Mental-Health First Responders Reduce Involuntary Psychiatric Detentions

• In Event: Criminal Justice Interventions with Cross-Policy Impacts

Abstract

Historical efforts to de-institutionalize those experiencing mental illness position police officers as the typical first responders to emergency calls involving mental-health crises and empower them to initiate involuntary psychiatric detentions. Such detentions are controversial, costly, and may be medically inappropriate for some of those detained. This pre-registered study presents evidence from two quasi-experimental designs on the causal effects of a “co-responder” program that pairs mental-health professionals with police officers as first responders on qualified emergency calls. The results indicate that a co-responder program reduced the frequency of involuntary psychiatric detentions by 16.5 percent. Complementary results based on incident-level data suggest this reduction  reflects both a co-responder’s influence on the disposition of an individual incident and a reduction in future mental-health emergencies. 

Author

• Thomas Dee, Stanford University
  Presenting Author