align with what communities call for and would center their needs in a bold step towards prioritizing safety and respect for the humanity of those suffering mental health crises.”
“I urge policymakers to implement the recommendations outlined in this report,” said Dr. Ayesha Delany-Brumsey, Behavioral Health division director at The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center. “Across the country, we’ve seen support for mental health systems, educational resources, and community-based response programs effectively improve public health and public safety when communities embrace the opportunity for systemic change. And I’m particularly proud that CPE and the CSG Justice Center are currently facilitating learning communities with a diverse group of leaders from around the country who are focusing their efforts on how to implement many of the policies that this report details.”
People with serious mental illness are 12 times more likely to experience the use of force by police than others, while 21 percent of people killed by the police in the U.S. since 2015 had a known mental illness. Research demonstrates that systemic inequities cause Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+, and unhoused people to be more at risk of police contact in mental health emergency response and its associated harms.
CPE’s Redesigning Public Safety: Mental Health Emergency Response white paper recommendations to directly address those disparities include:
- Creating community-based mental health first-response programs.
- Recommended guidance and best practices for these programs include 24/7 availability with fully developed dispatch systems that are appropriately trained, staffed, and funded to field responses.
- Adopting police departmental policies to regulate behavior, reduce the risk of violence, and connect people to supportive services.
- Informed by our work with law enforcement agencies nationwide, these guidelines include recommendations that police officers be required to call for assistance from a specialty mental health team when they encounter a person experiencing a mental health emergency.
- Investing in equitable systems of mental health care.
- By investing in free and low-cost mental health clinics in Black and Brown neighborhoods and addressing systemic racism in the fields of psychology and social work, communities will be empowered to build foundations of care for those when and where it is needed before emergencies occur.
Learn more about CPE’s Unlocking Democracy Learning Communities collaboration with the CSG Justice Center and see our complete Reports and Publications roster.