The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/mental-health/)
Dallas has reduced hospitalization and incarceration with a program that sends social workers and clinicians along with police to answer mental health-related 911 calls. But some critics say the presence of police sends the wrong message.
The 65 grants announced Thursday under the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act Program, will be used for training, and for developing pilot projects in areas like suicide prevention and peer mentoring.
The Albuquerque Community Safety Department gives 911 dispatchers the option to call on social workers and others in related fields for calls pertaining to mental health, substance abuse or homelessness that otherwise would have been handled by an armed officer.
The California Supreme Court has rejected the state’s appeal of an order requiring prompt mental treatment for more than 1,000 criminal defendants who are being held in jail for months after being found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
The $3.5 million alternative response pilot program will start in the fall, as other towns and cities across the U.S. begin to roll out similar changes in mental health response programs.
The new measure replaces a more punitive proposal, but critics still worry that it will criminalize a problem that the city has failed to solve.
Advocacy groups in California say “displacement” programs to move homeless off the streets and into mental health services are criminalizing people who have been dislocated by unemployment or are suffering trauma.
Police and the public grapple over the best ways to deal with disturbed or intoxicated individuals armed with non-projectile weaponry.
The program, developed by Everytown For Gun Safety and What Works Cities, is aimed at reducing the burden of police who ordinarily respond to such calls. Organizers say each unique program will help save lives, and save cities money.
Aligning some of the functions of public safety and public health can improve the way policing operates in the U.S., and absolve the “iatrogenic” harms caused by the criminal justice system, according to research fellows from the Health in Justice Action Lab.