Authors: Jonathan A. LLoyd, Anna Cook, Fablina Sharara
In the years following the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, communities across the country launched a wave of new alternatives to armed police. Today, many of those programs face a critical question: will they receive the support they need to succeed? Center for Policing Equity’s new report tracks this growth by developing one of the largest databases of Alternative Response Programs (ARPs) available to date. The findings indicate that, while the prevalence of these programs has boomed in recent years, without sufficient support from local jurisdictions, this newer crop of programs may not have an opportunity to realize its full promise.
The growth of ARPs arose out of demand from communities to address emergency calls relating to homelessness, mental health crises and substance use with unarmed professionals who are trained specifically for this kind of response. These programs have broad support from the public. A recent national survey of likely voters in the US found that 69%, including a majority of Republicans, supported mobile crisis response to community calls for service related to mental health crises or substance abuse. Another poll from 2021 found broad support as well, with 65% supporting reallocating a portion of law enforcement budgets to these kinds of programs.
Many of these programs are still in their early stages, and have not yet had the time to demonstrate their full potential for reducing unnecessary police contact with the public. CPE’s report aggregated data from 216 ARPs across the country, representing a recent boom in the establishment of these programs. The majority were created following the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, with 68% of known ARPs forming between 2020 and 2024. The report reveals that, while there has been a considerable growth in the number of ARPs in recent years, programs serving large populations often respond to far fewer calls than the well-known, more established programs that serve smaller populations. The most well known program, CAHOOTS reported roughly 22,000 responses in Eugene, OR in 2021 alone (roughly 92 calls per 1,000 residents). CPE’s analysis of the top 50 ARPs by population showed that 71% responded to less than five calls per 1,000 residents per year.
No new program can be effective without both political and financial support. Unfortunately, ARPs have rarely received adequate support, and in some cases financial and political support may be diminishing. The same CAHOOTS program, one of the most lauded and successful in the country, ended service in Eugene in 2025 due to budget cuts. The proposed 2026 budget for Washington, DC also made considerable funding cuts for its still-new Community Response Team. A recent audit of New York City’s Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD) found that more than 13,000 calls eligible for diversion to the program were never served, likely because of staffing shortages— reflecting the dual realities of limited funding and political support from the mayor at the time.
With most ARPs still relatively new, there is an enormous opportunity to learn how to provide safe, effective alternatives to armed police. But we learn very little if programs are not given the basic ingredients for success. ARPs need adequate, sustained funding and political support to meet community needs and mitigate the harms of the status quo of American policing.