NYC's Non-Police Mental Health Pilot Increasing Rate of Those Getting Aid, Data Show

[ZiprHead]

If you had bothered to read the OP, you'd have seen that they are not being sent to situations where there are guns:

Sure, it works until someone lies about the nature of the problem because they don't want their dangerous relative shot.

Making perfection the enemy of the good... again.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sure, it works until someone lies about the nature of the problem because they don't want their dangerous relative shot.

This is a prediction on your part.

Police already walk into hot scenes because of this. Replacing cops with social workers won't change the problem.

 

[laughing dog]

Sure, it works until someone lies about the nature of the problem because they don't want their dangerous relative shot.

This is a prediction on your part.

Police already walk into hot scenes because of this. Replacing cops with social workers won't change the problem.

While the problem does not change, the response will since social workers respond much differently than police. Of course, as Ziprhead pointed out, there you go again making the perfect the enemy of the good.

 

[steve_bank]

It is happening in Seattle, and the police are for it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Police already walk into hot scenes because of this. Replacing cops with social workers won't change the problem.

While the problem does not change, the response will since social workers respond much differently than police. Of course, as Ziprhead pointed out, there you go again making the perfect the enemy of the good.

The problem is a social worker will walk into a hot situation and die. Then see what happens to the programs.

 

[thebeave]

If you had bothered to read the OP, you'd have seen that they are not being sent to situations where there are guns:

Sure, it works until someone lies about the nature of the problem because they don't want their dangerous relative shot.

Making perfection the enemy of the good... again.

But isn't that what started this all in the first place? Expecting perfection from cops doing their job, and replacing them with mental health or social workers when they fall short?

 

[Rhea]

Sure, it works until someone lies about the nature of the problem because they don't want their dangerous relative shot.

So you’re saying there’s a situation where there is family present who want to prevent escalation…. That’s not the difficult end of the spectrum, really.

To be fair, the EMTs in my town responded to a call for a man with chest pains, only to arrive and discover he had chest pains because his wife put a knife there. But the reason the wife called that way was because she was invested in deescalating, the EMTs did their job, and also called for back-up.

 

[laughing dog]

Police already walk into hot scenes because of this. Replacing cops with social workers won't change the problem.

While the problem does not change, the response will since social workers respond much differently than police. Of course, as Ziprhead pointed out, there you go again making the perfect the enemy of the good.

The problem is a social worker will walk into a hot situation and die. Then see what happens to the programs.

Most rational people are willing to make that gamble in policy for now. It is certainly better than the current situation where the police tend to escalate the situation with the mentally or emotionally disturbed.

I realize that the concept of minimizing needless deaths of civilians, police and social workers is alien to you, but it is a goal of many people. This experiment is viewed by NYC as a worthy one. I applaud their willingness to reduce the pointless bloodshed with this experiment. So far, it appears to be a success.

 

[ZiprHead]

Thread necromancy.

Denver Has Sent Mental Health Teams Instead Of Cops Over 2000 Times. No Police Back-Up Needed. Ever.

This, my friends, is what the future of law enforcement will look like. It started initially in Denver, with four professionals, in 2016. But it really took off in June 2020, in a pilot program called STAR… Support Team Assisted Response. Now it has 32...

www.dailykos.com

This, my friends, is what the future of law enforcement will look like.

It started initially in Denver, with four professionals, in 2016.

But it really took off in June 2020, in a pilot program called STAR… Support Team Assisted Response.

Now it has 32 professionals including 15 volunteers which include behavioral and medical health clinicians who have responded to over 2,300 calls that have reported mental health crises including drug and alcohol use, assistance to those with mental issues such as schizophrenia and delusions and severe depression that has led to suicidal tendencies.

From the info collected from 759 of the residents served so far, that 3/4 of them have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and the like.

Said Chris Richardson of Mental Health Center of Denver, “We have a different response to 911 calls that don’t require law enforcement response and we want to be able to show efficacy in that. We’re getting on their level, trying to come at situations more trauma-informed. We’re having discussions about why 911 was called and how do we help solve whatever’s going on in that moment. Sometimes, someone just needs to talk for a second.”

And the team connects the homeless population to services and resources like food and shelter, and distributes socks and jackets and water whilst they do so.

And in all these calls, according to this report released last month, not once, not a single time has the police had to be called as back- up for a threat to safety.

Not once.

We can only surmise how many of these calls for someone in crises would have led to needless violence or degradation…… or worse…. by untrained law enforcement.