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In October 2021, the city commissioned Arizona State University researchers to study the Phoenix Police Department to determine which calls might be diverted away from the cops. The study seemed inspired partly by calls from local activists<\/a>, who had renewed their calls for alternatives to policing during the uprisings over the murder of George Floyd. But the work was also embraced by the city\u2019s police force, which was hoping to find ways to lessen a growing call volume.<\/p>\n A city council committee meeting last month provided the first glimpse of the researchers’ recommendations and the city\u2019s planned timeline. City officials said they hope to start moving forward on the proposals by the start of next year.<\/p>\n “There are some calls that police officers would clearly prefer be handled by someone else,” ASU professor Michael Scott told city councilmembers at the meeting. Scott is a professor at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and is taking the lead on the study. <\/p>\n Researchers, he said, were looking at how officers’ duties might be narrowed to “tasks they are uniquely authorized, trained, and equipped to perform.”<\/p>\n In 2019, the National Police Foundation (now called the National Policing Institute) released a study of Phoenix police, which examined the department\u2019s use of deadly force. In the previous year, Phoenix cops shot 44 people<\/a>, resulting in 23 deaths \u2014 the most killings by a single department in the nation that year.<\/p>\n The 70-page report offered dozens of findings and recommendations, including improved training and better documentation of officers\u2019 use of force. One recommendation, though, noted that mental health issues appeared to play a major contributing role in violent encounters. Police and community groups agree. The foundation recommended that the city consider alternatives to police response in some cases.<\/p>\n “There was strong agreement that the police are not the best equipped to respond to mental health crisis but alternatives to police response are lacking in the city,\u201d investigators wrote. <\/p>\n These findings prompted one focus of the ASU study, to examine how many Phoenix police calls involved some element of mental health crisis, and to consider alternatives. Heather Ross, a clinical associate professor at the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation, is managing this piece of the research. <\/p>\n Over the past nine months, in ride-alongs and interviews with patrol officers, Ross said she began to get a sense of the scope of the problem. “In some areas [of the city], officers would tell me, ‘Gosh, it feels like maybe a quarter of calls we go on have some mental health component,'” she told Phoenix New Times<\/i>. Officers referenced a “vicious cycle,” she said, in which they encountered the same people again and again, in the throes of mental illness. <\/p>\n To investigate how often police were responding to these situations, Ross\u2019s team randomly chose a single day, March 4, 2020, and delved into the notes of each dispatched call, looking for indicators of a mental health crisis.<\/p>\n Out of around 2,000 dispatched calls that day, only 1.5 percent were coded as a mental health crisis call in the dispatch system. But, Ross said, records revealed that around another 7.5 percent appeared to be clearly related to mental illness, making the figure closer to one\u00a0in 10.<\/p>\n Armed with these numbers, Ross said, \u201cIt becomes a little bit easier to justify having a more robust mental health service.\u201d She envisioned this as a \u201cholistic approach,\u201d where such units might respond alongside officers. <\/p>\n At the end of August, Ross, Scott, and their fellow researchers will present the city with an in-depth report, detailing proposals on how to take action on these findings. However, they presented some of their preliminary recommendations at the city council committee meeting last month. They were flanked by police officials, who also support the plan.<\/p>\n Researchers identified eight call types that might be diverted from Phoenix officers and to other city departments, outside agencies, or non-sworn police employees. They include: vehicle crashes with no injuries, civil matters, welfare checks, noise complaints, parking complaints, intrusion alarms, abandoned vehicles, and found property calls.<\/p>\n Noise complaints, for instance, could be handled by the city’s Neighborhood Services Department. Welfare checks \u2014 when “properly screened\u201d for potential danger, Scott noted \u2014 might be directed to a behavioral health unit. Minor crashes could be handled by police assistants \u2014 civilian employees, not sworn officers \u2014 who would write up reports of the scenes. <\/p>\n The researchers also suggested an entirely new call code \u2014 “incorrigible juvenile” \u2014 that would be completely diverted from the police. <\/p>\n For parents, executive assistant police chief Michael Kurtenbach told city councilmembers, the police sometimes “become that fallback” when a parent’s child misbehaves or refuses to go to school. “We want to handle that differently,” Kurtenbach said. In these instances, unless a crime is involved, all such calls would not be handled by cops \u2014 instead, perhaps a social services agency \u2014 and be collected under the new call code.<\/p>\n Kurtenbach said he hoped the research would help reduce the call volume faced by officers \u2014 which have seen staffing numbers decrease \u2014 and lower response times. <\/p>\n City officials will need to nail down the specifics on how to start implementing the proposals. Lori Bays, the assistant city manager, said she expected to have concrete proposals for next steps by the end of the year. <\/p>\n They will likely require the city to staff up. \u201cWe would be looking to add positions for most of these items,\u201d Bays said.<\/p>\n Jacob Raiford, a community organizer in Phoenix, does not often find himself on the same side as the Phoenix police. But he supports the ASU research and is glad that police officials have bought into the plan. Raiford thinks it\u2019s telling, he told New Times<\/i>, that police officials also believe that officers are handling calls they should not be, which he and other activists have maintained for years. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s concrete proof,\u201d Raiford said. “If these people can agree, there is a huge issue in this system.”<\/p>\n Raiford, though, isn\u2019t holding his breath. He said he worries about the timeline for implementing these reforms and whether the city will properly fund them.<\/p>\n While the city waits for ASU researchers to wrap up their proposal, it already has a new, expanded program to provide mental health services in lieu of police responses. Mayor Kate Gallego \u2014 under pressure on police reform issues in the months after the 2020 protests over Floyd’s death <\/b>\u2014 announced a $15 million investment in the city\u2019s \u201ccommunity assistance program\u201d in March 2021. The plan would provide behavioral health units to help respond to people in mental health crises.<\/p>\n Almost a year and a half later, though, the expanded program has yet to hit the streets.<\/p>\n The community assistance program is a longstanding program in the Phoenix Fire Department. For years, it largely functioned as a shoestring, volunteer-based victim support unit. Its crisis response units worked with people who experienced trauma at scenes of violent crime or serious accidents. <\/p>\n When the mayor announced her plan for the program, she promised consistent funding and 130 new positions<\/a>.\u00a0The crisis units would double from five to 10, and there would be nine new \u201cbehavioral health units\u201d created, to respond to people with mental illness, in place of officers.<\/p>\n In 2020 and 2021, activists like Raiford had instead called for a new, independent crisis response unit \u2014 housed outside of police and fire \u2014 that could respond to such incidents. Raiford was a lead organizer with the \u201cNOCAP\u201d (the Neighborhood-Organized Crisis Assistance Program) coalition, which pushed for community involvement in the program. He suggested a community-led steering committee for the program.<\/p>\n It did not materialize.<\/p>\n Now, Raiford is frustrated that the city\u2019s version of program has not yet begun. \u201cWe\u2019re basically in the middle of summer now, and there is nothing that indicates that this is not only going to roll out, but roll out in a safe and effective manner,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m disappointed. I\u2019m very disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally, the city set out an 18- to 24-month timeline for full implementation of the program, according to 2021 budget documents. The city is not yet behind on that original schedule. In\u00a0October 2021, the council approved a new one-year accelerated timeline, however, with a planned rollout in May and June.<\/p>\n In March, Jeanine L\u2019Ecuyer, communications director for the mayor\u2019s office, told New Times<\/i> she believed the first unit would hit the streets in \u201clate April to early May.\u201d Reached again this week, L\u2019Ecuyer said the program had experienced further delays. It was struggling to obtain the vehicles it needed to transport the units, she said.<\/p>\n D.C. Ernst, the program administrator for the committee assistance program, said in an interview that the vehicles and finding proper staffing had been obstacles. But Ernst expected the first new unit to be out in the streets by the end of July, she said.<\/p>\n The city will need to significantly staff up in the coming months to implement the program. Ashley Patton, the city’s deputy communications director, told New Times <\/i>that the expanded program required 84 full-time city employees. As of now, only about a quarter of those positions are filled, she said.<\/p>\n Original plans for the program that were approved in the 2021 budget, however, had included funding for 130 positions<\/a>. City staff did not provide information clarifying why that number had changed. “The goal right now is that we are hoping for 84,” Patton said, saying she was unsure of the reason for the discrepancy.<\/p>\n The nine behavioral health units will operate independently, going to scenes in lieu of police officers. Each unit would consist of one city employee and one employee from Terros Health, a mental health counseling organization contracted by the city for the program. <\/p>\n Police dispatch would screen 911 calls that might be appropriate for a community assistance program response, Ernst said. Callers would be asked questions about whether a mental health issue was the reason for their call, and whether there were weapons involved, to ensure the scene was safe. <\/p>\n The program would provide continued case management services after responding to calls, Ernst said, ensuring that the city was \u201cbuilding rapport\u201d with people and providing follow-up contact, instead of a one-time response.<\/p>\n By the fall, then, the city should have these units partially operating, while it works on proposals for diverting police responsibilities, based on the ASU research.<\/p>\n But Raiford found it ironic that, after urgently approving massive raises<\/a> for the police, the city had not shown similar commitment to its other plans. \u201cThe city just approved an exorbitant amount of money for [officers],\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd now, suddenly, they don\u2019t have enough vans? They don\u2019t have enough staffing? Why?\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Activists urge city to take action<\/h2>\n