Co-Deployment is an Answer, but What are the Questions? Insights from Officer Focus Groups in Philadelphia

ABSTRACT

Cities have been experimenting with less police-centered models for responding to people experiencing mental health crises. Ten focus groups were conducted with Philadelphia police officers to understand their experiences encountering mental health distress in the community and their perspectives on a new co-deployment initiative. There was general consensus that conventional police-centered responses to mental health concerns are often problematic. However, perspectives varied on the value of co-deployment and the general feasibility of reducing police involvement. This variation is traced to different notions of what constitutes a mental health crisis, whether crises are prospectively identifiable, how dangerousness is assessed, and whether civilian co-response partners will effectively complete key response activities. Bringing greater understanding and consensus to these issues is essential to healthier and more effective responses to mental health crises.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health
• alternative response
• co-deployment

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by funding from Vital Strategies Research. Vital Strategies played no role in study design; collection, analysis, or interpretation of data; writing the manuscript; and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

This work was partially supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health [grant number T32-DA037801]. NIDA played no role in study design; collection, analysis, or interpretation of data; writing the manuscript; and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse [T32-DA037801] and funding from Vital Strategies Research.

Notes on contributors

Ruth T. Shefner

Ruth T. Shefner is a doctoral student in Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, in New York, New York. She is a social worker and sociologist, and her research focuses on policing, court based interventions, and collateral consequences of mass incarceration and criminalization.

Rebecca Koppel

Rebecca Koppel is a Senior Program Manager at the Camden Coalition, where she oversees the planning and implementation of National Center initiatives. She has prior experience in research, capacity building, and clinical settings. Rebecca holds a masters of social work and a masters of public health from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jennifer Wood

Jennifer Wood is a professor and chair of the department of Criminal Justice at Temple University. She is a criminologist with expertise in policing and regulation. Her research focuses on the many intersections between policing and public health, including changes in how officers intervene with people experiencing health vulnerabilities such as mental illness.

Evan D. Anderson

Evan D. Anderson is a public health law researcher, who conducts and writes about research that explores the relationship between laws and population health, and bridges the gap between legal and epidemiological research. Aggressive policing is the subject of some of Dr. Anderson’s recent work, and he is interested in understanding how lessons from patient safety campaigns and broader trends in the design and delivery of health care might provide insights into ways to make policing safer and more effective.