A look at the effort to expand mental health workers' role in policing

• Police officers are too often called to solve problems better addressed by mental-health workers, advocates say.
• Up to 50% of fatal encounters with law enforcement involve someone with a mental illness, a 2016 study estimated.
• Sen. Michael Bennet has proposed helping police create and fund teams that pair officers with mental-health workers.

Numerous police reform efforts are trying to improve how law enforcement responds to mental health issues, including projects to create "co-responder" teams of social workers and a new national hotline for people in crisis.

What experts and advocates say: Police officers are too often called to solve problems better addressed by mental health workers or paramedics. Reforms will free police to concentrate on more serious crimes, they say, and help prevent many interactions with police from spiraling into violence.

What's happening now: A growing movement is underway to figure out how U.S. police reforms can be centered around mental health two years after activists' calls to "defund the police" have quieted following nationwide demonstrations after George Floyd's death. 

Get caught up: 

• 911 operators need more training to handle mental health crisis calls 
• More cities are sending civilian responders, not police, on mental health calls
• 988 becomes the new 3-digit suicide prevention hotline on July 16

The latest: National program would expand mental health role in policing 

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, has proposed legislation aimed at helping more police departments create and fund teams that pair police officers with mental health workers.

Previously, the country has seen a piecemeal effort by police departments large and small to team officers with mental health workers. But such a national framework would be new.

The effort would use existing COPS grants — Community Oriented Police Services funding —  that can be used for a wide variety of local police efforts. Much of the money is available to help communities hire more officers or improve school safety.

But while there's also tens of millions of dollars available to help departments create crisis intervention teams, Bennet argues the process is too complicated. His proposal creates a more straightforward way for communities to request that money. He's also asked Congress to increase the COPS allocation in next year's federal budget.

Why is mental health connected to policing?

Advocates say police are not best suited to handle the myriad of mental health-related calls they receive, largely because mental health services are so lacking.

Up to 50% of fatal encounters with law enforcement involve someone with a mental illness, a 2016 study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine estimated.

In many cases, experts have told USA TODAY, people experiencing a crisis just want to be heard or helped to connect with a doctor or get access to needed medication. In other cases, the calm words of a trained counselor can help de-escalate potentially violent situations.

Multiple studies show Black people are killed are much higher rates than white people during encounters with police. Black men in particular are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white men, according to a study from the University of Michigan, Rutgers University and Washington University released in 2019.

While some activists have been pushing for policing reform for decades, the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white officer, sparked nationwide protests. Central among the demands by protesters was a new approach in communities that have historically suffered a disproportionate level of policing.

Local police have success partnering with counselors and social workers

There's a growing trend to divert some 911 calls to mental health or social workers, who may be better equipped to handle individuals experiencing a crisis.

• Cities as diverse as New York, Denver and Eugene, Oregon, are creating new response teams.
• In Denver, the city's STAR Program dispatches a mental health worker and a paramedic on some 911 calls that would have traditionally been handled by police officers.
• In Portland, Oregon, the city's new Portland Street Response team handled nearly 1,000 calls for service in its first year, with 91% of them calls that would have otherwise been answered by armed police.