<\/p>\n
When police officers step out of their vehicles, they may be responding to a drug overdose, domestic violence or public intoxication. The action might be a crime, but what if its root cause is mental health related?<\/p>\n
The Durango Police Department wants to change its policing to better address the community\u2019s needs, particularly concerning behavioral health. It just needs to solve a logistical maze first.<\/p>\n
In early August, DPD pitched a pilot program<\/a> for alternative policing to Durango City Council, centered on an innovative partnership with Axis Health System of Southwest Colorado. The goal is to reallocate community resources so, eventually, police can focus on crime prevention and crisis clinicians can address nonviolent or noncriminal incidents. But to get there, new partnerships, new funding and new teams need to become a reality.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can pull the experts in here and provide a higher level of care, maybe they\u2019re going to do a much better job than we can to actually help somebody in the long term,\u201d said Bob Brammer, Durango police chief.<\/p>\n Police officers are often first responders for mental health crises, homelessness, medical calls and more \u2013 issues that are more in line with the work of mental health clinicians, social workers and emergency medical technicians.<\/p>\n Mental health-related calls started going to police in the 1950s and 1960s, when inpatient facilities stopped being the go-to placement for people with mental health conditions.<\/p>\n Since then, 10% to 20% of police interactions involve people with mental illness, according to a 2008 academic article<\/a> in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. <\/em>About 64% of inmates in local jails had mental health problems, according to a 2006 Bureau of Justice Statistics report<\/a>.<\/p>\n But seeing police officers with guns, badges and uniforms might trigger the wrong response for a person in crisis, especially if he or she has had negative experiences with police in the past. People with mental illness end up entering the criminal justice system when they could have been helped by another type of resource.<\/p>\n Resources are a big challenge for the understaffed police department, Brammer said. Responding to such a wide variety of calls requires more training and time for police departments.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get the call, and you\u2019re trying to figure out how to provide the most appropriate help for someone,\u201d said Sgt. Tim Dixon with DPD.<\/p>\n Maybe the person\u2019s greatest need is an overnight shelter, but that person cannot go to the shelter for one reason or another. Maybe that person is off his or her medication and needs to go to the hospital. Police are trying to find the best resource for that person, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, in reality, we get kind of stuck, and it\u2019s hard to figure out where to go to help the person,\u201d Dixon said. \u201cWe hope, through this program, we\u2019ll have a team that can deal with these situations and know the resources really well.\u201d<\/p>\n The issue of alternative policing is also woven into the wave of protests calling for police reform, spurred by several deaths of Black Americans caused by police, Brammer said.<\/p>\n Now, Durango is gaining momentum on its own program. It just needs to finalize a contract with Axis Health System, which provides mental health services in Southwest Colorado; get city approval and funding; design protocols; recruit staff members; and facilitate a culture shift.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the events that are occurring right now, it\u2019s giving us the motivation and the incentive to push forward versus just asking the question,\u201d Brammer said.<\/p>\n Axis and DPD are in the beginning stages of creating a pilot program that would combine each agency\u2019s resources into a new, specialized team.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth have to come together in certain circumstances to be the most effective response,\u201d said Shelly Burke, Axis CEO. \u201cWe aren\u2019t experts in law enforcement, and law enforcement is not experts in behavioral health or primary care, or even sometimes the resources that are available in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n If City Council approves the project, the first stage of the pilot program would put health professionals and police officers in the same car to respond to specific incidents, such as mental health crises, welfare checks, homelessness and substance abuse.<\/p>\n Health professionals would lead the response for noncriminal incidents, and police would be nearby to make the scene safe if necessary.<\/p>\n