Peer-Based Mobile Crisis Response: A Community-Based Alternative to Policing

What is it?

Why Peer-Based Mobile Crisis Response?

  • Reduces police and criminal legal system contact for residents
  • Provides the most needed services and compassionate care through the 911 system
  • Builds trust and well-being
  • Invests in community members with lived experience of oppression
  • Builds community leadership and accountability
  • More successful and causes less harm than any other model
  • Costs less than police response or social work response

Introduction

“Police spend an inordinate amount of time responding to 911 calls for service, even though most of these calls are unrelated to crimes in progress….All of this exhausts police resources and exposes countless people to avoidable criminal justice system contacts.” (Neusteter et al., 2019, Vera Institute of Justice.)

Police are expected to respond to almost every emergency, leading to high costs for cities and poor outcomes for many residents, most especially for people of color, low-income residents, and other marginalized groups. The national momentum towards police reform and expanded notions of public safety has focused attention on a number of alternative models for emergency response. This policy paper collects resources on the most successful model for mental and behavioral health crisis interventions: peer-based mobile crisis response, a health-focused model that is entirely civilian and peer-based.

Compared with peer-based crisis response, other models come up short. Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) training, for example, claims to give officers increased knowledge and skills for dealing with personal crises, but the actual record shows that CIT training does not reduce arrests, use of force, or citizen injuries.1Rogers, Michael S., Dale E. McNiel, and Renée L. Binder. “Effectiveness of Police Crisis Intervention Training Programs.” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online 49, no. 1 (March 1, 2021). https://doi.org/10.29158/JAAPL.003863-19. Officers proficient in CIT, some of them even CIT trainers, have killed people in mental distress numerous times.2Westervelt, Eric. “Mental Health And Police Violence: How Crisis Intervention Teams Are Failing.” All Things Considered, September 18, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/913229469/mental-health-and-police-violence-how-crisis-intervention-teams-are-failing; Osborne, Deon. “Cop Who Shot Woman with Mental Illness Gives Training to Campus Police.” The Black Wall Street Times, April 28, 2021. https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2021/04/28/cop-who-shot-woman-with-mental-illness-gives-training-to-campus-police/. There is also growing support for “co-responder” or “ride-along” models, where clinicians join police officers to respond to mental health emergencies. Supporters claim these programs lead to marginally better outcomes, but the evidence shows that the presence of police causes a range of practical and ethical dilemmas for care providers.3Vakharia, Sheila P. “‘Social Workers Belong in Police Departments’ Is an Offensive Statement.” Filter (blog), June 10, 2020. https://filtermag.org/social-workers-police-departments/; James-Townes, Lori. “Why Social Workers Cannot Work With Police.” Slate Magazine, August 11, 2020. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/social-workers-police-collaborate.html. Even more so, adding social workers to police response does not guarantee compassionate care, increase community trust, or rule out coercive outcomes.4Evens, Philip. “Social Control and Values in Social Work.” Probation 19, no. 1 (March 1, 1973): 9–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/026455057301900103. Survivors of coercive psychiatric care and even many social workers are opposed to co-response models,5Davidow, Sera, for the Wildflower Alliance. “Open letter to the Mayor of Northampton,” May 19, 2021. https://wildfloweralliance.org/open-letter-to-the-mayor-of-northampton/; Vakharia, Sheila P. “‘Social Workers Belong in Police Departments’ Is an Offensive Statement.” Filter (blog), June 10, 2020. https://filtermag.org/social-workers-police-departments/; James-Townes, Lori. “Why Social Workers Cannot Work With Police.” Slate Magazine, August 11, 2020. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/social-workers-police-collaborate.html yet law enforcement officials promote these programs because they sound progressive despite preserving or expanding police participation in non-criminal emergencies. CIT and co-response are not solutions, they’re “a workaround for a system that shouldn’t be sending law enforcement to a call.” 6Angela Kimball, national director of advocacy and public policy for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, quoted in Minyvonne Burke, “Policing Mental Health: Recent Deaths Highlight Concerns over Officer Response.” NBC News, May 16, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/policing-mental-health-recent-deaths-highlight-concerns-over-officer-response-n1266935.

Peer-based, civilian crisis response delivers real benefits for residents in crisis, for police departments, and for the broader community. Peers combine lived experience and expert training to help people in crisis get the care they need in a manner they can trust, rejecting coercive and punitive approaches (such as involuntary hospitalization) in favor of therapeutic peer support practices. These emergency response programs are a way for cities to invest public dollars in building resources for community well-being and resilience, all while reducing people’s contact with the criminal legal system and the harmful life consequences that often come as a result of police interactions. Peer-based civilian models also offer meaningful employment to community members who have survived and overcome significant life challenges. The peer model described below additionally delivers all of these benefits for a cost that is less than that of police-involved emergency response.

Poll: New First Responder Agency for Addiction & Mental Health

National polls by Data for Progress show 72% of Americans support establishing a new, non-police
first responder agency for mental and behavioral health emergencies, even in polling months before the 2020 protests.7White, Mark. “Voters Want a Non-Police First Responder Agency for Addiction and Mental Health.” Data For Progress, June 11, 2020. https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/6/11/voters-want-non-police-first-responders.

Greenfield is ready for peer-based crisis response.

We have a strong community of peer leaders, including members of the Wildflower Alliance and the RECOVER Project, who last year called on the city council to establish exactly this type of program. The first recommendation from their 2020 forum is

“Community-led mental health, addiction, harm reduction, and crisis support, as well as support for youth in schools, and other social (DCF) and medical (ER) services that are decoupled from law enforcement, coercive/involuntary treatment, and punitive measures.”8Wildflower Alliance, RECOVER Project, and others. “Community Forum Recommendations,” shared with Greenfield councilors in December 2020.

Many city residents want to help community members who are struggling, and they see that policing is not the solution. We have law enforcement partners in the Greenfield Police Department and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office who have already demonstrated their interest in public health-based programs. State funding is available from various sources (Senator Comerford, and the Mass. Departments of Public Health and Mental Health), and peer crisis response programs are eligible for funding under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

We can benefit from the practical implementation advice made available by existing successful programs in similar places across the country, as well as the strong region-wide movement toward civilian public safety programs, including in the neighboring cities of Brattleboro, Northampton, and Amherst. As we grow our own peer crisis response program, we can even offer this crucial service to our neighbors across Franklin County, as well.

Let’s talk about how peer-based crisis response can help make Greenfield a safe, thriving community for all of our neighbors.

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