Improving Responses to Mental Health Crises: An Analysis of State Legislative Approaches

When law enforcement responds to individuals in a mental health crisis, the risk of danger is higher than traditional police responses. Many U.S. localities have begun mandating improved training for officers, creating co-responder teams where officers work with mental and behavioral health professionals, and/or implementing mobile crisis teams staffed with social workers and other mental and behavioral health professionals. State legislatures and governors can mandate and/or facilitate the implementation of improved response models to mental health crises in the community. In this project, state-level efforts to facilitate improved local response models to individuals in crisis were analyzed. Specifically, legislation that each state has passed regarding mental health crisis response was researched and analyzed to determine their ability to produce procedural just outcomes. The results indicate that state legislation fit within six categories, ranging from mandates to implement local response teams to the creation of commissions that produce guidelines and best practices. The legislative approaches have the potential to improve perceptions of procedural justice, which can facilitate safer interactions in the short-term and long-term. The implications and limitations of the analysis and its results are explored.