Taking the Cops Out of Mental Health-Related 911 Calls

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From Kaiser Health News: “Denver is one of at least eight cities considering an Oregon program called Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets to decriminalize and improve the treatment of people with severe mental illness — while saving the city money. The 30-year-old CAHOOTS program diverts nonviolent, often mental health-related 911 calls to a medic and a mental health professional instead of law enforcement . . .

Denver police and community service providers visited Eugene, Ore., in May to shadow CAHOOTS teams. Denver police officials said they are considering the model as an option to push beyond their existing co-responder program that sends mental health professionals on about six 911 calls a day . . .

Nationally, police officers carry the brunt of responding to mental health issues. In 2017, law enforcement agencies spent $918 million transporting people with severe mental illness, according to a 2019 survey from the Treatment Advocacy Center. It also estimated that officers spend 21% of their time responding to and transferring people for mental health issues . . .

Like many police departments, Denver is feeling the pressure of mental health issues. From July 2018 to July 2019, the department said, it received 15,915 mental health-related calls, almost a 9% increase from its annual average over three years . . .

Lisa Raville, executive director of Denver’s Harm Reduction Action Center, a Denver nonprofit focused on helping those who use drugs, asserts that the power of a CAHOOTS program lies in its community relationships and the ability of first responders to simply ask, ‘How can I support you today?’

‘And then you can do it. Maybe it can be possible. Maybe this person can find some sort of safety,’ she said. ‘We all deserve that.'”

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3 COMMENTS

  1. This is a sad piece, and a piece which seems largely like propaganda, as it is regularly quoting from the Treatment Advocacy Center.

    The child’s problems are likely caused by his street drug problems, not “schizophrenia.” But the mom’s been brainwashed into believing differently. I commend her for wanting to help her child, but since I know the “schizophrenia” treatments create both the negative and positive symptoms of “schizophrenia.” The negative symptoms being created via neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome; and the positive symptoms being created, via anticholinergic toxidrome. I know the “mental health” workers won’t help her son either – they’ll only make him worse.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroleptic-induced_deficit_syndrome
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome

    Giving our so called “mental health” workers, the same role as the police, is a part of the communist manifesto, so is a bad idea.

    “Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].”

    All Americans, who don’t want to repeat the worst of history – in our country – like the Bolshevik led Russian psychiatric, or Nazi psychiatric, holocausts need to speak out. Because the American psychiatrists, like Dr. E. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center, seem hell bent on repeating the worst of world history in America today. And they’ve actually been killing millions with the psych drugs for decades. We do have a modern day psychiatric holocaust occurring.

    https://www.naturalnews.com/049860_psych_drugs_medical_holocaust_Big_Pharma.html

    We need to end psychiatry’s “bullshit” and “invalid” reign of error and terror instead, even according to the top officials in that industry.

    https://www.wired.com/2010/12/ff_dsmv/
    https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml

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    • “Transfer some of the powers of arrest…”

      Yep. All about POWER for them. Broohahaha.

      Every now and then a shrink comes here to complain that’s he’s not getting enough $$$$$$ from Uncle Sam yet–despite the billions more added to the mental illness regime every year. And they don’t have absolute authority as sovereign monarchs either but must answer to the President of the United States for their actions. 😀

      I’m sure these tales of woe must bring tears to the eyes of anyone whose CNS is not too damaged to cry.

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