Co-Responding Police and Mental Health Team Reduces Likelihood of Arrest
by Treatment Advocacy Center (September 2021)
Co-response teams involving both police officers and mental health providers are becoming more widely used for response to crisis calls involving people with mental illnesses. As these programs grow in popularity across the United States, there is not yet a large amount of research available proving the efficacy of such crisis response models.
A new study published in Psychiatric Services examined the effects of a co-response team on mental health and criminal justice outcomes for individuals compared to those who only received a response from the police. The study found that the presence of a co-response team reduced the likelihood of arrest at the crisis incident but resulted in a higher likelihood of future involvement with emergency medical services in the following year.
